We weld these all the time at the shop I used to work at, at least 4-8 a week. It failed because they didn't drain it and it froze, unless they don't drain it again it will be perfectly fine.
@@MeltinMetalAnthony in February-march we could have as many as 20 waiting to be welded at at a time, I welded a bunch of these for a whole week one year. Obviously not so much in the summer but there are still people that use them in the winter by leaving them somewhere to go to and forget to drain the water heaters when they leave and come back to a blown out water heater. I appreciate your prep work and weld quality, I can very much assure you it won't have any issues unless they freeze it again. If you want to do more run to your local trailer repair and give them a card, you'll have more of these to do than you'll know what to do with.
Anthony nice to see you doing some aluminum welding. Don’t worry about all the nervous Nellies. The biggest concern on a water heater is a properly working temperature/pressure relief valve, that is installed into the tank and not somehow down stream for someone’s installation convenience. That tank will be lucky to see 40-50 PSI. If your welds were to fail it’s not going to explode, but just soak the camper! Tanks explosions happen from run away pressure and heat forming rapidly expanding liquids. Invariably the safety relief valve has an issue and didn’t reduce the pressure in time. I would tell the customer to make sure they install a new safety relief valve. No one spends sleepless nights worrying about their water tank welds holding up!
Nice repair. One thing to watch out for is the vapor from whatever chemicals you use to clean the material. What I’m talking about is they can get inside the tank and explode. I did this one time welding up a pontoon on a gold dredge. The second I struck the arc it exploded and threw me back a few feet and destroyed the pontoon.
Well Rockstar, totally solid repair, all the small🤔, well gigantic innuendos about life had me and my wife rolling! Like I said before, I learn on here from time to time, but your style, talent and personality keep us coming back! You were successful before and we believe you will only continue to become more successful! Solid work Meltin’ Metal!
@Meltin Metal Anthony was always taught to drill the very end of the crack out to prevent recracking , and mildly heat it up to see where the crack truly ends before laying down your first bead. the same applies to fiberglass repair work too
That's only in cassss of vibration or stress. This is a freeze crack. So it won't recrack because it isn't under the same forces as a stress or vibration crack.
I don't have the equipment for aluminum welding. When my pops water heater tank froze last winter it was only like $250 for a new tank on Amazon. About an hour to swap out all the other stuff on there over to the new tank.
Hey Anthony. Awesome channel, dude. Funny as hell. I do pdr for a living (23years). When lining up that crack, take a punch and put it up right where you want to hit, then hit the punch. Accurate and it focus all the energy in that exact spot. Not telling how to do it, just how I'd do it. If you dont like my advice, you can go...
I just fixed the same exact tank at work a few weeks ago, used an aluminum burr bit and sanding pad to clean and open the crack, drilled the ends, preheated it and tigged it up, holding good so far!
Another suggestion. The RPMs on the wire wheel you are using may be too high and can actually imbed or burnish the oxide film you are trying to remove further into the material. The issue with that is aluminum oxide has a melting point three times greater than aluminum itself. You generally see better results with a hand wire brush.
A lot of people will say your comment is BS but as someone who weld exclusively alum and stainless I can confirm that power wire wheels can create problems. I go through boxes and boxes of sml, med, and lrg SS wire brushes a year. Very rarely use a grinder/ss wire brush combo unless it’s a old piece of alum that’s real crusty from sitting in storage. This topic is addressed in a video featuring Travis Feildres on weld tube I believe?
*We weld a ton of 316 Marine SS and I always use a brand new wheel because without fail someone will grab the SS grinder, pulverize some mild steel, and put it back in the rack. When you grind 316 and stick it in saltwater, any tiny steel chips in there show as rust specks appear and are a huge headache to get off there. Same thing with aluminum. If I always use a new disk I don't have to yell at people as much lol*
The thing we really need to know. Did it hold and did you get paid? It was a good repair but that tank looks near the end of it life. Only a matter of time before it fails again and that is not your fault it just looks like it needs replacing sometime in the future.
Only advice I would offer…drill out the ends of the cracks…weld to ends of each. Cut a bevel over the drilled ends and weld stringers to build up the material to prevent the crack from running any further.
We used to weld these at the shop I worked at, as long as they don't freeze it again it will be fine. He could have literally just welded it back together and had absolutely no issue.
The only thing I'd add to drilling is using a penetrating dye to find the actual end of the crack. They usually end farther than what you can see with your naked eyes
I take a small drill bit to each end of the crack and try and dead head it before I grind it...had a few times where the grinder couldn't get all the way in but the bit could I haven't had any issues doing this
I’m not really into grinding the crack first, I just like to use extra lube so I have easier penetration into the crack. Grinding just takes way too much out of me if I’m going to be penetrating any cracks.
