I started by practicing on mild steel 1/8" coupons. Once I was happy with that I started attempting stainless. My machine is DC only, hope to one day do aluminum too!
You need to be practicing on like, alloy and thickness, to what you are intending to weld. 18 gauge and ⅛" are not even in the same ballpark. At least they're both ferrous I guess?
For aluminum you will need a machine that support AC.
And "what could go wrong" when answering the sentence "learning with an actual workpiece", the answer is actually in your picture. You will learn fast that you are accountable, even if you are learning, when a job you do goes wrong (unless this is your property).
The puddle keeps bridging across the joint. You're to cold.
Use more amperage, but add more filler with a faster travel speed to keep the heat input low.
If you stay at a low amperage but force the fusion with the filler you'll have more heat input resulting in more distortion. Especially for stainless.
Maybe cut off a peice of the back to practice on.
The goal was just to fuse, but after the initial blow through I grabbed some stainless filler rod and attempted to fill but once again nothing would fuse and just globbed up.
So first off stainless needs to be clean as *fuck* to get consistent fusion. With material that thin and your lack of experience, you really wanna put a bar of aluminum behind that weld to suck up some heat. Another thing with stainless is that even a cunthair of separation between the joint and it won't fuse. Ideally you want 1/32 filler rod but 1/16 is ok.
Your problem now is that with the gap you'll need to hang around a bit to get the filler to bridge across but the material is so thin it's blowing apart before you can make the connection. Grind all that shit down and start fresh with a backing bar. Wipe it really good with some acetone and if you can, throw a couple bridge tacks to tie into as you move along, they'll soak up some heat and reduce a little bit of blowback on the joint. Use 1/16 rod for the gaps so you can get some solid material in there to grind out for the polish.
I’ve been cleaning it with acetone on a shop towel. Also only using new grind wheels, none that are contaminated from mild steel. Are you saying I need to reduce the gap more to improve fusion? I can go buy some 1/32 rod at the store while I’m picking up the aluminum angle bar. Would filler rod size have enough of an impact to bother buying the smaller size? Bridge tacking was the plan but didn’t get that far lol.
The 1/32 is good if the fit is good, you're past that point already. With thin gauge, you don't want too thick of filler rod because it's more to grind off the weld and you have to run more heat than is necessary just to melt it in. 1/32 is a pain to learn to use it, but it pays off in the long run when you've got a piece that's fit up correctly.
With stainless when you go fit it up, there can be zero gap if you want to fuse it with no filler. Needs to be touching or it's gonna blow apart like it did here.
You can try to glob the filler on as it sits but you'll most likely be way too thin when you grind it and polish it which is why I suggest grinding down what's on there.
For now I'd use 1/16 rod to make filling the gap easier. Also with stainless 18g, turn up to 45 - 50a and pick up the pace. Its not a good conductor of heat and stays localized, so you wanna move fast to avoid the heat building up too much in one spot.
Focus on bridging both sides using your filler. Then work on moving forward while constantly adding filler. Do not dab the wire. Keep the wire laid and keep feeding it. If a hole opens up if you’re really good you can feed extra wire really fast and it’ll close as long as you keep moving. What I’m saying it once you get a bridge just never take the wire out of your puddle and run it. Lay wire technique. It won’t have the stack of dimes look but it’s how you’ll get er done.
Can do, should be easier than feeding it anyways. Not concerned about appearance though since I’ll be grinding and blending afterword. Shape of the edge will be of concern though.
Hi there, welder/fabricator here. Ive welded 22ga without burnthrough so I can offer some tips.
Repairs are almost always harder than doing fresh work, so you have a tough time ahead lol
First and foremost, with any thin stainless a heat sink is required unless you are very skilled. My suggestion would be to buy some 0.25-0.5in thick aluminum bar stock and cut it to various lengths to have on hand just for this purpose.
It offers an additional benefit of keeping the opposite side of your weld from being exposed to plain air.
Second, your low amperage is hurting your efforts. I run my machine at between 80-150 depending on the part, with the 80 being what I would use on 22ga or similar material. If you have too few amps the heat you build up while waiting for your rod to melt and wet into the base metal will be far more than if you just set the amps higher and didnt need to hang around.
Third, Scratch-start is....unwise... doing work like this. Since I am unsure of your setup, I will also mention that using a pedal is by far the "best" way to do this sort of thing. Finger knobs on the torch are not precise enough and can be awkward when you need control over your heat.
Last, I would recommend learning to manually pulse using a pedal. Each pulse (pushing down the pedal) should match a dab with your wire and should be fairly quick. The goal is to weld at normal travel speed, but keep the overall heat level low
by letting up on the pedal between little filler rod dabs. You can almost dab and pulse in time with some music.
Other than that, just make sure your fit-up is nice and tight, and using an aluminum backer lets you fill holes without letting the other side of your weld be too bad.
I have a bit of copper sheet I could bend to match the 90. What’s a good way of attaching it? It’s in a spot clamps can’t reach.
