How To TIG Weld Stainless Steel (Some Tips and Tricks)

TIG stands for Tungsten Inert Gas which is a welding technique done with the help of tungsten electrode for heating different metals. The Tig option can be deployed for doing the stainless steel welding task. It can also perform vigorously well for the other metals such as standard steel, nickel alloys, aluminum, bronze, brass, copper, chromoly and even gold.

Stainless steel is a steel alloy that contains chromium–which gives the metal that shine that it is prized for.  Also, stainless steel does not rust or corrode as easily as carbon steel, another property which makes it a popular metal for many TIG welding applications from industrial equipment, food processing, aerospace, and automotive. Stainless can be tricky to weld, but as with most TIG Welding applications, a lot of practice, attention to details and procedure, will have you welding like a pro in no time.

First, you’ll want to watch your heat.  Basic rule of thumb is that you’ll need 1 amp of welding current for every thousandth of an inch of material thickness.  You’ll also want to keep your weld speed up, and maintain good gas coverage.

Second, the molten stainless steel of the weld pool is so reactive to air that you need to exclude the atmosphere from the back of the weld. So as well as the supply of Argon gas from the torch which the welding machine provides, you need to have a pipeline rigged-up which supplies a blanket of Argon along the back of the weld.

Third, you need to select the polarity as well. The user requires playing with the settings in order to setup the unit for performing different jobs on different materials. If aluminum material is to be dealt with then you must bring the polarity at the AC setting. For TIG welding stainless steel, you got to put the polarity setting at the DC Electrode Negative setting which is also given by DCEN.

Fourth, you have to make sure while grinding that you are doing it in the radial direction which is just around the circumference of the Tungsten and it shouldn’t be by the ends in any means. Use the balled tip for AC welding. On the other side for the DC purposes, it should pointed tip. If you are required to produce a butt weld or perhaps an open corner weld then make sure that you ground the tungsten to be of around 5 to 6 mm stick. The gas for the procedure can either be pure Argon or it can be a mixture of Helium-Argon has.

You’ll hear us repeat this often:  use a gas lens!  The gas lens collet body replaces the standard collet body in your TIG torch. It is comprised of a series of layered screens engineered to distribute the gas (generally argon) over the weld zone in a more coherent fashion for better coverage with less turbulence.

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