- big gear head
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Joined:Thu May 07, 2015 11:46 am
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Location:KY.
Looks like you didn't have good argon coverage. Were you pulling the rod out of the gas shield between dips? Was there a breeze where you were welding?
Freddie
exnailpounder
- exnailpounder
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Weldmonger
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Joined:Thu Dec 25, 2014 9:25 am
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Did you back purge that keg before you welded it? That helps your puddle behave but it looks like really laid the heat in there. You are likely to get cracks in the HAZ. I do quite a bit of keg welding. They are 304 series, 18ga. and purging is a must. I usually weld fittings on at about 55 amps and concentrate the arc on the thicker fitting and wash down onto the keg with 309l rod. The gray look of your welds means you used too much heat. You welds should be that nice straw/salmon color. You need to get in and get out on stainless. Weld a little and stop, use a wet rag to draw out the heat and then weld a little more, rinse and repeat.
Ifyoucantellmewhatthissaysiwillbuyyouabeer.
Good tips mate, much appreciated. I was using around 65 amps from memory and had done a quick dodgy purge, but admit that it probably wasn't sufficient.exnailpounder wrote:Did you back purge that keg before you welded it? That helps your puddle behave but it looks like really laid the heat in there. You are likely to get cracks in the HAZ. I do quite a bit of keg welding. They are 304 series, 18ga. and purging is a must. I usually weld fittings on at about 55 amps and concentrate the arc on the thicker fitting and wash down onto the keg with 309l rod.
exnailpounder
- exnailpounder
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Ifyoucantellmewhatthissaysiwillbuyyouabeer.
The comments about back purging certainly have merit. If the outside looks grey, the inside may well be sugared. It is worth taking a look if you are going to be putting liquids through it.
My guess at the overall problem would be insufficient shielding and too long of a welding time. A jumbo gas lens and higher amps and some pulsed welding will likely bring it into line. Grab some scrap and try a few things out. Stainless is finicky.
-Sandow
My guess at the overall problem would be insufficient shielding and too long of a welding time. A jumbo gas lens and higher amps and some pulsed welding will likely bring it into line. Grab some scrap and try a few things out. Stainless is finicky.
-Sandow
Red-hot iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a babel of iron sounds.
-Charles Dickens
-Charles Dickens
- Change your collet body to gas lens.
- I'm pretty sure that you have a gas leak in your system. Check every connection/joint with soapy water or so and make sure
you wont get any bubbles. Your welds does look like there have been a lot of oxygen mixed into shielding gas.
Oxygen tends to make welds pretty ugly and also weld puddle is much harder to control. So you don't want it in the shielding gas.
-Stainless welds don't need to be pink in color. That is common misconception. Even in pink colored stainless welds corrosion resistant is reduced a lot! So that in mind color does not tell almost anything as long as you have had proper shield over weld puddle. All that matters is heat input and that needs to measured in different ways than checking a color of the weld, because you can over heat weld with big gas lens and still get a neat color.
Little fun fact too
Did you know that in TIG orbital welds there have tried out mixed gases that contains few ppm's of oxygen??? This was tested because oxygen is cheap and when mixed into shielding gas it creates deeper penetration than plain argon. Which means better penetration and increased weld speed.
Why it's not used today though? Because it does create ugly welds, puddle control is not that good, it can create color in to the pipe root and it tends to wear tungsten faster than wanted to.
- I'm pretty sure that you have a gas leak in your system. Check every connection/joint with soapy water or so and make sure
you wont get any bubbles. Your welds does look like there have been a lot of oxygen mixed into shielding gas.
Oxygen tends to make welds pretty ugly and also weld puddle is much harder to control. So you don't want it in the shielding gas.
-Stainless welds don't need to be pink in color. That is common misconception. Even in pink colored stainless welds corrosion resistant is reduced a lot! So that in mind color does not tell almost anything as long as you have had proper shield over weld puddle. All that matters is heat input and that needs to measured in different ways than checking a color of the weld, because you can over heat weld with big gas lens and still get a neat color.
Little fun fact too
Did you know that in TIG orbital welds there have tried out mixed gases that contains few ppm's of oxygen??? This was tested because oxygen is cheap and when mixed into shielding gas it creates deeper penetration than plain argon. Which means better penetration and increased weld speed.
Why it's not used today though? Because it does create ugly welds, puddle control is not that good, it can create color in to the pipe root and it tends to wear tungsten faster than wanted to.
-Markus-
