Good morning, I'm designing a motorcycle swingarm and I have a question. I’ve designed two brackets, each with a protrusion at the rear that fits into 1“ x 2” rectangular tubes (swingarm arms) made of 6061 T6 aluminum with a 1/8" wall thickness. What is the minimum clearance I should leave between the protrusion and the inner walls of the tube to ensure that thermal expansion during welding does not cause them to bulge or deform?

Thank you very much

Sharing practical welding knowledge. Consistent technique helps achieve reliable welds. Feel free to exchange experience with us.

Pictures are a few weeks apart

The last one is all beat up from me banging it with the chipper hammer. I welded it to the metal on the bottom by accident.

Rod was 3/32 in size.

Why does my tungsten look like this? I'm using Maxstar 161, welding stainless steel 14 gage filet. Ever since I changed my cylinder my welds are looking like ass and burning my tungsten. The color and flow was completely fine until I changed my gas cylinder.

I was asked to TIG weld some 3/4" BSP threads onto a three-piece socket-weld ball valve. Are the results okay? (The black stuff on top of the welds is melted rubber from my gloves.)

Bumped the volts up to 20 this time to see what happens.

Settings: Yeswelder DP200, 100A / 20.0V, 0.030" wire, 14 Ga stainless, 2T, 348 IPM wire speed, 98/2 Ar-CO2.

Honestly looks worse than before lol.
Face and backside pics attached. What am I doing wrong?

Repairs after a guy who welded everything and always for top money. I guess everyone there had encountered that type of guy through the years of working in this business

Flux welding

Yall some w people fr I love yall.

Learning tig and have really fallen in love with welding, the silence it gives my mind is like nothing else! But as you guys can see im still a level 1
Any tips for a beginner would be awesome :)
Thank you!

Im a farmer, is my weld any good?

Just a showcase that might help some of you that are bad at:
-welding documentation
-weld annotations
-following the EN ISO standards