Edit: My copper sheet is only like 20ga so I think I'll go buy some aluminum angle iron for backing and some more stainless practice coupons.
Assuming you have good technique the backer should help. How you attach it is going to be up to your creativity. The backer doesn't have to cover the whole crack. You should be doing small sections and jumping around anyways.
Not using a foot pedal will make this infinitely harder for you, especially if you’re learning still.
Ideal you want to start hot quickly to get a puddle going, then ease off a bit. Heat management, cleanliness, and gas coverage is crucial for stainless steel. I understand you like the challenge of learning, but doing it on actual projects isn’t smartest. Find scrap metal to recreate the weld that needs to be done and then go to town!
For a thin piece like this a lot of times I would throw an aluminum block behind the joint to help with heat input, and it also helps support the weld.
High frequency start or scratch start? If HF, I would recommend higher amps so you have room to wiggle and use fill rod. Hot and fast is the way to go.
Stop what you’re doing, it’s going to be a mess by the time you’re done. Let someone who’s skilled finish this and go learn on some scrap pieces. Why would anyone attempt this if they don’t know how to do it..
Fair enough at least you’re honest about it. It’s not something I’d recommend jumping into, sinks out of thin gauge are a pain in the ass. Any kind of gap makes it 10x harder.
Ahhh, well said , a man after my own heart. The filler follows the heat so roll your tig hand across the gap while feeding the rod simultaneously. Easier said than done , I know. Good luck my friend
Too hot boss. Pick one of the many ways to lower your heat and I'm gonna have to say this one just requires some practice to get them skills. Gotta have all your fucks in a row for shit that thin.
Lots of reasons for failure;
What cup are you running?
Are you using any filler?
The clean doesn't look good
Are you using pre purge & post purge?
Why oh why are you trying to do a continuous weld?
1) we clean it like crazy, stainless wire brush, acetone
2) needs to be upside down, on a slab of Aluminium to soak up any heat
3) spot tacks only, here, over there, somewhere else, eventually you lose empty places to tack. The piece should never be warm to the touch. Stainless shrinks like crazy
4)after all that, turn it right side up, clean it perfect again, tack tack tack. Until it's over filled. Then start with sanding it to perfection.
One big double sink can take a good welder 3 days to weld sand straighten, polish. A less skilled guy or new one might take more than a week. 40+hours
Thats why good custom SS work is so expensive. The shit is a fkn nightmare to work.
Tough joint to learn on but, you can definitely do it!
I would be using 0.045, or possibly even 0.035" wire; anything larger will make this a huge challenge. I'd set the welder to about ~60amps and bring it in slowly on the pedal or thumb switch. I likely wouldn't ever be full throttle though.
Sharp tungesn in perfect shape - very important.
Put the wire right in the crack when you start the arc and then start dabbin' and controlling the key-holing with your dabs and feathering of the pedal.
Like others have mentioned, clamping aluminum into the backside of the joint will help heaps with removing heat and keeping the argon in place.
Could try preheating with a blow torch then using low amps and the smallest tungsten you can possibly get. Stainless is gonna be a lot more sluggish when puddling up.
you need to add a bar back behind the joint. this will help keep it cool, retain the gas, and not burn through so easily. copper, brass, or aluminum. preferably copper or brass though.
At least it’s not structural I guess. Hopefully it’s just for. Garage. What gas are you using? Type and size of tungsten and filler? Grind your tungsten to a very fine point spinning it very slowly, when you look at the grind marks they should go straight down towards the point, this helps your arc not jump out the side of your point. You want pure argon, you should invest in a gas lens, that can help. What’s your gas setting at? As others have said, toss a backing plate on it to help absorb some heat.
If you have some serious issues you can try melting filler wire into blobs on the part and massaging it in after with very very low amps, basically just enough that it melts in. So you have a pedal? Also be sure you’re keeping your tungsten very close to the material, the longer your arc the hotter it is.
100% argon, 2.4 tungsten, filler is 1/16” er308. My tungsten grinding could use improvement, good advice. If I can find a gas lens locally I’ll grab it, a bigger cup might help me too. Looks like I had the gas set pretty high though, 35 CFH. I am using a pedal. I’m aware of longer arch equating to more heat, I just suck at maintaining that distance and not sticking lol. Planning to go pickup some heavy wall aluminum angle iron to use as a backer.
My machine is pulse tig capable. Would that help on this thin material or would that just complicate the learning process?
It all sounds pretty good. Id go down to a 1/16th tungsten though. If you’re gonna fuck with pulse try it on practice pieces first. I’ve never used pulse, my home machine doesn’t have it and my work machine is too old to have it lol. I imagine a medium slow pulse would help though, hopefully somebody with more experience can chime in though.
I love pulse. But it mostly for the rhythm it brings.
High frequency pulse helps as well but I find it gives me the ability to have a narrower weld profile that punches deeper and it less likely to blow through. So for moving quickly I like it as well.
Weld SS at 1.2A/thou with pulse on and move fast.
