is it possible to gas weld stainless steel?

just askin because we have a torch at home and whatnot, but not a tig. we do have a mig tho.

out of a gas welder or a mig welder which is better? i can tig weld somewhat good on 4130 thinwall tubing, which i hear is pretty hard to do.

later

andrew

 

Yep, you can mig stainless quite easily, but you need a different gas combo.. I can't for the life of me remember what it was tho.. I'm using an arc welder to do all my stainless.. It was easier/cheaper to get the stainless rods rather than a new tank of mig gas and some stainless wire.

Cheers!

 

100% Argon is preferred but 75/25% Argon/CO2 will work also.

Brad...

 

> 75/25% Argon/CO2

That's what I was thinking of...

 

sweet, this can make things a bit easier for me

 

stainless welds like **** with a mig if you use the 75/25 mix.....100% argon works pretty good.

its still a little trickier to weld than mild steel though.

if you want it to come out awesome and professional looking you gotta tig it though

 

yea tig welding i perfer more to do on stainless and alumin. metals. hell if i was still in skool u could send me the parts and i could tig weld that stuff up like a damn pro did it. but im not in skool no more.

but with the mig welding if ur doing the stainless steel, u want to pre-heat the stainless steel with a regular old propane blow torch and when u think its nice and hot then do the mig welding, its alot easier to preheat the metal first and then weld other wise when u start weldin the beginng might not be as good as the end results.

 

ya, welding stainless with a mig is not for the novice lol. Neither is tig welding for that matter though.

for aluminum and stainless and of course titanium, tig is the best and sometimes only option.....

when its mild steel though, tig is for people that like to weld a bit too much hehe

 

they make a tri blend gas with helium that works
well . i repair stainless liquid jackets and build
stainless conveyors using it and it works ...
no replacement for a tig but nothing wrong
for auto work

mike

 

cool, i was unaware of that...i'll have to check it out. my uncle is professional welder and he talks about heli-arcing all the time....that sounds like it might be that

 

heli-arcing is another term for TIG.

Stainless will MIG weld OK with stainless wire and C25, it usually acts like you just don't have enough shielding gas, you get small, slightly bumpy cratered beads.

With Straight argon it works pretty well, and tri-mix is designed as a compromise which is supposed to add a little more heat to the weld.

For that matter, most lower grades of stainless will weld with ‘high performance’ (high silicon content) mild steel wire like ER70S6 very nicely, but you end up with a weld bead that will be prone to rusting.

 

ya i hate when that happens.

 

hmmmmmmmm

well the plan now is to somehow get access to my school's shop and their tig welder.