Tig aluminum skilsaw baseplate?

A buddy gave me the well worn baseplate off his worm drive skilsaw. It has a crack near the front where the 2 edges come together (right in front of the blade) I just tried to weld it using 2 different size tungstens, between 80 and 150 amps (it's about 1/8" material) and using 4047 filler. All I got was a black sooty area with a little mound of filler on each side of the crack (crack has been slightly V grooved, but each side of the crack touch each other) I've got good gas, good filler and new Lanthanated tungstens, using a Invertig 200, AC, balance about in the middle, freq towards upper side.

Any ideas?

Thanks

J
Reply to
James Arnold
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Could be a copper-aluminum alloy. In that case you would need to use 2319 filler, if it is even weldable

2219 base metal.

If the base plate is something like 2024, then it is unweldable.

I wonder if Skil would tell you if you asked what alloy it was.

Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler

I'll get the serial and model number and see if they'll tell me

Thanks, Ernie.

Reply to
James Arnold

Probably no easy way to determine this (alloy)

Reply to
Jamie Arnold (W)

For a long, long time the baseplates on Skil saws were steel.

Then they switched to magnesium on some models. See, for example, the "Mag 77". Can you use aluminum filler to weld a mag alloy? I really do not know, but expect you would have a better chance of lighting the piece on fire than welding it. Some mag is hard to burn -- somewhere on the net is the story about just how hard it is to burn the mag case of the Next computer.

Be sure it is aluminum.

Reply to
frank

You know, you're right Frank. Steel is the word. When I saw the OP, I didn't give it much thought. I was suspicious from all the times I've dropped my "77" onto the concrete slab and the foot (table) just winced a bit. I didn't think aluminum would take that abuse and now I know it won't.

The O-Poster can check:

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mentions "steel foot" briefly.

I guess that's why that "aluminum" welds so crappy. ;^) Most likely the steel is zinc coated.

Reply to
Zorro

Turns out this is a plate off a Dewalt, not a Skil. Definately not steel....a twisted wire brush will eat it away.

Reply to
Jamie Arnold (W)

I believe you are dealing with a magnesium alloy then.

Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler

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