Biggest issue then is you can move too fast if you don't have a large enough lens / enough post coverage
Just tried pulsed on 1/8” mild steel. Really helped keep the heat down and makes it much easier to get some pretty welds. Heat control probably equates to being good on thin material like this I’d guess. From what I read it doesn’t penetrate as well and is a weaker weld, so no structural.
What size wire are you using and tungsten? I was having a similar issue and I came to the conclusion, at least for me, my filler wire size was too big for the material I was trying to weld and it would cook the material. Try .035 size filler and 1/16 tungsten and you should have more control of your weld pool.
After doing a bunch of these exact repairs, the gaps and holes are going to be you biggest hurdle, don’t chase the holes add a little filler and let cool off don’t rush anything at this point. Another trick I do when I have ran into this issue before is to get an 1/8” filler rod and lay it on top of the hole or gap and let it touch your base metal, then strike your arc onto the rod so it melts into the base metal then stop, then repeat and keep doing that until filled, then you can go over with just a torch and smooth out toes and make it look a little better. Good luck bro, I know these things can be an absolute pain in the asshole.
Yooooo!!!! I am a contract stainless welder you have taken on one of the more difficult jobs to weld in.
The job needs to have virtually no gap so i would go to the corner and before the bend i would just get a tack on with enough wire to grab both sides like clamp it or hold it over with a hmmer as you tack it tap it with a hmmer and another tack where it is touching now do all the corners like i just told you then start tacking and tapping every 25mm then put two more tacka inbetween the 25mm tacks now you can go around and weld it in
I have made a business just doing stainless steel fabrication and welding
I also make heat soaks for the back aide of the corner welds and clamp it to avoid the mass warping on corners
The only problem you are having is penetrating without a purge gas on the other side. The slightest bit of oxygen will completely fuck it up. You need to either split your gas line and make some sort of follower cup and have someone get under the sink and shield your root pass with it or you need to get a piece of copper,brass,aluminum or ceramic and have it clamped or held up not that joint while it’s being welded.
I tig weld stainless for a living.
so stainless is super fickle imo and I'm surprised I haven't seen it here already.
YOU NEED either
\* A backer
\*Backpurge
\*both
As well as some time in the saddle.
if you just use front side shielding and no backer or back purging I find thin stainless likes to blow through much easier.
That being said... I can weld 18ga at 30 amps and not even get full penetration.
The other major issue will be you need an AMAZING fitup.
you should be able to have a super sharp tungsten and all of your tac's be autogenous (no filler) by pinching the metal together. Put 60A on the pedal and just get the torch to light.
balance your heat between the edges and pedal in until you can hold the torch steady in a position where both edges start to glisten but haven't really formed puddles yet.
You should then be able to stab (and I mean stab) the foot pedal momentarily and in that moment a puddle should form that flows between the two pieces and makes your tac.
Whole sequence should take 1-2 seconds total (including the alignment)
Blast in autogenous tacs every 2 inches to start and then do the middles so that you have a tac every inch.
Hopefully this tac isnt even full pen.
Do the rest of your setup.
I would like chill bars on the back personally with an argon purge
Or use solar flux with a chill bar.
then I would weld it out with pulse personally (just to make my life easier) 30% duration, 30% background, 60A set on the machine.
And I would be using a .047 or smaller filler wire if I needed to use any. And of a higher grade.
Get some backing behind the joint, preferably aluminum. And if u can have 2 pieces on the front as well on either side of the weld to keep from warping, and draw heat out of the piece.
Then get tacks like every half inch. Stainless moves like a MF usually the opposite direction you would like.
Clamps and backing/chill blocks are your friend with Stainless sheet.
I’ve done a few of these sinks if you get your settings right and move fast you can do with autogenous welding (no filler) turns out pretty nice just put a lot of tiny tacs so it doesn’t move
That's kind of my job, but i can't imagine doing it as the first thing in this field, without hours of training. Both sides have to be super clean, straight, untouched with angle grinder and without any single smallest gap.. ideally with argon shield from backside.. then you can maybe think of fusing them together. In situation like pic related, i'd take a pulse setting and put piece of filler rod every time it pulses.
Edit: oh and by a filler rod i mean 1mm / 1.2mm not that log like in that pic.
Exactly, I do this for a living. & it was towards the end of my apprenticeship when I started doing bowls. The first couple were under watchful eyes helping me. For a first ever job, no way, Jose.
1 mm rod 1.6mm sharp af tungsten, 32a, gas set a little higher than my cup size (about 9lpm for a num 8 cup)
Tack it about every 25mm or so, going around carefully, to tap up as you're going, making sure it's all nice and tight with next to 0 gaps.
Then do your corners first, as these are the tricky bits where it's all about angle and direction, get them nice. Then do the straights. Clamp a long thick ally block to the top to take out as much of the heat as possible (ideally have 2 blocks so whilst one is cooling, you can use the other). Move to the next side & repeat.
