Thread: Welding Stainless Steel and Aluminum

I'm needing to weld stainless steel and aluminum, fairly new to welding, what would you guys suggest welding style? I already have a MIG and have access to a Stick welder.

Reading about stainless steel, it sounds like I will have better results using the stick welder for stainless steel. Plus it seems like MIG requires argon for SS.

I'm also highly contemplating on getting a TIG, but if I can get away welding SS and aluminum with what I already have it would be swell .

I need SS welding for my exhaust and aluminum welding mainly for turbo piping and welding bungs onto those pipes, would DuraFix be good enough for that?

What thickness SS are you planning on welding? You can only go so far with stick in terms of minimal thickness...

If you are looking to weld stuff like exhaust pipe and intercooler piping, manifolds etc, I'd stick with your mig setup. Stick welding on thin stuff just doesn't work. Tig is not necessary, but it can produce some really nice welds.

I believe you're also supposed to back purge with SS. I attempted to do AL once with my old POS mig... it worked... kind of.

I believe there is also some sort of flux paste you can brush onto SS that serves the same function as backpurging. Saw that in a MotoIQ article recently.

If your wanting to welder alum you will need an ac power tig welder. I use a a 200 amp ac/dc tig welder with pure argon shielding gas. To get a welding rig that will do it all and last your going to spend thousands of dollars. Trust me.

I remember the head ache of stick welding an ebay SS exhaust. This one is a VRS, so it's a bit thicker.

To use a MIG I would have to get an arc attachment or argon gas?



This article? Wrench Tips # 23: Tube Fabrication Tips

Yup that's the one.

My Hobart came with a gas-ready gun, I don't know about yours, but it should. You will obviously need a tank of 100% argon and a regulator if you don't already have them.

Also, don't even try stick welding any exhaust tubing unless it's really thick stuff, like 1/8" thick, and using a 3/32 electrode. It won't work, trust me. Migging stainless will require an argon/co2/helium mix but if you can find a flux core stainless wire then that would probably be your easiest (read- cheapest)bet. If you want to drop some cash you could go with a Tig welder, Tig with 100% argon will work fine with stainless.

You really don't need to backpurge or put that paste on SS it will be just fine as long as your using enough gas.

Alright gonna look for flux core stainless wire. I'm king of regretting getting stainless now, I thought it was as easy to weld as regular steel.

I would like to avoid going with gas, I don't want to have to buy it nor do I have the mig to support it.

Look, you can weld stainless using regular steel wire, it's just that you're going to change the structure of the weld area and make it prone to corrosion.