If you’ve ever had any questions with regards to finding the proper filler metal for welding aluminum (or aluminium, as everyone else calls it), then look no further!  Tony Anderson from the AWS has exactly what you need:

Finding an ally alloy

6 variables that affect aluminum filler alloy selection

By Tony Anderson
May 15, 2009

Choosing the best filler metal for aluminum welding involves taking into account the operating conditions of the finished welded component as well as six important variables that can affect the operating condition.

Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from Tony Anderson’s presentation for the Aluminum Association Conference, May 5-6, 2009, Toronto, by the American Welding Society.

Filler alloy selection for welding aluminum is an essential part of the development and qualification of a suitable weld procedure specification (WPS). Choosing the most appropriate filler alloy for welding aluminum is based on the operating conditions of the finished welded component and a number of variables.

When selecting a filler alloy for welding aluminum, it’s a good idea to compare the performance of each filler alloy against each of the six variables: ease of welding, strength of the welded joint, ductility, corrosion resistance, sustained-temperature service, and postweld heat treatment.

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If you’re looking for some filler metal of your own, you can check out the Arc-Zone eBay Store.

by Jennifer Simpson

I first ran into Christina Sporrong online while searching for “women welders.”  Her business website for Spitfire Forge in Taos, New Mexico came up.  I bookmarked the page, and even exchanged a few emails with Christina.  One of the things that intrigued me about her was that she teaches welding workshops for women, so a few months later when I found myself in New Mexico I had the opportunity to meet her face to face.

Christina moved to Taos in a VW Van with four hundred dollars in her pocket and a toolbox.  Even though she had some skill as a welder, she started waitressing to earn money.  A lot of the girls she worked with thought it would be cool to learn to weld, so Christina started teaching them.  Back then she only charged $50 per person and used that money to buy more tools.

She’s now been in New Mexico for over twelve years and lives on Taos’ west mesa on 15 acres of land.  She built her house herself, putting to use her skills in construction and fabrication and her artistic aesthetic.  When she sent me directions and a description of the property via email I was sure I would get lost and I knew, in my low riding Volkswagen beetle, it would be slow when she told me to turn onto a gravel road and go for seven miles.  I was supposed to look for the tall ranch gate with an anvil and a dark house with gear teeth and lots of sculptural stuff in the yard.

“It should be obvious,” she wrote.

We were both right.  The seven miles took me about 20 minutes, skirting the western edge of the Rio Grande.  Christina’s description, however, didn’t do the property or the landscape justice.  The house itself is a rustic brown concrete looking structure, its shape reminiscent of a Quonset hut with the roof shaped like the wheel of a gear. Although it is industrial, it somehow feels organic, mimicking the shape of the Sangre de Cristo mountains rising above Taos to the east across the gorge. (more…)

In English, “blech” is a word often used to describe something distasteful.  This makes the phrase EuroBLECH sound like an event that one would would wish to avoid participating in.  In German, however, the word “Blech” simply means “sheet metal”, making EuroBLECH quite the appropriate title for a conference on metal fabrication.

EuroBLECH 2008: A celebration of metal fabricating and forming

A visit to Hannover, Germany, for the world’s largest sheet metal manufacturing exhibition reveals a European taste for automation and efficiency

By Dan Davis, Editor-in-Chief

January 13, 2009

EuroBLECH is a celebration more than anything. Most of the booths have plenty of tables and, usually, a bar for customers, distributors, business partners, and friends to swing by, chat, have a drink, and talk about life both in and out of the industry. In fact, unlike shows in North America, a visitor will find materials suppliers—the folks that make the metal sheet, plate, and tube—among the exhibitors. Everyone comes together for this global event.

What does a European metal fabricating and forming tradeshow mean for a U.S. fabricator? Apparently, a whole lot.

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It has been predicted that U.S. overall energy consumption will increase by 20% in the next twenty years.  Meeting this demand is going to require putting a lot of our focus back onto nuclear power.  And to make the plants run, we will need titanium.

Lots and lots of titanium…  and folks that know how to weld titanium.  If you don’t know about welding titanium, check out this article from The Fabricator, Titanium, You Can Weld It!

Titanium trends: Energy demand, titanium demand grow hand-in-hand

March 9, 2009

Although titanium was discovered in the late 18th century, it wasn’t until 1940 that a metallurgist, Dr. William Kroll, first devised a commercially viable process for extracting the metal fromits raw ore. In the 1950s titanium was recognized for its high strength and light weight, making it the new wonder metal in the aerospace industry. Furthermore,its corrosion resistance led to its widespread use in power plant condensers and chemical applications.

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And when you’re ready to start welding that titanium, be sure to check out some of the high performance shield gas accessories for your TIG / GTAW torch at Arc-Zone.com (and of course the ArcTime(TM) Hybrid tungsten) that will make your titanium welding job easier…..