I worked at a big fab shop for a while. They underbid a job and were rushing people, and whoever had fit up the chord I was working in had made a mess of it. 20, 24 gusset plates, each with 4 tack welds an inch and a half long, two thirds of which were cracked out. Now I'm no CWI, but I know better than to weld over cracks on a D1.1 project. So 7 hours later, I start welding. Then management gets pissed off, and I start talking to QC. Head of the department, CWI for decades, former boilernaker tells me two dozen times you can't weld over cracks. Shop foreman comes to look at the next one that was fit up. Tons of cracks. I start pointing them out to him, he says "No, that won't hurt anything. Just weld over that." and walks off. Head of QC comes back by and tells me and my lead don't weld it, he'll talk to the foreman. Whatever, they're day shift, they're going home, let them sort it out. I'm not welding over any damn cracks. So next day I come in, talk to the plant manager about it, he says don't weld over cracks, he'll talk to the foreman. Forty five minutes later, foreman wants to talk to me. Backs me into a corner and the head of QC comes along again. Turns out, it was ok to weld over cracks after all! And probably rust and coolant and whatever the hell else gets in the way! I told them just about how far that was going to get them with me. He backs me into a corner and starts yelling. I walked out and didn't come back.
Anthony, I think acetone just reminds you of your favorite thing as a young child. Those vintage permanent markers, the fat ones that came in the metal tubes.
Just wanted to say, try using warm soap water with the stainless toothbrush on aluminum some time, you'll be amazed how much better it goes because the puddle starts and wets out easier. It works because the soap breaks up the aluminum oxide skin so the HF doesn’t have to do it all, allowing fewer amps to do the same job. Just scrub it in and weld, no need to wipe it off.
Also, with aluminum especially cast aluminum or really dirty aluminum that you can't reach the back side on. I run a heat pass first with no filler then use the wire wheel again. This can help to clean up the backside that you can't access. On cast aluminum this is simply the best way - gotta burn out all the contamination and "recast" the aluminum around the break. When I learned this trick on cast it changed my cast welding life.
I wonder if you would've had better results with a spoolgun/mig setup? Just thinking mig doesnt care as much about dirt stuff? Or is that only true for mig welding steel and either way you weld aluminum it needs to be clean? Going to be tackling the same job myself and trying to figure out the best approach!
One thing I would always recommend on thing aluminum breaks like this is drilling a stop hole. Oftentimes we cannot actually see with our eye where the Crack ends. There are dyes that can be used to find the microcracks at the end but I find just drilling a small hole roughly 1/4 inch from the end of the Crack has always worked. All aluminum water heaters I have fixed I did with a plate though after rewelding the Crack plate it and weld it full.
I keep seeing similar comments. This was a freeze ceack. There isn't any vibration or directional stresses. Which is why you drill cracks. This disnt need to be drilled
@@FreedomInc its under constant changing pressures though. not just a tool that sits still most of the time, its always under stress. drilling it would have been the move, plus aluminum is super easy to drill though. its probably just fine to this day, but since its so easy, might as well drill it out too.
The only time I make sure not to cut all the way through a crack is when it's a casting with a gasket surface that needs to come back to exact original dimensions. If you cut the crack out the casting can become misshapen. You need to be able to squeeze the casting back into original form so all those little "mirrored" zigs and zags of the crack need to be preserved so you can squeeze the part back into its original shape. I hope that makes sense
Just curious I had the same kind of thing same kind of problem and I couldn't weld it without a keep cracking do you actually get it to work and not crack and keep cracking
Mathematically, there's also less pressure on a curve. That's why gas tanks are cylinders. Even the bottom has an indented curve. Designed that way on purpose.
I’m not a bog TIG weldor, but I believe I’ve seen guys that are, use argon as a back gas on the inside of the tank. They attach a continuous low pressure flow with argon on the inside, in order to help keep the weld joint consistent and to help avoid porosity on the inside seam. …I think that’s how they do it roughly.
@@HarryJarrell aluminum is super easy to drill, so its best to do both. drill first to make sure it doesnt spread deeper and then grind out the groove. why do you think grinding alone would be best?
When welding cracks on aluminum you not only want to clean the surface as best possible but also drill a hole at each end of the crack to prevent the crack from coming back
Nice video man. An old cat I weld with saw me using a wire wheel one time on aluminum and he stopped me to tell me that that wire wheel can kinda fold the oxides over back into the base metal. He swears by a hand brush. Im not sure if that's true and I don't wanna be the arrogant welder who knows it all but just something to think about.