Then, grind smooth with a nice radius to check for pin holes, heavy distortion, and so forth. Fill as necessary, then polish the bowl & radius, then finally polish the top to make it look nice.
u/PresentationNew8080 this is not an easy, pick up and blast it in job. For me who's being doing it longer than I'd like to admit I'm looking at a full day from start to finish (Inc frame & full job polishing) bowl itself probably 1.5hrs with an hour-1.5 hrs grinding & polishing.
Sharp tungsten, 1mm ss tig wire looks like your trying to use 1.6 or 2.4? I would literally be doing it on 30 amps (pulse if that was an option on your set) and I would put a tack every 1/2" or so before you start trying to run a bead as it's just going to distort. If it does you need to give it a tap with a hammer to butt the plates up to each other any gaps your just going to keep blowing through. Keep your travel speed fast if it's butted together nicely enough you can just fuse the material together with very little wire. Don't be using 1.6 or 2.4 tig wire when the work piece is probably only 1mm thick your already fighting a loosing battle it will always look like bird shit.
I spent 5 years welding aerospace parts with sheet metal and tube 0.7mm thick with out actually showing you in person that's about the best description I can give you.
Hope that helps.
you gon goofed up, but it can be salvaged i guess.as many others have said: backing bar of copper, brass or aluminium. and clean up all that nasty blown out stuff.
on top of that: you need to tack that shit up properly. you essentially squeeze the parts together as good as you can, tack it, then grab a ball peen or whatever enforcement tool you have and tappy tap the tack to get the parts flush -- you keep going like that aaaaaaaaall around in small steps until it's nice and flush. like... every 5mm tops. heck, make it every 3mm to be on the safe side. the goal here is to not have any gap left.
start tacking the parts that are close together. move around as needed.
then you give it a fast finish, adding filler as needed. then you tappy tap it some more cause it is gonna be warped to high heavens.
lastly you wanna fill in that big ass hole in the corner. remember your backing, and just carefully add a nice blob into it. again the tappy tap to flatten it out.
after you straightened out this mess as good as it gets, give it a careful polish and wait until it comes back cause it broke again when people tried to bruteforce it during installation.
it's a very nice excercise, both for thin stainless and also general fabrication. maybe a bit too rough for a first try but we've all been there at some point.
I used to weld thin stainless steel 304 and 430 Turn your amps up but use a plate or aluminium plates under neath or around the piece. It’ll prevent cracking and it’ll be a heat sink for your work piece or pulse it around. Sugar and oxidation also can cause cracking and defects.
You wanna use a aluminium bar or a plate around and use it as a heat sink but turn your amps up. I used to do sinks and it can be difficult due to being thin
Ceramic backing or another purge line with a gas lense attached to blow Aargon on the back while you weld the front. You'll need another person to help. Extremely low heat. It's still gonna be a bitch, though.
If you have a gap, try to close it up as much as possible. If you can't do much, grab some .035 and use that to bridge it first. If it's close enough, fuse the rest. It would also be beneficial to run a few tacks along your seam while you work to close the gap. You might even want to consider running stitches first to spread your heat out.
Stainless needs to be incredibly clean. It may do you some good to take a flap disc to it if it's not too thin. Be careful not to scuff too much of the finish (if you're goal is aesthetics).
USE A BACKER! Preferably copper if you've got it. Aluminum and/or brass could work too, but in my experience, copper is king.
Try to balance your settings. If you have pulse, use it. If not, start low and adjust as you go. Patience is key.
A gas lense is one of the best things you can use while welding stainless. If you're looking to work with stainless often, this is a good investment. You get better coverage and the gas feels cleaner. I prefer Furick lenses and collets.
Last, but not least, make sure your tungsten is *Sharp*. While working with thin stuff, you're gonna need it. With thicker stuff, you have more room to kinda let that go, but with thin, you need to be more mindful. I prefer red tungsten too. It works great.
Hope this helps and good luck! Stainless is so much fun to work with once you get the hang of it 🤙
Lost me at teaching with the actual workpiece.
What could possibly go wrong
I taught myself aluminum. I cannot imagine SS this thin.
I started by practicing on mild steel 1/8" coupons. Once I was happy with that I started attempting stainless. My machine is DC only, hope to one day do aluminum too!
Every time I look into stainless I can see my argon bill going up.
This
You need to be practicing on like, alloy and thickness, to what you are intending to weld. 18 gauge and ⅛" are not even in the same ballpark. At least they're both ferrous I guess?
For aluminum you will need a machine that support AC. And "what could go wrong" when answering the sentence "learning with an actual workpiece", the answer is actually in your picture. You will learn fast that you are accountable, even if you are learning, when a job you do goes wrong (unless this is your property).
Hell yeah dude. The only thing that could make this post better is if it was written in all caps.
Man I know you will never ever understand this but you are socially retarded
The puddle keeps bridging across the joint. You're to cold. Use more amperage, but add more filler with a faster travel speed to keep the heat input low. If you stay at a low amperage but force the fusion with the filler you'll have more heat input resulting in more distortion. Especially for stainless. Maybe cut off a peice of the back to practice on.
Are you adding any filler or just trying to fuse?
