On Mon, 30 Apr 2018 19:13:16 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Mon, 30 Apr 2018 15:19:37 +0700, John B.
wrote:

My thoughts were not to have to be forever messing with rental tanks.
I get half way through a job and the oxygen runs out or the fuel gas -
I am using LPG recently - expires and one has to run out and get some
more. When we were in Phuket that was nearly an 80 km round trip :-(

Water gas welding isn't going to substitute for bottled gases. What
can you do when the gas pressure is under 2 PSI? You can run a tiny
syringe welding torch or maybe a plastic welder, but that's about it.
Gas welding aluminum is pretty much a lost art these days with the
availability of cheap TIG welding sets. I certified gas welding
aluminum in 1950 and never gas welded aluminum again :-) I seem to
remember that we gas welded aluminum using a flux which I'm not even
sure one can buy these days.

Can you butt weld 0.040 aluminum sheet metal with a TIG welder?

From the welder's point of view, certainly. However, assuming a one
pass weld the amperage of the welding set is important.

If you don't want to drag around a TIG or MIG shielding gas tank (with
the correct mix), maybe switch to a MIG welder with flux core wire?
The welds aren't as nice as with gas shielding, but good enough.
There's also some slag and more splatter to deal with.

I've never used a MIG welder. Seen them but when I was welding they
were not common but one of the guys that worked for me went off to
northern Ohio, someplace, and got a job MIG welding. He said the most
important tool was a large set of side cutters to cut off the wire
after you buzzed about a foot out of the torch and got it stuck to the
weld :-)

For cutting, a plasma cutter requires on tank of gas. Not a big
improvement over 2 tanks for conventional oxy-acetylene cutting, but
might be worthwhile.

I had a plasma cutter but never got very proficient with it. I cold
cut but the cut ends were pretty rough and needed a lot of cleaning up
with a hand grinder so I bought some 1mm disks and just used the hand
grinder as a cutoff machine.
--
Cheers,

John B.