Heya, gonna ask a stupid question bruz but does it have a relief valve put on it? That'd stop it from over pressurising and mabye stop the cracking issues
Nice. Only thing I’d of done is drill a 🕳️ at the end of the splits to isolate them and you won’t get any new cracks as you burn it in & when knocking the seam down get it somewhat flat then throw some extra hot and quick tacks pushing the filler rod in there aggressively cuz as you know esp with alum. You’ll never get a tack without filler unless the seams super tight even then it doesn’t just melt it like mild or stainless then go back and knock the seam tight. If not you’ll be fighting the seam wanting to warp & open up on you. Although not necessary on thinner alum. it doesn’t hurt to run your torch over the work piece to pre heat esp. if your running and air cooled torch it will allow you to get slightly more capacity out of your rig machine or at least whats its rated for without burning it running hot af. For example a cylinder head you’d want to place on a hot plate to get some heat into it. Then wrap in welding blanket when finished to let slowly cool like you do cast. Just a few things that came to mind. Also if I had to wipe down filler I’d never get nothing done. Lol
for acetone, just look up acetone poisoning, your a grown man, do as you like, and I assure you, after many years of using it bare handed in body shops cleaning parts, I dont see any negative effects on me. "WHEW" lol. but last 4-5 years, yes I do wear gloves now. enjoyed video,
If anyone can fix it you can 👍excellent video and work amazing how many cracks appeared once you started welding definitely looks like you have to check check and check. Keep up the great work and videos
So I just started welding school few months ago just got done with structural tig and my machine doesn’t sound like that? Why does the machine make that buzzing?
appreciate the videos thanks for sharing just curious I had a similar repair just like that kept chasing crack after crack after crack when it cooled down was just curious did you get that to work or did it just keep cracking
Im not sure on the cutoff wheels but on the hard grinding wheels i tested one made for alluminum and a general purpose wheel on alluminum and the alluminum wheel ground the alluminum a lot faster than the general purpose wheel
Funny stuff. I work out of a shop about 70 miles east of Yellowstone. it gets really cold here. last year a guy brought a water heater in that looked very similar to this. Well just the other day he brought it back with another big ass crack from not draining it over summer. Drain the water out of your water tanks and boat motors if you live up north or you will have a bad day.
Love yr vids my dude. Keep crushing The SAIT aluminum specific cut off wheels do perform better cutting aluminum, in that they don't "gum up"like general purpose discs tend to when cutting aluminum. On the flip side, a SAIT aluminum cut disc cutting steel will whither down to nothing WAY faster than a general disc cutting the same steel. I mention the SAIT's because they are the only aluminum specific cut wheel brand I've used and that was only because they came out of a tool room and I wasn't footing the bill.
Get a die grinder, some aluminum burrs and ditch the flap disc and cut off wheel. Couple of dogs tacked to the tank would help pull that together and pull the two sides into same plane. That thing was spun or pressed or hydroformed process might determine why wall thickness varied, if it did. Or maybe no anode. A patch would be better.
In cases like this one I'd try to separate the halves. Clean the inside with muriatic acid and rinse with water. Repair the the cracks in both than weld the halves back together. Then as a final on the big crack I'd sand the outside welds rounded and do weld over strap over that for added strength. All depending on what the customer is willing to pay. 👈🧐👍
Tank looks to be about 16 in in Dia. Do you think the money is there for another 8 feet of welding plus prep. Missed where you said strap. Dbl length of that weld. No, it's not.
@@newage3397 Your right if your charging by the length of weld, But if you get a customer who wants perfection you charge for that as well. Also as a welder you have to try to convince a customer the right way is worth spending a little more for. If they still don't want to that's fine take lot's of pictures and make note of your work to cover your ass and hope for the best it don't blow up in their face.
New AL tank on Amazon, plug and play 365. They can be had for much less. Plenty wrong with that repair. It should have been patched. I doubt it will last. Yes, I have done a lot of AL work.
I would have turned that job down personally because l am not qualified or experienced in pressure vessel work. Interesting though to watch others do it. When it comes to cracks, l have drilled both ends of the crack in the past but now prefer to blow a hole the each end with whatever process l am using for the repair. No swarf and it stirs up the base material and changes the structure to terminate the ends of the crack.
Aluminum experiences metal fatigue though repeated pressure cycles. Pressurized aluminum aircraft cabins are retired or rebuilt after a set number of pressure cycles and that water heater tank experiences much higher pressures than an airliner cabin. My guess is that the whole tank is work hardened and brittle from pressure cycles during its lifetime. I would be a little uncomfortable to take on this job to say the least. I hope you give periodic updates to let us know how it's holding up or if it fails, details about the failure.
Being an RV tech the customer should just get a new heater. It's pricey but the reason it cracked was because it wasn't maintained with new anode rods and a hard water filter. The hard water is eating away the walls of the heater so it's going to crack again.
About the crack i alway drill a hole at the end of it wich it fill with weld, it basically does the same, stops the cracs from further evolving, also never grind tungsten on an open wheel, that shit is toxic special small hand held enclosed grinders are made to contaminate the dust, some tungsten are even radioactive-
@@tubeonline629 even ordinary stainless 316 becomes radioactive when you grind it, chrome-6 is releasing alpha particles when its released from the alloyed compound. but true only the red contains an active radioactive nuclei, that doesn´t mean its safe to grind the others without protection.
