Newbie advice on stainless steel welding

[vtechnician]

Hi guys,

I have very little welding experience/knowledge ( just a warning ) However I shockingly managed some half decent welds when building some mild steel brackets for my exhaust. This has given me some courage to tackle my next job: welding 304 stainless silencer into a de-cat pipe (also stainless but not sure which type).

My current set up is this:

cebora 130
Pub gas CO2
adjustable regulator
0.6 mild steel wire

At least I know that the above is no good for welding stainless, so...

Here are some questions:

1) Im going to buy a disposable bottle of Argon/CO2. I see various mixtures ie 2.5%, 5% CO2 etc. Also some sell Argon/O2 for stainless. Ive read 2.5% is best. Is this right?

2) I also need a disposable bottle regulator. Is the regulator gas specific? Or can it be used with other gasses/mixtures?

3) Is 309L 0.6mm wire OK for this job?

Thanks, any other tips will be welcomed!

 

[Mr shiney]

I use .9 and Argoshiled Lite. Works fine for the exhaust work that I do.

 

[chunkolini]

Asking what gas for mig welding Stainless can get heated!
I have done a fair bit with argoshield lite.
When cleaning it avoid using Hydroflouric acid pickling paste.
Horrendous stuff. I was using it innocently for years, not any more.
Do you want to buy some?

 

[Lawnmowerboy]

Antox is the stuff we use, Hateful stuff. That's hydroflouric acid based.

There will be a lot of personal opinions on shielding gas for S/S mig welding. The proper stuff is supposed to be BOC 'Stainshield'. For the very small amount of S/S mig we do we use Coogar 5 (the air products version of Argoshield Lite) as 99% of our stuff is tigged.

 

[vtechnician]

Argoshield would be ideal but im after disposable bottles. As a hobbyist I won't be welding a great deal.

Will these do?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Argon-oxy...735?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item20d030b60f

 

[brewdexta]

Having bought over 30 litres of the stuff anything is possible

 

[Lawnmowerboy]

The gas in the link above will last you about 5 minutes welding and the wire may not be paticularly good quality.