Welding Tips and Tricks

Hi Everyone, New to the forum. I am not a welder myself, However I am trying to get to the bottom of an issue we are having with stainless steel welding, I have attached a few photos, What we are experiencing is an almost impossible to remove black slag / residue included in the weld, it only becomes apparent after pickling and passivating.
MIG welding, Base Material in the photos is 3CR12, though we do experience the same issues with 304 and 316 Stainless, Welding Wire is ESAB 316LSI, Shielding Gas is Air Liquide ARCAL Speed (Ar;CO2) unsure of the gas mix unfortunately. Any Tips / Info will be greatly appreciated.

Coldfusion wrote:Hi Everyone, New to the forum. I am not a welder myself, However I am trying to get to the bottom of an issue we are having with stainless steel welding, I have attached a few photos, What we are experiencing is an almost impossible to remove black slag / residue included in the weld, it only becomes apparent after pickling and passivating.
MIG welding, Base Material in the photos is 3CR12, though we do experience the same issues with 304 and 316 Stainless, Welding Wire is ESAB 316LSI, Shielding Gas is Air Liquide ARCAL Speed (Ar;CO2) unsure of the gas mix unfortunately. Any Tips / Info will be greatly appreciated.

i wonder if thats silicon deposits thats reacting with your passivating solution.
can you try 316L wire?
the other thing is gas. that gas is listed as a 92% argon 8% co2. the gas i have listed for stainless welding have no more than 2% co2. eg 98% argon 2% co2, helium/argon/co2 trimix or 98% argon 2% o2.

You need Arcal Chrome to mig stainless.
Speed is for carbon steel only.

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The black residue will come off with a 5" stainless braided wire wheel on an angle grinder.

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Coldman wrote:You need Arcal Chrome to mig stainless.
Speed is for carbon steel only.

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We brought in 3 bottles late friday for the weekend, will post an update shortly after I've been down to the workshop and had a look

tweake wrote:

Coldfusion wrote:Hi Everyone, New to the forum. I am not a welder myself, However I am trying to get to the bottom of an issue we are having with stainless steel welding, I have attached a few photos, What we are experiencing is an almost impossible to remove black slag / residue included in the weld, it only becomes apparent after pickling and passivating.
MIG welding, Base Material in the photos is 3CR12, though we do experience the same issues with 304 and 316 Stainless, Welding Wire is ESAB 316LSI, Shielding Gas is Air Liquide ARCAL Speed (Ar;CO2) unsure of the gas mix unfortunately. Any Tips / Info will be greatly appreciated.

i wonder if thats silicon deposits thats reacting with your passivating solution.
can you try 316L wire?
the other thing is gas. that gas is listed as a 92% argon 8% co2. the gas i have listed for stainless welding have no more than 2% co2. eg 98% argon 2% co2, helium/argon/co2 trimix or 98% argon 2% o2.

We Tried A different gas mix, Arcal Chrome the results were phenomenal. no black deposit at all.

sounds like success

i wonder if coldman can tell us what the black is. carbon? or an oxide thats turned blacked by the after weld treatment.

Because I like to follow up, here's the comparison between the two gas mixes. Same stock material, same machine, same settings, same welder, same wire. only change was the gas.

tweake wrote:sounds like success

i wonder if coldman can tell us what the black is. carbon? or an oxide thats turned blacked by the after weld treatment.

Definitely some kind of carbide with maybe some silicon from the wire mixed in too.

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