@@MeltinMetalAnthony it’s entirely possible with the damn inflation. I haven’t worked in RV service since just before the coof…that’s cool tho man never seen one welded back together and being in MA we replaced ~8 a year. #FJB
Ant id love to help you out with some aluminum, I don’t wanna sound like a smartass but literally, aluminum is all I work with, and I’ve learned a lot from your videos. I’d love to give back a little ya
#1, definitely worth it if you’d like to be able to take more aluminum jobs, invest in a 60$ p-grinder/burr. Super vital to cleaning the aluminum. Acetone and wire is good, but man you will notice an immediate difference: single cut and a cross cut burr bit. 2. If you’re running your argon at about 20-25 psi, I’d turn up your balance to at least 60-70% 3 I really liked that you cleaned your rod first, I’ve always took that for granted but also if you’re having to chase the puddle, go down on your heat, and use a thicker rod! But here’s the kicker, you’re dipping way too much. You should try spacing your dimes out a little further which might slow you down a bit. Your bead will look way better. 4. Displace your heat, ik your material was probably thin already and heat sensitive which is why cracks were popping up, just do a couple of inches at a time. My personal settings I like to run: 200 amps, 200 freq, 70% balance. And like I said man, I really don’t know shit about anything else. Your channel has helped understand what it looks like to be a real welder and fabricator. So I’m hoping I can give a little bit back to you since aluminum is all I work with in the navy.
Couldn’t tell you about aluminum specific cut off wheels but I know that aluminum specific grinding wheels, while costing 4 or 5 times as much as steel/stainless steel wheels, are worth every penny.
I know you can polish a turd, but unless It gets a heat treat, it's just gonna crack again. Sometimes you just have to tell the customer what they don't want to hear.
Tig welding uphill = tig welding downhill = tig welding flat = tig welding overhead. Since you have so much control with Tig it just simply doesn't matter. You can get full penetration any way you choose if you are just paying attention.
Key hole on aluminum is just an under filled puddle. If you pause after your dab you'll watch it sink. That's your full pen. Good job though puddle stayed pretty clean despite the inside contaminant.
So do you ever show your results? Like I personally would have pressure tested it under hot water 120+ to ensure my shit held. I watch your channel all the time and I always wait for a result on how it turned out.
We weld these all the time at the shop I used to work at, at least 4-8 a week. It failed because they didn't drain it and it froze, unless they don't drain it again it will be perfectly fine.
dam 4-8 thats a ton
@@MeltinMetalAnthony in February-march we could have as many as 20 waiting to be welded at at a time, I welded a bunch of these for a whole week one year. Obviously not so much in the summer but there are still people that use them in the winter by leaving them somewhere to go to and forget to drain the water heaters when they leave and come back to a blown out water heater. I appreciate your prep work and weld quality, I can very much assure you it won't have any issues unless they freeze it again. If you want to do more run to your local trailer repair and give them a card, you'll have more of these to do than you'll know what to do with.
Even melting metal Anthony knows a good preheat would have saved the day there before you went Metallica on it lol
Anthony nice to see you doing some aluminum welding. Don’t worry about all the nervous Nellies. The biggest concern on a water heater is a properly working temperature/pressure relief valve, that is installed into the tank and not somehow down stream for someone’s installation convenience. That tank will be lucky to see 40-50 PSI. If your welds were to fail it’s not going to explode, but just soak the camper! Tanks explosions happen from run away pressure and heat forming rapidly expanding liquids. Invariably the safety relief valve has an issue and didn’t reduce the pressure in time. I would tell the customer to make sure they install a new safety relief valve. No one spends sleepless nights worrying about their water tank welds holding up!
thanks! it actually cracked due to freezing and not being winterized.
Nice repair. One thing to watch out for is the vapor from whatever chemicals you use to clean the material. What I’m talking about is they can get inside the tank and explode. I did this one time welding up a pontoon on a gold dredge. The second I struck the arc it exploded and threw me back a few feet and destroyed the pontoon.
thanks brother!
11:17 you are killin' me Anthony, thanks for the shout out.......cheers, Paul
I prefer the drill at the end of the crack method but a grinder would work
so long as the crack is ground out it should be fine
Well Rockstar, totally solid repair, all the small🤔, well gigantic innuendos about life had me and my wife rolling! Like I said before, I learn on here from time to time, but your style, talent and personality keep us coming back! You were successful before and we believe you will only continue to become more successful! Solid work Meltin’ Metal!
@Meltin Metal Anthony
was always taught to drill the very end of the crack out to prevent recracking , and mildly heat it up to see where the crack truly ends before laying down your first bead.
the same applies to fiberglass repair work too
That's only in cassss of vibration or stress. This is a freeze crack. So it won't recrack because it isn't under the same forces as a stress or vibration crack.
Have a shop in Indiana welded many cracked camper tanks from people forgetting to drain them very easy to fix
I don't have the equipment for aluminum welding. When my pops water heater tank froze last winter it was only like $250 for a new tank on Amazon. About an hour to swap out all the other stuff on there over to the new tank.
