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Welding Stainless?

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 2:56 am
by jmez1996
Does anybody know if you can braze weld stainless steel tubing?
is there any other way to weld it other than mig/tig welding?
arc welding wouldnt work would it?
cheers

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:23 am
by The Hellforger
don't braze it, that will look shitty and be weak as fuck.

As far as i know there is nothing that would stop you from sticking it other than those welds will also look shitty but they will be infinitely more durable than a braze could ever dream of being

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:25 am
by jmez1996
REALLY? so you can stick weld it with an arc welder?
if that works it will be sooo helpful :D thanks

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:31 am
by The Hellforger
according to wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shielded_metal_arc_welding

you can arc stainless so you should be good to go

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:40 am
by Crna Legija
yeah you can arc weld SS, use electrods for stainless steel only if its stainless to stainless or get some weld-all rods. Its fukn hard to get air tight though.

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:41 am
by The Hellforger
if i were him i would do multiple pass over welds if he has trouble getting it to fully seal

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:47 am
by Crna Legija
The Hellforger wrote:if i were him i would do multiple pass over welds if he has trouble getting it to fully seal

yeah but if it didn't seal initially how would you know its strong enough?
i have welded my own chambers tested to 600psi they leaked so i just epoxyed the gaps lol

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:51 am
by The Hellforger
the tensile strengths coming out of an arc weld are strong enough that over lapping them to seal should be of no concern.

the number one rule for welding is that a good weld will NEVER, EVER break. if there is any failure at all it should be the metal to either side of the weld that goes. And if it does, is it really a metal we want to be building with?

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:55 am
by Crna Legija
The Hellforger wrote:the tensile strengths coming out of an arc weld are strong enough that over lapping them to seal should be of no concern.

the number one rule for welding is that a good weld will NEVER, EVER break. if there is any failure at all it should be the metal to either side of the weld that goes. And if it does, is it really a metal we want to be building with?
yeah but if it leaked it probably didn't penetrate very well=bad weld. :lol:

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:57 am
by The Hellforger
your right. :P

i was just giving him the benefit of the doubt of say maybe a small gap in the weld made it through, etc.

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 4:02 am
by Crna Legija
The Hellforger wrote:your right. :P

i was just giving him the benefit of the doubt of say maybe a small gap in the weld made it through, etc.
yeah lol i was kinda trollin

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 11:51 am
by Gippeto
Have used used silver solder (18000psi tensile) to braze 316 stainless as well as low and medium carbon steels...easy to do with the proper flux and no problems with leakage or joint strength. Calculate the lap area of the joint and use a decent safety factor(6). Shear strength if not published outright, will be 60% of tensile strength.

Since we're talking tubing and not pipe...blow through may be an issue with a stick welder....depending upon your skill level with the welder. :wink:

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 7:16 pm
by jhalek90
Braze it.
If done right, it will look the cleanest, and be plenty strong.
I brazed and tig welded SS for 3 years, if you need any help PM me.

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 10:12 pm
by jmez1996
Yeah i have some silver solder but no oxy acetylene, only propane at the moment so brazing in general would take forever to heat, although if it does work i may look into this :)

However i do have an arc welder and yesterday I tried it with stainless and it worked pretty well, so ill look at getting some stainless steel welding rods.

Thanks.

Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 7:45 am
by biged
Sorry for the late reply. You can arc or mig to regular steel with stainless without any worries.

When the materials are properly welded, ground and polished it just looks damn sexy.

This is a pic of a replica T&E I built for a 1919a4.
The outside "ring" is from a stainless steel pipe, and the center plate material is just mild steel. The stainless gave it that old/worn/used look.

Image
Image

///ed///