has anyone welded SS with a mig? results?

i have a lincoln sp175 plus and i'm trying to weld a header together for my h22 setup. i have piping and flnges but all SS. dont know if mig will weld goood.

 

i pretty much want to know how good it will hold

 

you have to have a certian SS wire. my boss uses it cause he cant Tig.... if you go to a welding store they will have it. its pricey though.

 

welding it with regular wire is going to suck. you are going to BLOW tons of holes and you are going to get hot metal that jumps off the metal even after your done welding.... it will hold... but its going to look really bad and you are going to burn yourself....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MMsportsRexSi &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">welding it with regular wire is going to suck. you are going to BLOW tons of holes and you are going to get hot metal that jumps off the metal even after your done welding.... it will hold... but its going to look really bad and you are going to burn yourself.... </TD></TR></TABLE>
if you dont set up the propper temp wire speed you will blow holes in it . i can weld ss with mild steel wire all day long but its better to use ss for ss

 

we dont have a welder at the shop that would go low enough to mig a ss peice without blowing holes. then again i tig almost everything they let me

 

tiging ss is fun

 

I am about to buy some stainless steel Wire on a spool to weld with my MIG welder.. Before i go ahead and place my order. Can someone post pictures of there work. Welding stainless with a MIG welder. If it doesnt look good i am just going to not waist $53 on a spool of stainless wire.

 

id love to see some pix.

the reason i made this thread is because i dont know if i should atempt to make a header out of ss or mild steel. i just bought my new mig and i want to use it

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tha Shocka &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">... i am just going to not waist $53 on a spool of stainless wire.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Get a smaller spool for $25 from a local welding supplier. Don't cheap out and use mild steel wire when you're welding on stainless steel. Mig'd stainless welds are better than rusty mild steel welds.

 

I have MIG'd a few things built out of Stainless. I have welded 16G 304 and the weld els from McMaster with success. I use a stainless wire and 80/20 gas. There is a gas that is meant for Stainless, it's called Tri-Blend, or something like that. None of my local gas suppliers will sell it in smaller bottles though.

It doesn't look as pretty as TIG, but it doesn't look much different then MIG'd Mild Steel. If you can MIG mild steel well, Stainless should look just as good. One advantage I think MIG has over TIG is that you don't get a thin spot near the edge of the weld since MIG generally adds a lot more metal then TIG. TIG welds always seem to crack right at the edge of the weld, where metal from the tube has gotten thin as it flows into the weld.

As far as how well it holds up, I welded some exhaust stuff up on my car last year. 20,000 miles, lots of salt and snow, and solid motor mounts to vibrate the hell out of everything still hasn't cracked any of it. Although, some of the professional TIG work I had done at the same time has cracked, twice. I have since rewelded it with the MIG welder, hopefully it holds now.

 

Also when welding Stainless Steel make sure to backpurge or use Solar Flux so you don't get a bunch of slag on the back of the weldment.

 

GMAW Stainless with stainless wire kinda sucks. Stainless wire splatters like a mouthafoucka.