How To Weld Sheet Metal Without A Welder

We need to establish what is considered thin metal.

How to weld sheet metal without a welder.

Short bursts or tacks will help. Getting the tubing hot enough may take 4 to 5 minutes. To weld sheet metal with solid wires use electrode positive ep or reverse polarity. Ditch a 1 8 inch tungsten electrode for something much smaller like 1 16 inch tungsten.

Don t attempt to weld thin materials like sheet metal with flux cored wires which put more heat into the base metal. Just kidding this tip is to explain how to weld sheet metal with a stick welder. This is a quick video showing how to weld sheet metal with a stick arc welde. While wire feed welding sheet metal go for short bursts of welding instead of a going on a long bead.

Mig welding is the preferred method for most automotive bodywork and since sheet metal is the thinnest of metals a large expensive mig unit is usually not required. Aluminum will start to melt at 1200deg fahrenheit but the brazing rod will melt at around 700deg so we want to get the aluminum hot enough to melt the rod without melting the tubing. Tig welding sheet metal forget the larger 1 8 inch tungsten electrode and use a smaller one. This is when the alternatives to welding can come in handy.

Other than this nano metals and adhesives can also be used to join metal pieces together without welding. Welding is not an easy process and not everyone knows the proper way to do it. Because it will have you a lot more control over the whole process and it is more forgiving in case you do anything wrong. The process of spot welding involves two copper electrodes that hold sheet metal together.

Clamp up the tubing and start heating the aluminum with a propane torch. It is possible to join metal pieces by methods like riveting soldering bolting or brazing. Sheet metal that is not very thick is a lot easier to spot weld on. The real trick to weld sheet metal is to use a wire feed.

A wire feed or tig welder is ideal for sheet metal but we will assume that you don t have one. The majority of the sheet metal welding i ve done was with a 90 amp 110 volt welder. For sheet metal i use ine welding wire and it is just as good as their flux cored wire if you want you can grab one here. The best two electrodes for welding auto body sheet metal is either ceriated tungsten or thoriated tungsten.