Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello,

I was welding some stainless outside corner joints for practice, and wondered if anyone ever uses filler for this. When I weld it autogenous, it comes out great. But if I add filler, I have to increase the amps and then it gets out of control and gray. The 2nd pic shows when I tried adding filler in the corner.

Autogenous - 55 amps 1.3pps 1/16 tungsten #8 cup

Filler - 65 amps 1.3pps 1/16 tungsten #8 cup

Here are some pics.

I have had similar problems when fit up means adding filler occasionally where the rest was autogenous - I think it's not increasing amps sufficiently to maintain speed coupled with too large a filler in my case - I don't have smaller than 1'16" filler or anywhere I can easily get any so the rod is as thick or thicker than the base metal - using a smaller wire would help or I have got fair results using probably 50% more amps than autogenous & doing laywire - sure others will have alternate opnions.

really depends on use of what you are welding, whether you use filler or not. But typically for 16 gauge I weld it with .035 filler. if you use to large of filler it will cool the puddle to much and cause you top use more amperage and that combined with the larger weld pool is why its harder to get nice color. also make sure to keep the tip of the filler inside the shielding of the cup while welding, if the tips of the rod oxidizes it will cause the puddle to move really sluggish and squirrely.

Ok thanks. If you have a good fit up, is it necessary to use filler? I only added the filler for testing purposes. I feel like 16ga can be welded autogenous in most cases.

I like to use filler on 16 gauge most of the time but it just depends on what you're welding. Like if you're just capping the ends of some tubes with 16 GA I would fuse it but if I was building a tank I would add filler

Depends on the stresses the item or weld will see. If it’s in a highly corrosive environment then it may be easier to maintain the noncorrosive qualities of the metal by adding filler. But that’s all relative

I have zero experience with TIG, but I'd be curious to see what happens if you turn up the argon some and/or use a chill block.

TheNovaMan wrote:I have zero experience with TIG, but I'd be curious to see what happens if you turn up the argon some and/or use a chill block.

Increasing the argon flow rate won’t really benefit this situation he’s already got great coverage since his fused welds are perfect. The issue is the “cooking” of the weld once filler is added, and that been rightly identified as too low amperage. Using chill blocks would actually exacerbate his issue as he would then need even more amps to get the filler to weld quickly enough.

Stainless is super tricky and very particular to weld with. Beautiful to do once you get sorted out on settings and it’s behavior though.

CJ, very good points.

Ant, do you know what alloy of stainless you have?

I think it was 304. When I decided to use filler, i used 1/16, and I think thats too thick and causing the issues to.