How To Clean Aluminum After Welding. This contains moisture and oil contaminants that will introduce new impurities to the surface. Here is a list of dos and donts for cleaning aluminium welds.
There are a number of rules to be followed for cleaning aluminium welds. Use of oxy-fuel gas cutting carbon arc cutting gauging processes or oxy-fuel flames for pre heating. Being new to welding this may be entirely normal however when we first got the machine MM252 w spoolmatic 30A we tried MIGing some aluminum using our TIG argon and there was not nearly as much residue.
You may also use citrus-based degreasers but be sure to rinse and dry the part before welding.
Instead another solvent should be applied and then a stainless steel wire brush should be used to clean the weld. 1 Soak in hot water at 6080 C for 10 minutes carefully clean the residue on the brazing joint with a brush rinse with cold water soak in hno3 15 aqueous solution for about 30 minutes then rinse with cold water. Most alloyed aluminum will require a nitric acid step to remove the smut residual alloying elements created by the caustic etch with rinsing. These brushes work great even with thick oxide layers transforming them into dust.