I am a bit apprehensive as well about this. The reason I thought it would be okay to weld on the stud is because that's what the manufacturer did. I looked at the inside of the boiler and they did not thread the studs. The operating pressure is about 150psi of water at just under boiling temps (200F...

I did some research about a "purge dam" to protect the back side of the weld. I think my best bet would be to install a Tee to my argon line with a open/close valve. Then run a copper/alum tube inside the boiler to direct the shielding gas from the outlet side of the valve to the back side...

I grinded down the surface to get rid of some of the oxidization on the outside of the boiler. Here's what it looks like now. I did a close up to show the holes. The heat from the welds caused a channel/pathway/gap to form along the holes. To avoid any confusion, the big opening you see there is nor...

Thank you for the response Alexa! What you said about making a gap and welding a "root pass" does sound like it would make a good fix. Tell me if I'm wrong here but you are suggesting that I make a sort of channel between the crack and then weld the channel with filler? As for protecting t...

Hi all. My first time tig welding and I seemed to have messed up big time. I was trying to weld a 304 threaded shaft onto a 304 stainless boiler but my lack of experience and practice led me to make cracks/holes on the surface of the boiler. The boiler is about 3/32" to 1/8" thick. The thr...