MIG Aluminum DIY: Selecting the Right Welder, Spool Gun and Filler Wire
Miller Electric
Miller Electric article on MIG welding aluminum in a small shop. Covers choosing a machine and spool gun for soft aluminum wire, picking between 4043 and 5356 filler for ease of use, strength or corrosion resistance, and matching feed capability to 5356's faster melt rate.
More resources on MIG Welding
Welding Tips and Tricks
Jody Collier's MIG section of his long-running welding instruction site, with articles and videos on machine settings, gun angle, short-circuit and spray transfer, and joint technique. Helps a new welder set up a machine and diagnose bad beads.
Weld.com
Welding instruction site and video channel where working instructors demonstrate MIG, TIG and stick processes at the bench. Useful for seeing machine setup, wire and gas choices, and bead technique shown on real joints before practicing them yourself.
Welding: Principles and Applications (9th Edition)
Larry Jeffus's standard welding textbook for US vocational programs, 960 pages. Its GMAW chapters cover equipment setup, transfer modes, shielding gases, filler metals and parameter selection, with graded practice exercises across joints and positions on steel and aluminum.
Metal Inert Gas (MIG) Welding: Process and Applications (TWI Job Knowledge)
The Welding Institute's technical note on how GMAW behaves. Covers dip, spray and pulsed transfer, shielding gas choice for steels versus aluminium and other non-ferrous metals, the WFS-current link, typical voltage-current pairs for 1.2 mm wire, inductance, and synergic pulse. hat gives a learner a working model instead of a settings chart. It is short, free and engineering-grade. Its companion 'Equipment for MIG Welding' (job-knowledge/equipment-for-mig-welding-015) covers drive rolls, liners and push-pull for aluminium.
Understanding the Basics of MIG Welding for Mild Steel
Miller Electric's guide to MIG welding mild steel: preparing to bare metal, DCEP polarity, ER70S-3 versus ER70S-6 wire, C25 versus 100% CO2 gas, 3/8-inch stickout, push and pull angles, and technique changes for each welding position. This is the most complete free first-session walkthrough from a primary source, and it covers the setup variables named in the topic note: polarity, wire, gas, stickout, angles and positions. Its weakness is that voltage and WFS appear only in general terms.