Alternative To Welding Sheet Metal

The fifth and probably most common alternative to welding besides riveting is using bolts and nuts or just bolts if the base metal is threaded.

Alternative to welding sheet metal.

A large electric current melts the metal to weld the two pieces together. Butt weld vs lap weld. A lap weld is much easier than a butt weld but doesn t seal correctly and will promote moisture from the back side. Like with welding bolts are used everywhere from cars to planes to bicycles.

Because it will have you a lot more control over the whole process and it is more forgiving in case you do anything wrong. Quick and easy brazing aluminum copper and nonferrous metals. Brazing is a quick and inexpensive alternative to welding. Ditch a 1 8 inch tungsten electrode for something much smaller like 1 16 inch tungsten.

Forget the larger 1 8 inch tungsten electrode and use a smaller one. Like riveting using bolts is an irreplaceable technique of joining two pieces of metal without welding. Brazing is also much easier then welding it s a lot like using a glue gun. The answer to reducing your welding hours lies in a special product called methyl methacrylate adhesive mma mma adhesives have two liquid components that require mixing before application and offer an extraordinary bond to surfaces that require almost no preparation.

So companies manufacturing heavy duty equipment or fabricating large metal structures only welded joints. The best two electrodes for welding auto body sheet metal is either ceriated tungsten or thoriated tungsten. These two piece fasteners are part bolt and part blind rivet. This technique is fine for thin metal but is not suitable for thicker metal or tubular steel.

An overlapping joint. To weld sheet metal with solid wires use electrode positive ep or reverse polarity. Lap welds are used when quick results are needed. The equipment in this project can be bought for as little as 30 dollars.

Sheet metal can be joined using spot welding where the metal is held between copper electrodes. Brazed metal can also be stronger then w. Don t attempt to weld thin materials like sheet metal with flux cored wires which put more heat into the base metal. Tig welding sheet metal.

The majority of the sheet metal welding i ve done was with a 90 amp 110 volt welder. For many decades welding was considered the only way to ensure joint integrity in demanding load bearing or high vibration structures.