304SS rod on mild steel?

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can you use 304SS rod to Tig weld mild steel? i want to practice Tigging on mild steel but dont want to buy the rod for it because other than this i have no use for it :-\
Reply:yes, you can use 304, 308, or 309 to weld with carbon steel. Use straight argon gas.UA Local 598
Reply:Mild steel tig rod like 70S2 costs much less than stainless steel tig rod does.JasonLincoln Idealarc 250 stick/tigThermal Dynamics Cutmaster 52Miller Bobcat 250Torchmate CNC tableThermal Arc Hefty 2Ironworkers Local 720
Reply:yes you can. Although it has been mentioned that er70 filler is much cheaper. 308 is the proper filler for 304 parent material in most cases btw.
Reply:Yeah you can but it's a waste of both money and good stainless rod.  Go buy a small tube of 70S-2 to practice with.MM350P/Python/Q300MM175/Q300DialarcHFHTP MIG200PowCon300SMHypertherm380ThermalArc185Purox oaF350CrewCab4x4LoadNGo utilitybedBobcat250XMT304/Optima/SpoolmaticSuitcase12RC/Q300Suitcase8RC/Q400Passport/Q300Smith op
Reply:incidentally I used to use Stainless steel rods for the majority of my repairs to mild steel, you see the austenitic grain structure of stainless steel can hold more "junk" effectively reducing porosity and silica inclusions, the perfect thing for old dirty parts that are hard to clean perfectly.308 or 309 would be the rod of choice for mild steel weldingUsing 309L on mild steel is a trick many welders know and is otherwise called the "magic wire" trick as it seems to magically reduce porosity and silica build up.  http://www.aws.org/cgi-bin/mwf/topic...l=magic%20wire  link goes to the infamous discussion of using 309L on mild steel welds.  long story short it's perfectly fine using 309 or 308 or really any of the 300 series wire if your just practicing but the wire is much more expensive than mild steel so  most people don't go for it.Welding EngineerCertified Scrap Producer