Trouble welding stainless

[Wallace]

You can use the flowmeter to check for leaks by pushing the tungsten up inside the ceramic, locking it off then with the gas check button pressed set the flow to say 8lpm then block the ceramic off with your thumb. The flowmeter ball/bobbin should drop to the bottom, if not you have a leak somewhere.

Looking at the post by Hotrodder the melted material does look like the skin that forms on cooled molten ally. See what colour sparks come off the sheet when you grind it.

 

[Akane]

I am a retard.

Mystery solved.

So. This goes back to the time where I went to pick up the scrap metal from my local metal supplier. Story time.

I walked in, it wasn't the usual owner that I saw previous few times.
So I asked him if I could get some scraps, he doesn't seem to know his way around the workshop.

Anyways, I picked up bits and pieces, I asked "hey is this alumiunium?"
He said: "err. yeah"
Sweet. I'll take some of those.
Oh what about those? Are those stainless steel? (well I assume so it's a lot more shiney-er and have a different feel to the piece of alumiunium I have)
His response: "errr yeah"

Sweet I'll take some of those.

So, I was welding mild steel and aluminium alright.

And then I tried the "Stainless steel" that my friend brought over, he got it as scrap metal when dismantling a kitchen's splash back.
This is when I encountered this problem.
I thought "Sweet, no problem, I picked up some legit the real-deal stainless from the metal supplier, your splash back from the kitchen might be questionable, but mine's the real deal because I asked the guy who sold it to me, and he said it is stainless."
BAM, same issue, balls up.

This is when I panicked, spent half a bottle of D size gas trying to make it work, and posted on the forums.

Now, I did say I tried alloy filler. I must've screwed up from the frustration and not us AC instead of DCEN.

The rest is history.

Here's the new welds I ran:



Left: no filler (With AC this time, dumbass), middle: with aluminium filler, right: DC with Stainless filler.



Please accept my sincere apologies everyone, I screwed up, I think what thrown me off was the supposingly "Stainless" from the metal supplier was still in protective wrap, and not tarnished, while the "Aluminium" sold to me has been around for awhile, totally screwed up identifying it.

This came to light as quite a few of you guys have questioned the base material, and I youtube'd a video where aluminium will not produce a spark when being grinded, and I don't recall sparks flying anywhere while I was cutting it with an angle grinder with a cutting disc.

Sorry everyone, apologies, I've learned a lot, and many thanks for all your help. One step closer to produce better welds!

Thanks!

tl;dr I thought it was stainless, cos the guy said so!

 

[Robotstar5]

We never stop learning, glad you got it sorted

 

[zx9]

We never stop learning, glad you got it sorted

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ WHS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Shox Dr]

Oh so very true.

See my sig

 

[Rrunnach]

Material weight is another good pointer to suss out ferrous or non-ferrous, assuming swg is same?

 

[Shox Dr]

^ It is a bit of a give away. That and a Magnet

 

[Tigman]

Glad your sorted !

 

[BrokenBiker]

^ It is a bit of a give away. That and a Magnet

not all stainless is magnetic though

 

[davidjohnperry]

your right mate not all stainless is non magnetic but if you store stainless i.e 316 with magnetic matierials it will gain a magnetic field at some point

 

[BrokenBiker]

your right mate not all stainless is non magnetic but if you store stainless i.e 316 with magnetic matierials it will gain a magnetic field at some point

but still not really an accurate test though. Especially as the stainless related to this post was bought with aluminium and probably stored together. I usually label my offcuts with tippex

 

[Lawnmowerboy]

Stainless is about twice the weight of ally!! Autensitic stainless is only very slightly magnetic. This is usually 3 series material. Ferritic stst is very magnetic and usually 4 series.

 

[hotrodder]

Glad it's sorted but what about the tungsten oxidation that was going on? Did that fix itself when you changed gas cylinders?