Welding Tips and Tricks

Blaze659 wrote:Manganese. I found using s.s rod would be the best. 309?

Manganese Steel
Manganese steel is sometimes called austenitic manganese steel because of its metallurgical structure. It is also called Hadfield manganese steel after its inventor. It is an extremely tough, nonmagnetic alloy. It has an extremely high tensile strength, a high percentage of ductility, and excellent wear resistance. It also has a high resistance to impact and is practically impossible to machine.

Hadfield manganese steel is probably more widely used as castings but is also available as rolled shapes. Manganese steel is popular for impact wear resistance. It is used for railroad frogs, for steel mill coupling housings, pinions, spindles, and for dipper lips of power shovels operating in quarries. It is also used for power shovel track pads, drive tumblers, and dipper racks and pinions.

The composition of austenitic manganese is from 12-14% manganese and 1-1.4% carbon. The composition of cast manganese steel would be 12% manganese and 1.2% carbon. Nickel is oftentimes added to the composition of the rolled manganese steel.

A special heat treatment is required to provide the superior properties of manganese steel. This involves heating to 1850°F (1008°C) followed by quenching in water. In view of this type of heat treatment and the material toughness, special attention must be given to welding and to any reheating of manganese steel.

Manganese steel can be welded to itself and defects can be weld repaired in manganese castings. Manganese steel can also be welded to carbon and alloy steels and weld surfacing deposits can be made on manganese steels.

Manganese steel can be prepared for welding by flame cutting; however, every effort should be made to keep the base metal as cool as possible. If the mass of the part to be cut is sufficiently large it is doubtful if much heat will build up in the part sufficient to cause embrittlement. However, if the part is small it is recommended that it be frequently cooled in water or, if possible, partially submerged in water during the flame cutting operation. For removal of cracks the air carbon arc process can be used. The base metal must be kept cool. Cracks should be completely removed to sound metal prior to rewelding. Grinding can be employed to smooth up these surfaces.

There are two types of manganese steel electrodes available. Both are similar in analysis to the base metal but with the addition of elements which maintain the toughness of the weld deposit without quenching. The EFeMn-A electrode is known as the nickel manganese electrode and contains from 3-5% nickel in addition to the 12-14% manganese. The carbon is lower than normal manganese ranging from 0.50 to 0.90%. The weld deposits of this electrode on large manganese castings will result in a tough deposit due to the rapid cooling of the weld metal.

The other electrode used is a molybdenum-manganese steel type EFeMn-B. This electrode contains 0.6-1.4% molybdenum instead of the nickel. This electrode is less often used for repair welding of manganese steel or for joining manganese steel itself or to carbon steel. The manganese nickel steel is more often used as a buildup deposit to maintain the characteristics of manganese steel when surfacing is required.

Stainless steel electrodes can also be used for welding manganese steels and for welding them to carbon and low-alloy steels. The 18-8 chrome-nickel types are popular; however, in some cases when welding to alloy steels the 29-9 nickel is sometimes used. These electrodes are considerably more expensive than the manganese steel electrode and for this reason are not popular.

304/308, 316 and 321/347 are all 18/8 Cr-Ni alloys

Bill Beauregard wrote:I weld manganese steel to AR Bucket steel regularly. Never done it to stainless. If it's aluminum rod you are talking about, thread it, or drill and rivet it.

I've seen old buckets repaired with stainless. It is very ductile, so cooling contraction won't break something.

If stainless, I might use any of the higher 309, 312 fillers.

LtBadd wrote:

Blaze659 wrote:Manganese. I found using s.s rod would be the best. 309?

stainless will not TIG weld to aluminum

GreinTime wrote:

LtBadd wrote:

Blaze659 wrote:Manganese. I found using s.s rod would be the best. 309?

stainless will not TIG weld to aluminum

Actually that's not true [FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY] we regularly do it at work to listen to the noises it makes as it cools when we're bored!

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Otto Nobedder wrote:

LtBadd wrote:stainless will not TIG weld to aluminum

I accidentally tacked a few pieces of 5053 with a li'l stub of 309 rod. It held long enough to get the right rod and tack it again.

Stainless can be welded to aluminum, but the process is a blast. Literally. Explosion welding. I welded a bunch of transition couplers (socket weld, 304N on one end, and 6061-T6 on the other) on a cold-box, and each one of these expensive little bastards came with an adhesive backed permanent-mark temperature scale on it, so you knew if you'd overheated it.

Steve S