You have amazing attention to detail even on the jobs that you probably won’t profit from. Really great video
Hey Anthony. Awesome channel, dude. Funny as hell. I do pdr for a living (23years). When lining up that crack, take a punch and put it up right where you want to hit, then hit the punch. Accurate and it focus all the energy in that exact spot. Not telling how to do it, just how I'd do it. If you dont like my advice, you can go...
looks like a solid repair my man
Hey Ant... I noticed that you weren't using any argon purge gas inside the tank while welding. May help with tank or tube tig welding in the furture.
Yup.. that's what i thought but he got her done!
I just fixed the same exact tank at work a few weeks ago, used an aluminum burr bit and sanding pad to clean and open the crack, drilled the ends, preheated it and tigged it up, holding good so far!
Another suggestion. The RPMs on the wire wheel you are using may be too high and can actually imbed or burnish the oxide film you are trying to remove further into the material. The issue with that is aluminum oxide has a melting point three times greater than aluminum itself. You generally see better results with a hand wire brush.
A lot of people will say your comment is BS but as someone who weld exclusively alum and stainless I can confirm that power wire wheels can create problems. I go through boxes and boxes of sml, med, and lrg SS wire brushes a year. Very rarely use a grinder/ss wire brush combo unless it’s a old piece of alum that’s real crusty from sitting in storage. This topic is addressed in a video featuring Travis Feildres on weld tube I believe?
*We weld a ton of 316 Marine SS and I always use a brand new wheel because without fail someone will grab the SS grinder, pulverize some mild steel, and put it back in the rack. When you grind 316 and stick it in saltwater, any tiny steel chips in there show as rust specks appear and are a huge headache to get off there. Same thing with aluminum. If I always use a new disk I don't have to yell at people as much lol*
The thing we really need to know. Did it hold and did you get paid? It was a good repair but that tank looks near the end of it life. Only a matter of time before it fails again and that is not your fault it just looks like it needs replacing sometime in the future.
na It will be fine so long as they don't let it freeze with water in it
Transverse Cracks ? For the amount of welding done a new tank would have been in order
Only advice I would offer…drill out the ends of the cracks…weld to ends of each. Cut a bevel over the drilled ends and weld stringers to build up the material to prevent the crack from running any further.
We used to weld these at the shop I worked at, as long as they don't freeze it again it will be fine. He could have literally just welded it back together and had absolutely no issue.
The only thing I'd add to drilling is using a penetrating dye to find the actual end of the crack. They usually end farther than what you can see with your naked eyes
I take a small drill bit to each end of the crack and try and dead head it before I grind it...had a few times where the grinder couldn't get all the way in but the bit could I haven't had any issues doing this
I’m not really into grinding the crack first, I just like to use extra lube so I have easier penetration into the crack. Grinding just takes way too much out of me if I’m going to be penetrating any cracks.
wrong crack
Dude really
😅😅😅
I worked at a big fab shop for a while. They underbid a job and were rushing people, and whoever had fit up the chord I was working in had made a mess of it. 20, 24 gusset plates, each with 4 tack welds an inch and a half long, two thirds of which were cracked out. Now I'm no CWI, but I know better than to weld over cracks on a D1.1 project. So 7 hours later, I start welding. Then management gets pissed off, and I start talking to QC. Head of the department, CWI for decades, former boilernaker tells me two dozen times you can't weld over cracks. Shop foreman comes to look at the next one that was fit up. Tons of cracks. I start pointing them out to him, he says "No, that won't hurt anything. Just weld over that." and walks off. Head of QC comes back by and tells me and my lead don't weld it, he'll talk to the foreman. Whatever, they're day shift, they're going home, let them sort it out. I'm not welding over any damn cracks. So next day I come in, talk to the plant manager about it, he says don't weld over cracks, he'll talk to the foreman. Forty five minutes later, foreman wants to talk to me. Backs me into a corner and the head of QC comes along again. Turns out, it was ok to weld over cracks after all! And probably rust and coolant and whatever the hell else gets in the way! I told them just about how far that was going to get them with me. He backs me into a corner and starts yelling. I walked out and didn't come back.
It’s never a good thing when production can overrule QC.
If QC doesnt have the final say its a battle you can never win!
Anthony, I think acetone just reminds you of your favorite thing as a young child.
Those vintage permanent markers, the fat ones that came in the metal tubes.
EXACTLY!! Well said!
take the cap off...sniff it! what do think thats for writing
Just wanted to say, try using warm soap water with the stainless toothbrush on aluminum some time, you'll be amazed how much better it goes because the puddle starts and wets out easier. It works because the soap breaks up the aluminum oxide skin so the HF doesn’t have to do it all, allowing fewer amps to do the same job. Just scrub it in and weld, no need to wipe it off.
Sounds interesting, will try out as well 😀
Also, with aluminum especially cast aluminum or really dirty aluminum that you can't reach the back side on. I run a heat pass first with no filler then use the wire wheel again. This can help to clean up the backside that you can't access. On cast aluminum this is simply the best way - gotta burn out all the contamination and "recast" the aluminum around the break. When I learned this trick on cast it changed my cast welding life.