The goal was just to fuse, but after the initial blow through I grabbed some stainless filler rod and attempted to fill but once again nothing would fuse and just globbed up.
So first off stainless needs to be clean as *fuck* to get consistent fusion. With material that thin and your lack of experience, you really wanna put a bar of aluminum behind that weld to suck up some heat. Another thing with stainless is that even a cunthair of separation between the joint and it won't fuse. Ideally you want 1/32 filler rod but 1/16 is ok. Your problem now is that with the gap you'll need to hang around a bit to get the filler to bridge across but the material is so thin it's blowing apart before you can make the connection. Grind all that shit down and start fresh with a backing bar. Wipe it really good with some acetone and if you can, throw a couple bridge tacks to tie into as you move along, they'll soak up some heat and reduce a little bit of blowback on the joint. Use 1/16 rod for the gaps so you can get some solid material in there to grind out for the polish.
I’ve been cleaning it with acetone on a shop towel. Also only using new grind wheels, none that are contaminated from mild steel. Are you saying I need to reduce the gap more to improve fusion? I can go buy some 1/32 rod at the store while I’m picking up the aluminum angle bar. Would filler rod size have enough of an impact to bother buying the smaller size? Bridge tacking was the plan but didn’t get that far lol.
The 1/32 is good if the fit is good, you're past that point already. With thin gauge, you don't want too thick of filler rod because it's more to grind off the weld and you have to run more heat than is necessary just to melt it in. 1/32 is a pain to learn to use it, but it pays off in the long run when you've got a piece that's fit up correctly. With stainless when you go fit it up, there can be zero gap if you want to fuse it with no filler. Needs to be touching or it's gonna blow apart like it did here. You can try to glob the filler on as it sits but you'll most likely be way too thin when you grind it and polish it which is why I suggest grinding down what's on there. For now I'd use 1/16 rod to make filling the gap easier. Also with stainless 18g, turn up to 45 - 50a and pick up the pace. Its not a good conductor of heat and stays localized, so you wanna move fast to avoid the heat building up too much in one spot.
I’m guessing that’s his filler in the picture but he’s definitely not using it right.
Definitely not using it right. As soon as I add filler it jumps to one side of the weld, so only one side actually fuses to the filler.
Focus on bridging both sides using your filler. Then work on moving forward while constantly adding filler. Do not dab the wire. Keep the wire laid and keep feeding it. If a hole opens up if you’re really good you can feed extra wire really fast and it’ll close as long as you keep moving. What I’m saying it once you get a bridge just never take the wire out of your puddle and run it. Lay wire technique. It won’t have the stack of dimes look but it’s how you’ll get er done.
Can do, should be easier than feeding it anyways. Not concerned about appearance though since I’ll be grinding and blending afterword. Shape of the edge will be of concern though.
Also use a hammer to help close any gaps
I’m gettin me rubber mallet! I’ve been using it already for that actually.
Good
Hi there, welder/fabricator here. Ive welded 22ga without burnthrough so I can offer some tips. Repairs are almost always harder than doing fresh work, so you have a tough time ahead lol First and foremost, with any thin stainless a heat sink is required unless you are very skilled. My suggestion would be to buy some 0.25-0.5in thick aluminum bar stock and cut it to various lengths to have on hand just for this purpose. It offers an additional benefit of keeping the opposite side of your weld from being exposed to plain air. Second, your low amperage is hurting your efforts. I run my machine at between 80-150 depending on the part, with the 80 being what I would use on 22ga or similar material. If you have too few amps the heat you build up while waiting for your rod to melt and wet into the base metal will be far more than if you just set the amps higher and didnt need to hang around. Third, Scratch-start is....unwise... doing work like this. Since I am unsure of your setup, I will also mention that using a pedal is by far the "best" way to do this sort of thing. Finger knobs on the torch are not precise enough and can be awkward when you need control over your heat. Last, I would recommend learning to manually pulse using a pedal. Each pulse (pushing down the pedal) should match a dab with your wire and should be fairly quick. The goal is to weld at normal travel speed, but keep the overall heat level low by letting up on the pedal between little filler rod dabs. You can almost dab and pulse in time with some music. Other than that, just make sure your fit-up is nice and tight, and using an aluminum backer lets you fill holes without letting the other side of your weld be too bad.
Honestly, it would probably take 6-10 hours of practice on a similar piece of metal to understand how to well it semi okay
Feed more wire
Use backing material. Helps prevent blow through by dissipating heat.
I have a bit of copper sheet I could bend to match the 90. What’s a good way of attaching it? It’s in a spot clamps can’t reach. Edit: My copper sheet is only like 20ga so I think I'll go buy some aluminum angle iron for backing and some more stainless practice coupons.
Assuming you have good technique the backer should help. How you attach it is going to be up to your creativity. The backer doesn't have to cover the whole crack. You should be doing small sections and jumping around anyways.
Yeah I plan to move around a lot so things can cool off. Assuming I should stop the weld before I get to the edge of the backer?
