Paste/epoxy type filler substance

[Ameer Kasim]

Hi all! This question may be quite old but it will be useful to me. For a Stainless steel 304 material with lesser than 1.5 mm thickness, which type of welding you would suggest - MIG or TIG?

Is there any paste/epoxy type filler substance available for filling small gaps instead of welding. Does it give similar effect of welding? Further, is there any stainless steel sticker type material available?

With regards,

Syed Kasim Ameer
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

 

[GeorgeB]

Welcome to the forum. TIG is normally recommended for stainless welding, for both ease and strength of application, as well as final appearance. You may get away with MIG, though.

I used epoxy resin to plug rust holes in a mild steel fuel tank about 10 years ago. The repair still holds good. Epoxy sticks well but it lacks much structural strength unless it's used with carbon fibre in an expert way. For Government (MOT) car tests conducted annually in the UK, resin repairs are never accepted in structural areas, but you can use it to, for example, plug a rust hole in the middle of a car door. I have, and would too, because there's less heat and paint damage than with welding. For such applications, I rate epoxy resin very highly.

Filler and resin are also used to plug small gaps and imperfections after the underlying metal has been welded, e.g. in structural areas on cars and that's acceptable for the UK MOT. You're probably not talking about car welding but the same principles apply. Epoxy is great for filling small gaps but not if it's a critical area in terms of strength or if you need a seamless surface of stainless metal for appearance. Epoxy resin would normally be painted and you may not want paint in the middle of a stainless item.

 

[hotrodder]

Depends what the part is for... TIG often the best/cheapest solution overall when finishing (weld cleanup etc) is taken into account unless there's a posh synergic/clever MIG to hand

With regards to fillers and the like a huge variety of stuff that'll physically work but again depends on service environment of the part. Off the top of my head i can't think of any application that calls for stainless where epoxies/fillers would be acceptable