Great video, love the sense of humor 😂
great work with the tig looks way better then the spool gun👍
I wonder if you would've had better results with a spoolgun/mig setup? Just thinking mig doesnt care as much about dirt stuff? Or is that only true for mig welding steel and either way you weld aluminum it needs to be clean? Going to be tackling the same job myself and trying to figure out the best approach!
One thing I would always recommend on thing aluminum breaks like this is drilling a stop hole. Oftentimes we cannot actually see with our eye where the Crack ends. There are dyes that can be used to find the microcracks at the end but I find just drilling a small hole roughly 1/4 inch from the end of the Crack has always worked. All aluminum water heaters I have fixed I did with a plate though after rewelding the Crack plate it and weld it full.
I keep seeing similar comments.
This was a freeze ceack. There isn't any vibration or directional stresses. Which is why you drill cracks. This disnt need to be drilled
@@FreedomInc its under constant changing pressures though. not just a tool that sits still most of the time, its always under stress. drilling it would have been the move, plus aluminum is super easy to drill though. its probably just fine to this day, but since its so easy, might as well drill it out too.
@@ganjalfcreamcorn8438 it doesnt change the facts my reply was based on. It. Isnt needed. Its a freeze crack not a directional streess crack.
Just out of curiosity what im used to when aluminum welding is a higher pitch frequency any particular reason its way lower?
The only time I make sure not to cut all the way through a crack is when it's a casting with a gasket surface that needs to come back to exact original dimensions. If you cut the crack out the casting can become misshapen. You need to be able to squeeze the casting back into original form so all those little "mirrored" zigs and zags of the crack need to be preserved so you can squeeze the part back into its original shape. I hope that makes sense
I loved that introduction 🤣
I usually don’t grind out the crack but I do take a drill bit and drill at the end of the crack to prevent it spreading
Just curious I had the same kind of thing same kind of problem and I couldn't weld it without a keep cracking do you actually get it to work and not crack and keep cracking
It’s thinner on the crowns/ radius sections coz that area stretched when it was formed in a die press
Mathematically, there's also less pressure on a curve. That's why gas tanks are cylinders. Even the bottom has an indented curve. Designed that way on purpose.
I’m not a bog TIG weldor, but I believe I’ve seen guys that are, use argon as a back gas on the inside of the tank. They attach a continuous low pressure flow with argon on the inside, in order to help keep the weld joint consistent and to help avoid porosity on the inside seam. …I think that’s how they do it roughly.
Always helps to drill stop the ends of the crack to keep it from spreading past the weld repair
Always drill out the end of the cracks, this will let u inspect the alloy grain to see if it started to crack beneath the top layer aswell.
I really don't think drilling the end of the crack is a good idea. If you just grind beyond the end and weld, it will work better.
@@HarryJarrell aluminum is super easy to drill, so its best to do both. drill first to make sure it doesnt spread deeper and then grind out the groove. why do you think grinding alone would be best?
Right on. Great fix
Tig finger I need to get one myself
Good job Anthony! Loving the new thumbnails as well as your call to action for subscribers 😆😆😆
Glad you like them!
Bro one of your most creative videos! Loved it.
Thanks a ton!
When welding cracks on aluminum you not only want to clean the surface as best possible but also drill a hole at each end of the crack to prevent the crack from coming back
Nice video man. An old cat I weld with saw me using a wire wheel one time on aluminum and he stopped me to tell me that that wire wheel can kinda fold the oxides over back into the base metal. He swears by a hand brush. Im not sure if that's true and I don't wanna be the arrogant welder who knows it all but just something to think about.
ive had good results so im not sure
Heya, gonna ask a stupid question bruz but does it have a relief valve put on it? That'd stop it from over pressurising and mabye stop the cracking issues
I bet it froze that type of crack looks like that
@@jeremyhanna3852 that would defiantly make sense
Excellent video, you crack me up! Naysayers can pound sand , ive fixed dozens of those with no issues just like how you did it
Nice work, What ARC START, current, Ac freq do you use.
Please!! On 1/16” aluminum
Nice. Only thing I’d of done is drill a 🕳️ at the end of the splits to isolate them and you won’t get any new cracks as you burn it in & when knocking the seam down get it somewhat flat then throw some extra hot and quick tacks pushing the filler rod in there aggressively cuz as you know esp with alum. You’ll never get a tack without filler unless the seams super tight even then it doesn’t just melt it like mild or stainless then go back and knock the seam tight. If not you’ll be fighting the seam wanting to warp & open up on you. Although not necessary on thinner alum. it doesn’t hurt to run your torch over the work piece to pre heat esp. if your running and air cooled torch it will allow you to get slightly more capacity out of your rig machine or at least whats its rated for without burning it running hot af. For example a cylinder head you’d want to place on a hot plate to get some heat into it. Then wrap in welding blanket when finished to let slowly cool like you do cast. Just a few things that came to mind. Also if I had to wipe down filler I’d never get nothing done. Lol
for acetone, just look up acetone poisoning, your a grown man, do as you like, and I assure you, after many years of using it bare handed in body shops cleaning parts, I dont see any negative effects on me. "WHEW" lol. but last 4-5 years, yes I do wear gloves now.
