Chineese Stainless welding Quest.

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I do not post here much, but I lurk around here a lot. I just got a Miller 180SD syncrowave machine. I am practicing as much as I can. I have a job to weld some stainless for the club/bar I bounce at. They asked me to weld some stainless rod to a stainless Ice bucket. These rods will be bent in a way that they will hold small bottles (3 attached to each bucket 120 degrees apart). They supplied me with the stainless bucket. On the bottom of the bucket is made in China and it says "stainless 10/18". I already made a jig to bend the .250 308 Rod. What filler should I use to weld the rod to the bucket. I am thinking 308 filler. Hard to explain what I am doing but I will post a pic when I bend the rod tomorrow.  Thanks    T.J.
Reply:TJS, I think that 10-18 designation has the cart before the horse.  Or maybe the Chinese do things backwards and reverse their designations.  CRES (corrosion resistant steels) used to be referred to by their percentage of chromium followed by the percentage of nickel.  "18-8", for example is 17-19% Cr, 7-9% Ni, some low amounts of other elements and the remainder Fe.  The more accepted system uses American Welding Society (AWS) designations like 302, 308, 430, etc.  But except for some rare alloys, the percentages of Cr is always considerably higher than the percentage of Ni.  So, assuming they really meant "18-10", that means it could be either 301, 302, 302B, 303, 304, 305, 308 or 316(which I doubt) CRES. Odds are it's 302.  308 is an appropriate filler rod for all except 316, which should use 316.  Hope this helps.
Reply:thanks for the help. I used 308 and it worked fine. I will post pics when I am done.  T.J.www.tjsperformance.comDynasty 300 DXHTP 240HTP Microcut 380Hyperthem 85JD2 Hyd Bender and HF Hyd Ring Roller all in one =(Frankenbender)Bpt. Mill/DRO4' x 8' CNC Plasma TableInstagram: tjsperformanceYT: TJS Welding and Fabrication