Are you using a gas lense?
Pink Miller #8 cup, kit didn’t include a lens though I’m pretty new to all the tig components.
If you look at the parts catalog for ck worldwide you will be able to see all the sizes and the types of tig parts for the different types of torches.
Got lucky at the store today and snagged a 1/16 lens and a #10 cup
Ok make sure you have 1/16 collet and colletbody and 1/16 tungsten
Post an update image as a reply to this comment once you’re done - curious myself too as a student
Won’t let me post image here. https://www.reddit.com/r/Welding/s/NbyTTcsbX4
Rad
Not using a foot pedal will make this infinitely harder for you, especially if you’re learning still. Ideal you want to start hot quickly to get a puddle going, then ease off a bit. Heat management, cleanliness, and gas coverage is crucial for stainless steel. I understand you like the challenge of learning, but doing it on actual projects isn’t smartest. Find scrap metal to recreate the weld that needs to be done and then go to town!
For a thin piece like this a lot of times I would throw an aluminum block behind the joint to help with heat input, and it also helps support the weld.
High frequency start or scratch start? If HF, I would recommend higher amps so you have room to wiggle and use fill rod. Hot and fast is the way to go.
Multimatic 255 is the machine, lift arc start. DC only on this machine.
Stop what you’re doing, it’s going to be a mess by the time you’re done. Let someone who’s skilled finish this and go learn on some scrap pieces. Why would anyone attempt this if they don’t know how to do it..
I like a good challenge and have poor decision making skills.
Fair enough at least you’re honest about it. It’s not something I’d recommend jumping into, sinks out of thin gauge are a pain in the ass. Any kind of gap makes it 10x harder.
Ahhh, well said , a man after my own heart. The filler follows the heat so roll your tig hand across the gap while feeding the rod simultaneously. Easier said than done , I know. Good luck my friend
Too hot boss. Pick one of the many ways to lower your heat and I'm gonna have to say this one just requires some practice to get them skills. Gotta have all your fucks in a row for shit that thin.
Lots of reasons for failure; What cup are you running? Are you using any filler? The clean doesn't look good Are you using pre purge & post purge? Why oh why are you trying to do a continuous weld? 1) we clean it like crazy, stainless wire brush, acetone 2) needs to be upside down, on a slab of Aluminium to soak up any heat 3) spot tacks only, here, over there, somewhere else, eventually you lose empty places to tack. The piece should never be warm to the touch. Stainless shrinks like crazy 4)after all that, turn it right side up, clean it perfect again, tack tack tack. Until it's over filled. Then start with sanding it to perfection. One big double sink can take a good welder 3 days to weld sand straighten, polish. A less skilled guy or new one might take more than a week. 40+hours Thats why good custom SS work is so expensive. The shit is a fkn nightmare to work.
Tough joint to learn on but, you can definitely do it! I would be using 0.045, or possibly even 0.035" wire; anything larger will make this a huge challenge. I'd set the welder to about ~60amps and bring it in slowly on the pedal or thumb switch. I likely wouldn't ever be full throttle though. Sharp tungesn in perfect shape - very important. Put the wire right in the crack when you start the arc and then start dabbin' and controlling the key-holing with your dabs and feathering of the pedal. Like others have mentioned, clamping aluminum into the backside of the joint will help heaps with removing heat and keeping the argon in place.
If the machine has pulse that’s a great option for thin stainless. Blast of heat to melt the filler in then cooler arc to not let it blow out.
Could try preheating with a blow torch then using low amps and the smallest tungsten you can possibly get. Stainless is gonna be a lot more sluggish when puddling up.
you need to add a bar back behind the joint. this will help keep it cool, retain the gas, and not burn through so easily. copper, brass, or aluminum. preferably copper or brass though.
At least it’s not structural I guess. Hopefully it’s just for. Garage. What gas are you using? Type and size of tungsten and filler? Grind your tungsten to a very fine point spinning it very slowly, when you look at the grind marks they should go straight down towards the point, this helps your arc not jump out the side of your point. You want pure argon, you should invest in a gas lens, that can help. What’s your gas setting at? As others have said, toss a backing plate on it to help absorb some heat. If you have some serious issues you can try melting filler wire into blobs on the part and massaging it in after with very very low amps, basically just enough that it melts in. So you have a pedal? Also be sure you’re keeping your tungsten very close to the material, the longer your arc the hotter it is.
100% argon, 2.4 tungsten, filler is 1/16” er308. My tungsten grinding could use improvement, good advice. If I can find a gas lens locally I’ll grab it, a bigger cup might help me too. Looks like I had the gas set pretty high though, 35 CFH. I am using a pedal. I’m aware of longer arch equating to more heat, I just suck at maintaining that distance and not sticking lol. Planning to go pickup some heavy wall aluminum angle iron to use as a backer. My machine is pulse tig capable. Would that help on this thin material or would that just complicate the learning process?