enjoyed video,
A true professional will fix anything broken
If anyone can fix it you can 👍excellent video and work amazing how many cracks appeared once you started welding definitely looks like you have to check check and check. Keep up the great work and videos
I’ve seen a lot of guys drill out the ends of a crack not 100% sure the science behind it but maybe worth looking into!
Always a good watch for a laugh 😂
So I just started welding school few months ago just got done with structural tig and my machine doesn’t sound like that? Why does the machine make that buzzing?
Pulse.
appreciate the videos thanks for sharing just curious I had a similar repair just like that kept chasing crack after crack after crack when it cooled down was just curious did you get that to work or did it just keep cracking
I think i would've purged that tank with argon as i welded but looks like it still came out pretty good.
Im not sure on the cutoff wheels but on the hard grinding wheels i tested one made for alluminum and a general purpose wheel on alluminum and the alluminum wheel ground the alluminum a lot faster than the general purpose wheel
These tanks operate with the top hole open, not as a pressure vessel, right?
Funny stuff. I work out of a shop about 70 miles east of Yellowstone. it gets really cold here. last year a guy brought a water heater in that looked very similar to this. Well just the other day he brought it back with another big ass crack from not draining it over summer. Drain the water out of your water tanks and boat motors if you live up north or you will have a bad day.
Another great video...what is the name of the respirator you are using?✌🏻
3m quick latch
@@MeltinMetalAnthony Thanks ✌🏻
you are looking happy way up North old timer........cheers.Paul
Bro, if you’re getting that much reverb from that building, I need to record an album in there. That’s wet af!
At least it's good to see anthony using a manhammer
What welder are you using and what are your thoughts on it
Am I allowed to bring a lazy Suzy? If so can I bring a wood and metal?
I just repaired two identical tanks last week, they weren’t in quite as bad of shape though
Love yr vids my dude. Keep crushing
The SAIT aluminum specific cut off wheels do perform better cutting aluminum, in that they don't "gum up"like general purpose discs tend to when cutting aluminum. On the flip side, a SAIT aluminum cut disc cutting steel will whither down to nothing WAY faster than a general disc cutting the same steel. I mention the SAIT's because they are the only aluminum specific cut wheel brand I've used and that was only because they came out of a tool room and I wasn't footing the bill.
Get a die grinder, some aluminum burrs and ditch the flap disc and cut off wheel. Couple of dogs tacked to the tank would help pull that together and pull the two sides into same plane. That thing was spun or pressed or hydroformed process might determine why wall thickness varied, if it did. Or maybe no anode. A patch would be better.
I was thinking he was gonna use a patch as well.
The factory weld is likely mig, fast, efficient, and automated. Unfortunately, porosity an incomplete penetration can happen with mig.
In cases like this one I'd try to separate the halves. Clean the inside with muriatic acid and rinse with water. Repair the the cracks in both than weld the halves back together. Then as a final on the big crack I'd sand the outside welds rounded and do weld over strap over that for added strength. All depending on what the customer is willing to pay. 👈🧐👍
Tank looks to be about 16 in in Dia. Do you think the money is there for another 8 feet of welding plus prep. Missed where you said strap. Dbl length of that weld. No, it's not.
@@newage3397 Your right if your charging by the length of weld, But if you get a customer who wants perfection you charge for that as well. Also as a welder you have to try to convince a customer the right way is worth spending a little more for. If they still don't want to that's fine take lot's of pictures and make note of your work to cover your ass and hope for the best it don't blow up in their face.
New AL tank on Amazon, plug and play 365. They can be had for much less. Plenty wrong with that repair. It should have been patched. I doubt it will last. Yes, I have done a lot of AL work.
Fucking love your sense of humor 🤣🤣🤣 This video had me laughing my ass off.
Just did one of these a couple of weeks ago. Wasn't to bad
I would have turned that job down personally because l am not qualified or experienced in pressure vessel work. Interesting though to watch others do it.
When it comes to cracks, l have drilled both ends of the crack in the past but now prefer to blow a hole the each end with whatever process l am using for the repair. No swarf and it stirs up the base material and changes the structure to terminate the ends of the crack.
What kind of camera do u use
I’d weld it then add bands across the weld for strenght.
Also weld a push pull dog to take out the hi/ lo.
Aluminum experiences metal fatigue though repeated pressure cycles. Pressurized aluminum aircraft cabins are retired or rebuilt after a set number of pressure cycles and that water heater tank experiences much higher pressures than an airliner cabin. My guess is that the whole tank is work hardened and brittle from pressure cycles during its lifetime. I would be a little uncomfortable to take on this job to say the least. I hope you give periodic updates to let us know how it's holding up or if it fails, details about the failure.
