Welding Stainless Steel

[chrisste]

Hi all, I'm about to weld a Rovers North stainless steel replacement center bulkhead assembly into place on my SIIA. Anyone have any experience or recommendations for wire (309)? Can I use 75/25 gas mix to join the stainless to the mild steel bulkhead? Here are photos. Thanks.

Chris

[jp-]

Welding stainless to mild steel is best avoided in my opinion. But I have done it with 308 wire and 100% argon. Never tried it with 75/25, so no experience there. 308 wire is a good wire for welding different stainless grades together from what I've heard.

[chrisste]

Thanks for the advice. I picked up some 309L wire and plan on trying that with the 75/25 mix. I'm not doing anything really serious, just applying a several plug welds to secure the replacement bulkhead assembly; then using seam sealer to make it water tight. In retrospect, I should have just purchased a replacement bulkhead!

[chrisste]

Just an update for all to see.The plug welding went well and the bulkhead replacement assembly is in place. Yay!
Not pretty, but it's solid!

[jp-]

I don't know why this didn't occur to me, but because you were plug welding to mild steel, you would have been just fine using a mild steel wire and 75/25 I think.

Looks like it worked fine either way.