Welding Stainless Steel

Welding produces fumes sparks and smoke that can be harmful.

Welding stainless steel. Don t skimp on your safety equipment you might regret it. Then join the steel together through mig or tig. For thicker base pieces step up to 035 inch to 045 inch welding wire. The most common types for stainless steel welding are stick smaw tig gtaw and mig fcaw or gmaw step 1 safety as with any welding safety is very important.

Although welding stainless steel may not be as difficult as welding aluminum the metal does have its specific properties that vary from your more common steels. Welding stainless steel is not much different from that required in welding standard carbon steel with a few exceptions. This is basically a common and unique process for joining stainless steel. First you must exercise more care and control with regard to heating and cooling stainless steel.

How to tig weld stainless steel. Second it s important to properly match filler metals with the material being welded. When mig welding on stainless you usually have three choices of transfer depending on your equipment. Even though most of the welding machine manufacturers have included a table of materials and voltage settings in the machine it is highly important for you to pick the right kind of gas and electrode wire to be used for mig welding stainless steel.

Alternative gases that you can use are 98 argon and 2 co2 or 98 argon and 2 oxygen mix. This process also uses shielding gas against contamination but you can weld thinner metals more efficiently. Mode of metal transfer. For mig welding stainless steel a shielding gas mixture that s 90 percent helium 7 5 percent argon and 2 5 percent carbon dioxide is generally ideal.

Make sure there is nothing flammable in the area. For most jobs welding stainless steel you ll want to use 030 inch diameter stainless steel welding wire. Tig welding stainless steel is performed by using a non disposable tungsten electrode with a tig welder for striking up the arc.