Claudia Walsh is a fourth generation crafter who creates beautiful jewelry using found stones and processes like hard solder fabrication, forging and fusing, and ”lost wax casting”, to name a few.  If you live in the Chicago area, you may have seen some of her work at the St. Charles Fine Art Show this Memorial Day weekend.

Elginite crafts new art with inspiration, materials from past

May 18, 2009
By ROMI HERRON For The Courier-News

ST. CHARLES — Claudia Walsh of Elgin considers herself a Renaissance artist. She also happens to be a fourth-generation metal smith whose jewelry studio, Dry Creek Trappings, holds a collection of stones she and her husband Hugh have “rock-hounded” from various regions of the United States.

Walsh’s jewelry has been selected for the 11th Annual St. Charles Fine Art Show, set for Memorial Day weekend, Saturday and Sunday in downtown St. Charles. Nearly 100 artists from the greater Chicago area and throughout the country will present their work for exhibit and sale in the juried show.

Last year, the event — which is hosted by the Downtown St. Charles Partnership — drew close to 8,000 visitors.

“I’ve always been interested in art … photography, sewing, drawing, etching,” said Walsh, who creates rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, pins and money clips from natural metals and stones.

Her process includes “lost wax casting,” hard solder fabrication, forging and fusing. None of her pieces is plated metal; and stones include sapphires from North Carolina, and opals from New Mexico. Her pieces carry price tags ranging from $50 to $2,000.

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Since the 1940’s, the Meadow Gold sign along the famous Route 66 has been a source of pride for residents of Tulsa and harkens back to the days when Meadow Gold had a formidable market presence .  In 2004, the sign was taken apart and put in storage when the building upon which it stood was demolished.  5 years later, its restoration has begun, thanks to private donations and a team a master fabricators:

Famous Route 66 Landmark Returns

BY CHARLES CANTRELL
Associate Editor
Sunday, April 19, 2009

Recently randomly stacked around the shop floor of Claude Neon Federal Signs (CNF Signs), among the shiny painted metal boxes holding high-tech, state-of-the-art, computer driven electronic message center signs, were numerous very old, very large, handmade metal and porcelain letters in various stages of deterioration. Arranged correctly they spell “Meadow Gold” and they represent a Tulsa historic treasure.

Tulsans can celebrate, as the sign has been restored and now stands proudly on 11th Street just east of Peoria Avenue, and one mile west of the original location at 11th Street and Lewis Avenue.

The Meadow Gold brand was once the property of Beatrice Food Company. Through a complex series of corporate mergers, acquisitions, sell-offs and bankruptcies, the brand that was once a popular provider of milk and ice cream for the midwestern consumer market slipped into obscurity.

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Last week, I went to the San Diego zoo, and near the front gate were these scrap metal statues. Big ones. Tall, tall statues of people with strange apparatus on their faces. One with the head of a camel who was holding a stand-up bass. Inside the shops were more statues of different types of animals. Some birds. I think there was a giraffe somewhere…

But my favorite had to be a life-size statue of a gorilla that I found in the one of the shops near the primate exhibits. I almost wanted to reach out and touch it, but the cashier was standing right behind me.

These amazing statues are all the work of one Kenyan artist, Kioko Mwitiki.

An art student turned welder, one day Kioko was practicing welding bits of scrap metal together. A passerby asked him, “How much?” and the rest is history. An artist was born.

Today his sculptures are featured internationally. He has an installation of a life-size herd of elephants at the Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and his work has been purchased by art lovers the world over.

For information and to see a selection of Kioko’s work:

Kioko Mwitiki’s art for sale

An article by the Kenyan Daily Nation

A Flickr account with several of his works

These sculptures come from all over the U.S.A. Big ones. Small ones. Lots of Tin Men. A couple of Tin Women. A veritable zoo of animals including elephants and… lobsters? I concentrated on those that are welded, but beyond that, you could look for days.

These are some of the finest specimens of folk art in the country as per this fantastic site.

Fire Hydrant Jack
Location:
In shelbourne on the east side of Rt 7 north of Church Rd.
Chittenden Co – VT
Latitude: N44° 22.77
Longitude: W73° 13.67
Notes:
Photo July 2005

We did our first video shoot at Arc-Zone.com last week. We’ve seen the rough cuts, and we’ll be posting them online soon, but in the meantime, check out Joe Welder’s write up on how the day went –>

Why do boys get to have all the fun?

This just in from Lincoln Electric’s iWeld newsletter (if you’re not signed up yet, go do it now! they send lots of great articles and my favorite, the How I Did It section showcasing different projects submitted by real life welders.)

Project Go Cart was submitted by Martin Ziskind and his son and built in 9 days…. would have been a great mother/daughter project too!

For some great how-to pics to stimulate your imagination, visit the Lincoln Electric site.