Welding Tips and Tricks

any tips for avoiding porosity with 316?

i was just trying out a sample/hobby pack of 312 on some rusty steel. it worked quite well so i will probably get a box in for doing repairs on whoknowswhatthehelllitis steel.
however the supplier accidentally sent some 316 as well so i was having a play with that. runs ok but noticed a bit of porosity.

Any porosity I’ve had on 316 was either gas coverage or lack of back purge. I’ve had some vessels I worked on that I wasn’t able to back purge because of size, frustrating but manageable if you can keep your heat down. Takes massive patience, you need to be able to keep the back side from getting red hot, IE below 900F.

i forgot to mention its stick welding on a bit of thick scrap steel.

Is it holes or worm tracks? Both are common with SS stick. Usually you have to start the arc in the weld track then pull back about a half inch, you need to burn off about a 1/4 inch of rod before you have enough gas coverage from the burning flux. Holes in the middle of the weld are often from to much motion or rod manipulation. Worm tracks are from rod angle or weld position. Most SS rods are very position sensitive. Unless it’s labeled for vertical or overhead then it’s flat horizontal only.

It's got to be dirt on your part. I had the same thing yesterday MIG Welding and I had 90% of my welds looked beautiful but one had tremendous porosity. I had used a 4 inch grinder to clean everything and I thought I did a good job but I have to assume I didn't on one. I'm not sure what happened , I didn't even try to fix it. I'll be dead and gone before anyone cares. But the fact is ,something was dirty and made a mess out of that particular bead.

If this is something that happens only occasionally, it's got to be a cleaning problem.