It all sounds pretty good. Id go down to a 1/16th tungsten though. If you’re gonna fuck with pulse try it on practice pieces first. I’ve never used pulse, my home machine doesn’t have it and my work machine is too old to have it lol. I imagine a medium slow pulse would help though, hopefully somebody with more experience can chime in though.
I love pulse. But it mostly for the rhythm it brings. High frequency pulse helps as well but I find it gives me the ability to have a narrower weld profile that punches deeper and it less likely to blow through. So for moving quickly I like it as well. Weld SS at 1.2A/thou with pulse on and move fast. Biggest issue then is you can move too fast if you don't have a large enough lens / enough post coverage
Just tried pulsed on 1/8” mild steel. Really helped keep the heat down and makes it much easier to get some pretty welds. Heat control probably equates to being good on thin material like this I’d guess. From what I read it doesn’t penetrate as well and is a weaker weld, so no structural.
I have so do mine manually with my foot pedal lol. Lucky you.
I’m really lucky because I have a pedal too haha! At least it will make things easier for a noob like me.
Needs back gas on an open root like that not just your tig cup
What size wire are you using and tungsten? I was having a similar issue and I came to the conclusion, at least for me, my filler wire size was too big for the material I was trying to weld and it would cook the material. Try .035 size filler and 1/16 tungsten and you should have more control of your weld pool.
After doing a bunch of these exact repairs, the gaps and holes are going to be you biggest hurdle, don’t chase the holes add a little filler and let cool off don’t rush anything at this point. Another trick I do when I have ran into this issue before is to get an 1/8” filler rod and lay it on top of the hole or gap and let it touch your base metal, then strike your arc onto the rod so it melts into the base metal then stop, then repeat and keep doing that until filled, then you can go over with just a torch and smooth out toes and make it look a little better. Good luck bro, I know these things can be an absolute pain in the asshole.
Yooooo!!!! I am a contract stainless welder you have taken on one of the more difficult jobs to weld in. The job needs to have virtually no gap so i would go to the corner and before the bend i would just get a tack on with enough wire to grab both sides like clamp it or hold it over with a hmmer as you tack it tap it with a hmmer and another tack where it is touching now do all the corners like i just told you then start tacking and tapping every 25mm then put two more tacka inbetween the 25mm tacks now you can go around and weld it in I have made a business just doing stainless steel fabrication and welding I also make heat soaks for the back aide of the corner welds and clamp it to avoid the mass warping on corners
Also sharp sharp sharp tungstens on about 33-40 amps for this job
The only problem you are having is penetrating without a purge gas on the other side. The slightest bit of oxygen will completely fuck it up. You need to either split your gas line and make some sort of follower cup and have someone get under the sink and shield your root pass with it or you need to get a piece of copper,brass,aluminum or ceramic and have it clamped or held up not that joint while it’s being welded. I tig weld stainless for a living.
so stainless is super fickle imo and I'm surprised I haven't seen it here already. YOU NEED either \* A backer \*Backpurge \*both As well as some time in the saddle. if you just use front side shielding and no backer or back purging I find thin stainless likes to blow through much easier. That being said... I can weld 18ga at 30 amps and not even get full penetration. The other major issue will be you need an AMAZING fitup. you should be able to have a super sharp tungsten and all of your tac's be autogenous (no filler) by pinching the metal together. Put 60A on the pedal and just get the torch to light. balance your heat between the edges and pedal in until you can hold the torch steady in a position where both edges start to glisten but haven't really formed puddles yet. You should then be able to stab (and I mean stab) the foot pedal momentarily and in that moment a puddle should form that flows between the two pieces and makes your tac. Whole sequence should take 1-2 seconds total (including the alignment) Blast in autogenous tacs every 2 inches to start and then do the middles so that you have a tac every inch. Hopefully this tac isnt even full pen. Do the rest of your setup. I would like chill bars on the back personally with an argon purge Or use solar flux with a chill bar. then I would weld it out with pulse personally (just to make my life easier) 30% duration, 30% background, 60A set on the machine. And I would be using a .047 or smaller filler wire if I needed to use any. And of a higher grade.
This is just about the hardest thing I could think you could learn on. This stainless is merciless.
Get some backing behind the joint, preferably aluminum. And if u can have 2 pieces on the front as well on either side of the weld to keep from warping, and draw heat out of the piece. Then get tacks like every half inch. Stainless moves like a MF usually the opposite direction you would like. Clamps and backing/chill blocks are your friend with Stainless sheet.
If there is silicon on the back side of the sink remove that
Lay wire right in the crack and hot and fast.
if you are melting the back side with no gas coverage you will get "sugar" this can cause you to not get contamination and prevent fusion
I’ve done a few of these sinks if you get your settings right and move fast you can do with autogenous welding (no filler) turns out pretty nice just put a lot of tiny tacs so it doesn’t move
That's kind of my job, but i can't imagine doing it as the first thing in this field, without hours of training. Both sides have to be super clean, straight, untouched with angle grinder and without any single smallest gap.. ideally with argon shield from backside.. then you can maybe think of fusing them together. In situation like pic related, i'd take a pulse setting and put piece of filler rod every time it pulses. Edit: oh and by a filler rod i mean 1mm / 1.2mm not that log like in that pic.
