Welding Stainless sheet steel.

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I have a Miller 211 set up for basic steel welding. However i have a project that i have that is made from 16th inch stainless sheet steel. Should this welder be adequate for this project? What size wire should i consider? Also i see alot of chater about gas prefrences. What does everyone like for gas with 304 ?Miller 211Thermal Dynamics cutmaster 42
Reply:Miller has a welding calculator for getting in the ball park with weld settings, although ultimately I'd use whatever the manufacturer of your wire recommends first.

https://www.millerwelds.com/resource...ing-calculatorAssuming you mean 1/16" or 16 gauge stainless steel that machine is made for exactly that sort of light duty work and should run fine assuming you have everything setup right. Shielding gas will depend on what your budget allows, what sort of welding performance you want and whether or not you care about the corrosion resistance. A tri-mix like He-Ar-CO2 would be the good stuff (which is what the miller calculator will tell you as well), where as the Argon/CO2 or Argon/O2 mixes would be your cheaper "don't care about corrosion resistance or weld properties" option. Generally the more CO2 you have the more stable the welding arc but the more likely you are to ruin the corrosion resistance, I think it's like over 10% CO2 and it'll definitely ruin it where as 5% or less is the recommended amount to preserve corrosion resistance. If you don't care about lack of fusion (like you're building lawn art or something) then 100% argon would work but it won't weld as nice as a mixed gas with an arc stabilizer in it (such as Oxygen or CO2) with short circuit transfer mode.Looking through the old copy of AWS A5.32 Specification for Welding Shielding Gases I have access to, it would appear that for short circuit stainless steel GMAW their recommendation is 90% He/7.5% Ar/2.5% CO2 as well, which could be quite expensive depending on how much welding you need to do.Also if you need full penetration welds then you'll need to do something to shield the root side of the weld as well. You can get away with pure Nitrogen for the root side though if memory serves which isn't very expensive usually.
Reply:Yes it would be 16th of a inch and it would be a water tank.
Reply:Probably want to use a tri-mix gas and shield the root side of the weld in that case. A full penetration weld will eliminate any risk of it developing crevice corrosion later on and the tri-mix will help it retain corrosion resistance. Would be best to have some scrap material to practice on so you can dial in the weld settings and make sure you get full penetration in the first shot.Depending on how high a quality water tank you plan on making you may want to pickle the welds when you're done with them to get the best corrosion resistance you can. https://www.twi-global.com/technical...ainless-steels
Reply:Boy, the price of TriMix has hit-the-roof though!I guess anything with Helium in it is now...
Reply:

Originally Posted by BaTu

Boy, the price of TriMix has hit-the-roof though!I guess anything with Helium in it is now...
Reply:

Originally Posted by Thoriated Wolfram

Probably want to use a tri-mix gas and shield the root side of the weld in that case. A full penetration weld will eliminate any risk of it developing crevice corrosion later on and the tri-mix will help it retain corrosion resistance. Would be best to have some scrap material to practice on so you can dial in the weld settings and make sure you get full penetration in the first shot.Depending on how high a quality water tank you plan on making you may want to pickle the welds when you're done with them to get the best corrosion resistance you can. https://www.twi-global.com/technical...ainless-steels
Reply:

Originally Posted by shovelon

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