Is stainless steel a welders Kryptonite ?

[Shayne]

If so why ?

To explain i've been trying for weeks to get a quote for something made up from stainless , nothing fancy imagine a 1msq BBQ grill made up of 16mm s/s bar and your 90% there . Cheapest quote by far was £640 plus vat ! and the best turnaround was at the very least 2 weeks .

Giving up i bought the steel myself for £180 and expect it will take me 2 hours to make the grill as i will be learning as i go .

Any Tips would be appreciated

Should say it's an Arc welder i have borrowed .

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

might not be the material that made it expensive, might be the design, or a combination of both, or it's a fiddly job they don't really want so give you a go away price

 

[Shayne]

Its a job for an apprentice Jon seriously spot weld 30 round bars to a frame i even gave them an inch leeway on all measurements except the spacing of the bars . Maybe that was the problem - it wasn't challenging enough ?

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

the devil is usually in the details, but if you can do it yourself then you'll save a bundle of cash. Stainless welds pretty much like mild steel with the right filler material and gas. Main thing to know is stainless is much harder than mild steel so cutting it blunts tools much quicker but for what it sounds like you're doing a 4.5" angle grinder with thin cutting discs won't hardly notice any difference.

 

[Shayne]

I've been given 2.5 stainless rods by a mate and a small but powerful grinder , well i imagine its better than my B&Q £9.99 special offer because his comes with a transformer ? another mate suggests 150 to 160 amps works best and i'm warned to tap away any crusting as quick as i can because it might spit off long after i've removed my mask .

 

[Ben]

Try and practice on some off cuts first if possible.

I taught myself to ARC weld, but my early welds were far from pretty!

Also you want the rods to be as dry as possible, so maybe stick them in the airing cupboard for a few days if they've been out in a cold garage/shed/workshop.

 

[Shayne]

Thanks Ben i don't have a few days but i can heat them first which might help . I should make it clear that i've never owned a welder and my only real experience was welding my fuel tank guard brackets back together when i raised it after a body lift . Touch wood though i'm pretty good at monkey see monkey do and i have seen plenty of welding while working on boats .

 

[MuckyPup]

Nothing magic about it but stainless welding is only really done for the food industry, hence the prices.
A proper stainless fabrication place will basically ban any mild steel from the premises since mild steel sparks and carbon steel cutting discs will cause rust spots and stains on stainless fabrications.

Start at 60A and work upwards until the rod stops sticking. Brand new sealed rods are best (you can't dry out rods) and striking the rod and doing a small weld to warm up the rod will help the proper weld.
Leave to cool but do watch out for the slag spitting off, it comes off like bullets.

 

[Ben]

You can dry out rods!

Weve been learning about it at college recently and its quite commonly done in the industry! At my technical college we store the rods in there packets, most of which are open to the atmosphere and so adsorb moisture.
A few days before the rods are to be used there put in special little ovens to dry them out before use.

https://www.rodovens.com/welding_articles/storage_electrodes.htm

http://www.lincolnelectric.com/en-us/support/welding-how-to/pages/storing-electrodes-detail.aspx

Another thing I thought of Shayne is that it might help if you make sure the stainless is nice and clean before welding. I don't know how critical it is with ARC but certainly for TIG it makes a huge difference! I've just started TIG welding stainless.

 

[Paul_Humphreys]

Was going to say that also Ben, put them in the oven just after the roast is cooked and once dinner has been done, start welding .

As for cutting stainless and drilling it, keep it COLD. Use to work with SS lots.

 

[Shayne]

The steel which was promised today didn't arrive but its probably just as well or i would have been trying to do it in the rain , whatever happens its not gonna be pretty but it doesn't need to be as long as its solid .

 

[clivehorridge]

Was going to say that also Ben, put them in the oven just after the roast is cooked and once dinner has been done, start welding

Sunday dinner? Oven? Ben? If it won't cook on a BBQ I'm sure Ben won't be eating it! Can you dry rods on a BBQ? Probably

 

[Shayne]

Steel arrived and first lesson learned already - starting with 100amp just burnt straight through the 1 inch box section frame i'm making , to be fair i should have reasoned the mate who told me 150-160 typically deals in very thick steel . This led to my second lesson - 40amp is perfect to rebuild the hole i had burnt away . That's half hour wasted already and now i can't get the disc out of the grinder so its tea break while penetrating oil does its work .

 

[MuckyPup]

LOL, regarding drying out rods, speak to the manufacturers and maybe read a bit about the bloke that taught me. AC Davies. The bloke who quite literally wrote the book.
Technically they dry out, in practice they're not to spec and can't be used and are never the same.
Taken to the nth degree this involves vacuum packed packs of 5 rods that are thrown away after being open more than 4 hours............

Go ahead, used dried rods. Maybe go back to candles and horses too if you really like life hard. Both work but i know which i prefer.
Buy sealed rods with dessicant and keep them dry, its never an issue then........

The same people who say you can dry rods use copper coated mig wire and don't clean the oil from Tig wire. Makes no odds when building a BBQ, but I like life easy (and right)
Having said all that i've also welded rusty water mains upside down while stood in 3 feet of mud with a box of rods that had flux falling off them whilst sheltering under a hi-vis coat. The main A5 hasn't flooded so it worked ok....

 

[MuckyPup]

Steel arrived and first lesson learned already - starting with 100amp just burnt straight through the 1 inch box section frame i'm making , to be fair i should have reasoned the mate who told me 150-160 typically deals in very thick steel.

2.5 rod is 2.5 rod, whether welding a BBQ or the QE2. hence why i said start at 60A and work up until it stops sticking. I''ve rarely worked below 60A with a 2.5 and rarely above 80A but it depends on welder, power supply and rod type / brand.
Trying to fill a hole is a waste of time, using a rod stub as a filler helps, but really filling holes with weld is not only a bodge but also making life difficult.

 

[Shayne]

Truth is i waited so long to get the stuff i just polished the ends to be welded with a sanding wheel and got started . Holes filled ok and you can't tell they were there once its wizzed over with a grinder . Lots of time wasted as the grinder has a lose wire so stops and starts at will and having no bench to work on (or even flat ground) is a pita . Pissing down today so no welding instead i stripped and fixed the grinder then went to B&Q to get some wood strips cut to help space the bars correctly . Its a whelk riddle i'm making (looks very much like a bbq grill) and spacing is a legal requirement . Right now i'm thinking the only difference between a good welder and a bad welder is the bad welder uses more rods , i better order a truck full of rods then

 

[Shayne]

Its not pretty i know but it will do the job its intended for and that's what matters most and as a bonus with the money i've saved by doing it myself some genuine MrT brand new seatbelts are on the way to me .

 

[yogi]

Its not pretty i know but it will do the job its intended for and that's what matters most and as a bonus with the money i've saved by doing it myself some genuine MrT brand new seatbelts are on the way to me .

Looks all right to me Shayne!!

What is it?

 

[clivehorridge]

Looks all right to me Shayne!!

What is it?

 

[yogi]

Twas the welds I was referencing Clive. Smart a55!!

I have just discovered its a BBQ grill. I'm puzzled as to why you would make that out of stainless though Shayne?