Trying to get a hull welded up. Had a couple places that didn't pass the leak test so I ground the weld to fix it. This section had the issue since the very beginning for some reason. It was brushed very good and used acetone and was bone dry. I keep getting these damn holes. The arc acts crazy and smells bad when welding it. I'm at a loss and really not sure wtf to do. Any input?


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Wish I could refer you to this guy, but I dunno who he is.....

Yeah I wish he was my neighbor. At the moment I'm ready to hook a chain to it, drag it into the street, and ram this bitch with my hummer.


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Tried to flood it?

RJ didn't have any tips? Could also maybe reach out to bayoubuster

Flood? I talked to Justin and he suggested to wash it with dawn. Just did that and gonna see if that helped. RJ was on a goose hunt this weekend so didn't try him.


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Yea, use a little too much gas.... I dunno man.

I turned it down pretty far and does the same thing


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You ground it out and had porosity in it again?



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Yessir. I can't figure it out. I'm gonna play with gun angle and up my gas in a minute.


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You've either got a very light amount of oil or dirt in the bevel or a light breeze is keeping your gas from shielding the arc

Turned the gas up and played with the gun angle. No change. I've wore brushed the hell out of it with a new brush and scrubbed it with acetone on a rag. No breeze because I'm in the garage. May try running a flame over it. I'm kinda at a loss. May just load it up and let another fella put his hands to it. I've welded out the whole boat and along the edges of the floor/bottom of sides has been the only place where this issue has occurred.


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Man there must be some shit hiding on the bottom edge of that plate. Now way to get it clean now. There is a flowable aluminum "solder" type stuff that you could flow into the contaminated pits

Like a brazing rod or somethin different?

I'm just gonna clean it up and carry to see if a buddy can do something with it. I'm no welder, I just wanted to build myself a rig so here we are. Also I'm just using a cheap welder and my buddy has one that's the tits so maybe it can get a bead to run in there. I just don't want to end up and ruin my hull by repeating with the same end results. I'm not making any headway.


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Have you tried mag wheel cleaner with acid in it?

There's got to be something there. If you can get your hands or have a buddy with a pretty good tig machine that you can adjust the AC Balance to clean, that's gonna be the best bet.

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Thx for the advice fellas. I'll report back.


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The acid will clean the pores in the metal better than acetone will

I have only brushed my aluminum with a SS wire brush. I have never wiped with any solvent to make a weld. IMO, you simply need to increase the wire speed. You don't have enough material being fed out for the rate of speed at which you are traveling. And if you travel any slower, you will burn through. Correct? Increase wire speed and let me know. You can also increase wire size to help out depending on what machine you have. I use to use .030, but switched to .035 and had much better results.

Med, also, what type of wire are you using? My machine was very picky. It would do the job, but when I switched to superglaze, it was like laying down caulk, very smooth. Could also be contaminated wire.

Banded I'm using .35 in 4043. I'm going to get some new wire and turn it up and see what happens. It's mainly in the last 4ft at the back of the boat on both sides. If it's a no go then I'm going to carry it and see if 5356 will do it. My little machine just won't run it.


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Right, 5356 takes more input to melt.

Are you pushing or dragging?

On certain welds my rig will ball up and leave holes but sometimes will weld perfect when pushing.


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Since it's just getting you in the bottom; I'm betting it's a shielding gas problem. What's your flow rate? Could be too high, creating turbulence in the joint and pulling in atmosphere.

Be careful with what you use to clean aluminum. Using brake cleaner and then welding creates phosgene gas which will kill you. Check out .

Usually keep it at 20. I've gone higher and lower with no change. Thx for the article post. Never can know too much. I've only used acetone and dish soap and water for cleaning.


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How did the inside weld? I have seen that issue before and trash was coming through from the inside weld. Best thing to do is put a tig rig on it and burn out the trash.

oil can soak into metal and its hard too clean out acid or burn it out or like txs said from the inside

Inside was no issue. Only the outside


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Drop it off today, we'll either fix it or f it up real good like!!

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That's the attitude!

Try to cut all the way through with a hummer wheel to get anything bad out of there... metal likes to consume stuff especially aluminum it almost magnetizes surrounding junk into the puddle, for example if you burned through there and was welding on wood, you could have pulled the wood up into the puddle and it never wants out. Also the smell could be acetone that worked into the recesses of the porous area and hadn't dried yet, and when it burns that could cause the irradic arc. Long story short I'd cut the problem arc out completely, and re weld... just use caution so the sheet metal doesn't distort! Good luck


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That's kinda what bayou suggested....cut through and weld it back. I've got some aluminum cutting and grinding wheels on the way. I couldn't find anything especially for al local. The smell existed in the very beginning. First time I tried welding it up I only brushed real good with a ss brush, no chemicals. I started using acetone when I saw there was some sort of issue. The bottom is 3/16 and 1/8 sides so I'm gonna try to get back to square 1 and then remove a little material with the above wheels or a flap. The smell was really odd, kinda like a burnt fart..lol


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