Saturday, May 7, 2016

Tips On How To Do Stainless Steel Welding

By Debra Wood


When two metals are joined together through the application of heat then the process of welding is said to be completed and can be used at homes, auto repairs, boats and craft projects. It is slightly different for every type of metal. Below are some important tips on how to carry out stainless steel welding.

You should first of all make sure that you consider your safety during the process. Make sure that you wear some protective clothing that expose only a small fraction of your skin like your pants and shirt should be full-length. You should also get some protective gear for your eyes and ears and hand gloves.

You should then choose the joining method to use from the ones that are available for base metals. The most common of these include the lap, T, edge, corner and also butt. In order to choose the right method there are several things you can look at like the strength needed, metal thickness and joint accessibility.

The welding process that would be most appropriate for you to use ought to be considered. You can choose from the following processes gas tungsten arc or GTAW, shielded metal arc, SMAW, gas metal arc, GMAW, flux cored arc, FCAW. You could also look at getting an inert gas that would be compatible to the process you choose from these except for the SMAW, for the others you will choose from argon to helium.

A filler metal ought to be chosen for this process especially if the metals to be fused are same. It is important for the base metal to mirror the composition of the base metals. If your metals are different then ensure that the filler metal you choose is the one that has the least likeliness to crack and it should be compatible to the base metal.

The base metal should then be cleaned well in order to eliminate the chances of the formation of oxide on your base metal. A brush made from stainless wire would be efficient for this job of gently brushing the metal to completely eradicate oxides and burrs that exist on it. Ensure that you also put on your gloves to prevent oils from your hands from being spread to the stainless steel.

The next thing to do would be to ensure that you bring the metal you will be using to room temperature. You should note that this is done on martensitic and ferritic metal only but for the austenic metal you will not need to preheat it. It would also be appropriate to preheat your metal if it is thick or even high in carbon.

The last step would be using the welding torch on the metal pieces you wish to join. Make sure that you also post heat it as stainless steel cools rapidly thereby causing a high degree of internal stress that could lead to it cracking. Post heating is important to ensure that this cracking is curbed well especially if thick pieces were being joined. You should then remove any slag that forms on the spot you had welded.




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