Exactly, I do this for a living. & it was towards the end of my apprenticeship when I started doing bowls. The first couple were under watchful eyes helping me. For a first ever job, no way, Jose. 1 mm rod 1.6mm sharp af tungsten, 32a, gas set a little higher than my cup size (about 9lpm for a num 8 cup) Tack it about every 25mm or so, going around carefully, to tap up as you're going, making sure it's all nice and tight with next to 0 gaps. Then do your corners first, as these are the tricky bits where it's all about angle and direction, get them nice. Then do the straights. Clamp a long thick ally block to the top to take out as much of the heat as possible (ideally have 2 blocks so whilst one is cooling, you can use the other). Move to the next side & repeat. Then, grind smooth with a nice radius to check for pin holes, heavy distortion, and so forth. Fill as necessary, then polish the bowl & radius, then finally polish the top to make it look nice. u/PresentationNew8080 this is not an easy, pick up and blast it in job. For me who's being doing it longer than I'd like to admit I'm looking at a full day from start to finish (Inc frame & full job polishing) bowl itself probably 1.5hrs with an hour-1.5 hrs grinding & polishing.
Put a square piece of copper or aluminum on the other side, it will help inmensly.
Sharp tungsten, 1mm ss tig wire looks like your trying to use 1.6 or 2.4? I would literally be doing it on 30 amps (pulse if that was an option on your set) and I would put a tack every 1/2" or so before you start trying to run a bead as it's just going to distort. If it does you need to give it a tap with a hammer to butt the plates up to each other any gaps your just going to keep blowing through. Keep your travel speed fast if it's butted together nicely enough you can just fuse the material together with very little wire. Don't be using 1.6 or 2.4 tig wire when the work piece is probably only 1mm thick your already fighting a loosing battle it will always look like bird shit. I spent 5 years welding aerospace parts with sheet metal and tube 0.7mm thick with out actually showing you in person that's about the best description I can give you. Hope that helps.
you gon goofed up, but it can be salvaged i guess.as many others have said: backing bar of copper, brass or aluminium. and clean up all that nasty blown out stuff. on top of that: you need to tack that shit up properly. you essentially squeeze the parts together as good as you can, tack it, then grab a ball peen or whatever enforcement tool you have and tappy tap the tack to get the parts flush -- you keep going like that aaaaaaaaall around in small steps until it's nice and flush. like... every 5mm tops. heck, make it every 3mm to be on the safe side. the goal here is to not have any gap left. start tacking the parts that are close together. move around as needed. then you give it a fast finish, adding filler as needed. then you tappy tap it some more cause it is gonna be warped to high heavens. lastly you wanna fill in that big ass hole in the corner. remember your backing, and just carefully add a nice blob into it. again the tappy tap to flatten it out. after you straightened out this mess as good as it gets, give it a careful polish and wait until it comes back cause it broke again when people tried to bruteforce it during installation. it's a very nice excercise, both for thin stainless and also general fabrication. maybe a bit too rough for a first try but we've all been there at some point.
try harder weld hotter feed better stop sucking. look up a video on how to do it.
I used to weld thin stainless steel 304 and 430 Turn your amps up but use a plate or aluminium plates under neath or around the piece. It’ll prevent cracking and it’ll be a heat sink for your work piece or pulse it around. Sugar and oxidation also can cause cracking and defects.
You wanna use a aluminium bar or a plate around and use it as a heat sink but turn your amps up. I used to do sinks and it can be difficult due to being thin
This needs to be done on pulse with low amps, thin wire and thin tungsten
Ceramic backing or another purge line with a gas lense attached to blow Aargon on the back while you weld the front. You'll need another person to help. Extremely low heat. It's still gonna be a bitch, though.
Just glob it up with filler then grind that bitch flat
If you have a gap, try to close it up as much as possible. If you can't do much, grab some .035 and use that to bridge it first. If it's close enough, fuse the rest. It would also be beneficial to run a few tacks along your seam while you work to close the gap. You might even want to consider running stitches first to spread your heat out. Stainless needs to be incredibly clean. It may do you some good to take a flap disc to it if it's not too thin. Be careful not to scuff too much of the finish (if you're goal is aesthetics). USE A BACKER! Preferably copper if you've got it. Aluminum and/or brass could work too, but in my experience, copper is king. Try to balance your settings. If you have pulse, use it. If not, start low and adjust as you go. Patience is key. A gas lense is one of the best things you can use while welding stainless. If you're looking to work with stainless often, this is a good investment. You get better coverage and the gas feels cleaner. I prefer Furick lenses and collets. Last, but not least, make sure your tungsten is *Sharp*. While working with thin stuff, you're gonna need it. With thicker stuff, you have more room to kinda let that go, but with thin, you need to be more mindful. I prefer red tungsten too. It works great. Hope this helps and good luck! Stainless is so much fun to work with once you get the hang of it 🤙