"Drugs are bad, I mean let's do the right Drugs " lmao 🤣 🤣🤣
Being an RV tech the customer should just get a new heater. It's pricey but the reason it cracked was because it wasn't maintained with new anode rods and a hard water filter. The hard water is eating away the walls of the heater so it's going to crack again.
it froze.
About the crack i alway drill a hole at the end of it wich it fill with weld, it basically does the same, stops the cracs from further evolving, also never grind tungsten on an open wheel, that shit is toxic special small hand held enclosed grinders are made to contaminate the dust, some tungsten are even radioactive-
Just the red tungsten is radioactive (2% Thorated) , he was using the purple I believe.
@@tubeonline629 even ordinary stainless 316 becomes radioactive when you grind it, chrome-6 is releasing alpha particles when its released from the alloyed compound. but true only the red contains an active radioactive nuclei, that doesn´t mean its safe to grind the others without protection.
You can buy an RV water heater tank for like 3-4 or a whole new unit for 6-7-8…amazed it was worth it trying to repair
guy told me it would cost him over $1000, I didn't fact check him
@@MeltinMetalAnthony it’s entirely possible with the damn inflation. I haven’t worked in RV service since just before the coof…that’s cool tho man never seen one welded back together and being in MA we replaced ~8 a year. #FJB
Ant id love to help you out with some aluminum, I don’t wanna sound like a smartass but literally, aluminum is all I work with, and I’ve learned a lot from your videos. I’d love to give back a little ya
#1, definitely worth it if you’d like to be able to take more aluminum jobs, invest in a 60$ p-grinder/burr. Super vital to cleaning the aluminum. Acetone and wire is good, but man you will notice an immediate difference: single cut and a cross cut burr bit.
2. If you’re running your argon at about 20-25 psi, I’d turn up your balance to at least 60-70%
3 I really liked that you cleaned your rod first, I’ve always took that for granted but also if you’re having to chase the puddle, go down on your heat, and use a thicker rod! But here’s the kicker, you’re dipping way too much. You should try spacing your dimes out a little further which might slow you down a bit. Your bead will look way better.
4. Displace your heat, ik your material was probably thin already and heat sensitive which is why cracks were popping up, just do a couple of inches at a time.
My personal settings I like to run: 200 amps, 200 freq, 70% balance. And like I said man, I really don’t know shit about anything else. Your channel has helped understand what it looks like to be a real welder and fabricator. So I’m hoping I can give a little bit back to you since aluminum is all I work with in the navy.
* correction, it’s not actually a p grinder, it’s a 1/4” angle air die grinder. Most important tool for cleaning.
What was the wall thickness on the tank?
1/8
what was the cost for the repairs? almost seems like the owner should just buy new, because some of the cracks was base metal
Did it cheap only $200
Even if its "free", its always good practice.
What kind of machine is that cuz?
If you haven’t, you should invest in some PT chemicals just for jobs like this. Another good video brother. See you next time.
Couldn’t tell you about aluminum specific cut off wheels but I know that aluminum specific grinding wheels, while costing 4 or 5 times as much as steel/stainless steel wheels, are worth every penny.
just get a miller blade
I know you can polish a turd, but unless It gets a heat treat, it's just gonna crack again.
Sometimes you just have to tell the customer what they don't want to hear.
I welded one 8 years ago no heat treatment no problem it was in way worse shape than that one
Be fine as long it its not left to freeze again
Where did you read that?🤔😄
Tig welding uphill = tig welding downhill = tig welding flat = tig welding overhead. Since you have so much control with Tig it just simply doesn't matter. You can get full penetration any way you choose if you are just paying attention.
Key hole on aluminum is just an under filled puddle. If you pause after your dab you'll watch it sink. That's your full pen. Good job though puddle stayed pretty clean despite the inside contaminant.
anthony please tell me the name of that muraca song
Nice job Anthony. What Tig machine is that?
So do you ever show your results? Like I personally would have pressure tested it under hot water 120+ to ensure my shit held. I watch your channel all the time and I always wait for a result on how it turned out.
the old man I did it for didn't want to be on camera. he installed it and called me a day later to pay me cause it worked
pressure vessels get tested a bit above their working pressure to make sure they are ok-then put into service
The tank halves were probably deep drawn from sheet so you would have some stretching and thinning.
Can you? mmm... SHOULD you? Mmmmm!😂
That's water residue, scale.. Man is this like a million dollar water heater? I mean, did they stop making these? Lot of work.
i no a guy who has 8 fingers... put your guard on mate love the videos to
What brand tig is that?
Why did you pulse it?
I like to drill the ends of the crack when repairing. That way I terminate the crack from continuing.
The only thing I really do differently (prep wise) when I do these is drill the end of the crack out so it stops.