I welded 4 aluminum gas tanks ( I busted the first two in an incident) and
one oil tank for my Baby Belle. I don't remember having much warpage, but I
also recall someone telling me to tack the things in a lot of places before
finishing the seam welds. The things pressure tested to 14' of water the
first time with no pin holes. Now if that doesn't prove luck is better than
skill I'll eat a welding rod. I also welded some aluminum beer cans
together, but they wouldn't hold mashed potatoes after I finished with them
let alone a liquid.
--
Stuart Fields
Experimental Helo magazine
P. O. Box 1585
Inyokern, CA 93527
(760) 377-4478
(760) 408-9747 general and layout cell
(760) 608-1299 technical and advertising cell

www.vkss.com
www.experimentalhelo.com


"Ernest Christley" wrote in message
...
Jim Logajan wrote:
"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote:
"dirigible designer" wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions to my question of how to join aluminum
sheets [without rivets] for making a dirigible.
Hi "dd" (Allen?). I am familiar with the history of aluminum airships.

One remote possibility it to look into/experiment with aluminum
soldering. Once upon a time I did not think it was possible to solder
aluminum, but if you do a Google search on the subject you should find
some information on the subject. It's not impossible, merely
difficult.

What about welding it?

Might work with joining sheets to ribs, but sheets-to-sheets? Don't know
either way, actually. :-)

I never got around to experimenting with it, but I had considered trying
to
use a flux of some kind (something to deal with the formation or
thickening
of the oxide layer) applied between two overlapping sheets and then
applying heat using a high-temperature heat gun. Some of the heavy-duty
heat guns claim air temperatures near the melting point of some alloys
of
aluminum.

I just tried my hand at welding aluminum this past weekend. I'm putting
a fuel tank together. Unless you have some major jigs, the sheets will
warp all to hell before you get halfway down a joint.