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gonna be starting the cage soon, welding ?

B

BUCKYXJ

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Tulsa, OK
Welding pros or just people who know is it possible to weld stainless steel to mild steel? If so how do I need to do it I have access to a mig or stick. I can get stainless for free and well you see why I want to use it. Also its gonna be exo and I was thinking 1.75OD since those are the biggest dies my father in laws hydro. tube bender has is this big enough and what wall .120?
Thanks
DIG IT!
 
No, you can not weld stainless to carbon steel.

1.75 x .120 weighs over 2.0 lbs per foot. Are you sure you want to go that heavy?

CRASH
 
Heck no this is gonna be a light XJ what size are most of you running for Exo cages? yeah I found this really cool thing called yahoo its a search engine and answered my welding question.
 
to weld stainless to mild steel you need to use 309 mig wire or 309 stick. it is just for that
 
1.75 is nice and stiff, so you could drop to .088 wall if you have a 6.5" radius bender.

Diameter gives you stiffness, so it depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you're going to be rubbing on rocks alot, .088 will crush readily.

I really like 1.5 x .120. 1.75 is reserved for special apps, like a B pillar hoop that is intended to save your life.

CRASH
 
Why not make teh whole thing out of stainless, then you don't have to worry about mixing metals on your welding .

Plus, think of the chick-pulling bling factor if you polish her all up!

CRASH
 
FarmerMatt said:
Welding SS is no different than welding mild steel. The only reason to use SS wire to weld SS is so the welds don't rust. You can weld the 2 together just fine.

Matt
Click to expand...

Hmmm....I've never seen stainless joined with carbon.

Excuse the above SPOBI!

CRASH
 
moneypitxj said:
duh!
Click to expand...

Now you guys need to find me some wire that will join 6V 4Al Titanium to 4130 Chromoly.

CRASH
 
Doesn't welding stainless pipe require a purge on the inside of the pipe to prevent crystal formation??? I thought I remembered something about that from my welding classes at the college. :dunno:
 
JJ13 said:
Doesn't welding stainless pipe require a purge on the inside of the pipe to prevent crystal formation??? I thought I remembered something about that from my welding classes at the college. :dunno:
Click to expand...

You remember college?
 
I've welded stainless to mild steel with regular solid core wire in non critical applications. Figured it was ok as long as you painted it. But if you are building a whole cage out of stainless, then use stainless wire and by all means, don't paint it. Show the bling. :)
 
From talking to some of the other welders (who were in the process of welding SS sheets to the inside of a mild steel powder blender used to mix about 1000 pounds of plastic resin) told me that you can weld the two together with mild steel wire but not SS wire (MIG). They said the melting points were different as the reason. I have see SS carts that were broken welded with mild steel wire and it held just fine, but looked bad and rust at the weld.
 
Thhis will be an exo cage and will be all stainless steel but this question is mainly for the attachment points as in where it mounts to the bumpers and rock rails. I have a stick welder and some stainless steel rods. I have done this before but not for anything that will be structural. Oh and another question any reason to use tubing instead of just pipe? Thanks for the help guys.
DIG IT!
 
1.75 x .120" is a good size. My whole cage save the radiator and cowl bars is 1.75" x .120". You could maybe go down to 0.095" or .105". I think 0.083" is too light for mild steel and marginal even with DOM. Maybe if you go stainless, the 0.083" would be ok. .120" wall SS would be costing a small fortune for all us regular folk.
Add up the total pounds you might possibly be shedding going from .120" to .083", or even .095" and see if you really think it's worth it.

If you do go full stainless, drill purge holes in the base tube at the notch point and put an argon purge on the entire assembly. Without an internal purge as the seam closes there'll be no inerting of the interior surface. And post pictures as you go - I want to see an all SS cage!!!

One of my friends built his entire sand rail out of .065" wall SS. no worries about paint chips and scrapes ever again.
 
As a rule of thumb use the softer material of the two for the weld wire. Another thought if you go to s.s. you can use a thinner wall thickness because you gain strength with the s.s.
As for the purging the tube I don't think these welds are being x-rayed.
 
BUCKYXJ said:
I have a stick welder and some stainless steel rods. I have done this before but not for anything that will be structural. Oh and another question any reason to use tubing instead of just pipe? Thanks for the help guys.
DIG IT!
Click to expand...

You won't have much fun welding a cage together with a stick welder. It can be done, but there are a lot of bad position welds when going around all that tubing. Plus, there's no way to grind out ugly welds in many of the joints. I've welded my whole Jeep together with my stick welder, but I borrowed a friends MIG when I built the cage. Have fun. :)
 
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