I was reading a few welding articles and came across the topic of leaving a gap between pieces.
I am tig welding 304L sch. 40 for a manifold. Between the bends should i leave a gap? If so how much? Does this add strength?

 

if you are going to leave a gap it shouldn't be more than 1/16" bend a piece of filler wire and use that as your gap tool and pull it out after you tack them together. also, if you are going to gap like this, make sure you back purge the chamber with gas. i don't think it is nescassary to gap, as long as you have some nice bevels on your joints to fill with filler.

 

I was kinda thinking the same thing with the bevels. The pipe we get from Mc master has a decent one on it and we make it a little bit wider. I was thinking that would be most effective.
Thanks.