Mild to stainless...

[miweldmi]

I have a 1 3/16" piece of what I assume is solid round stainless. It is the piston arm from a hydraulic cylinder on a tractor. My friends cylinder blew a seal and we are replacing it so he gave me the old cylinder. I cut it open and extracted about 18" of solid round (beautiful piece of metal). I cut the ends of and I am going to use it as a handle on my welding cart. I took some 3/16" x 1" flat bar and fishmouthed the ends to match the curve of the solid round. Broke out the HH187 and welded the 3/16" bar perpendicular to the rod, the 3/16" will then be to the cart. It appears to have worked and the flat bar seems to be held pretty well to the round.

Is this o.k., welding mild to stainless? Or is this solid round even stainless. Don't have any pics right now, maybe later.

[tommyj3]

If it is a cylinder shaft it is steel with chrome finish not stainless.

[miweldmi]

That would explain why it welded so well with fluxcore. It is not perfectly shiny like chrome, more of a brushed stainless look. It looked a lot more like stainless than chrome to me, but it is only a handle anyway so as long as it is stuck it's not like it's a critical weld with people standing on it.

Thanks.

[weldgault]

When, not sure, 309 is the choise of most. John

[84ZMike]

How did you cut it?

[miweldmi]

I cut it with an angle grinder and cut off wheels. I first had to cut the whole back end off the cylinder. I then extracted the piston out the back end, it had a nut with a cotter pin on the threaded end of the piston. It had some seals and steel discs on the end. I hacked off both ends of the piston and got a 1 3/16" round rod about 18" long. This didn't look like chrome plated though because looking at it on end there was no separation layer where you could see mild steel in the center and shiny chrome on the outside. The sparks when cutting were much different than normal too, I believe they were short and orange. I also had to grind down the ends after I cut them off and this had a MUCH different feel when put on the bench grinder. It's hard to explain but it felt harder and took way longer than mild steel to grind down.

[miweldmi]

When, not sure, 309 is the choise of most. John

I don't have gas for the HH187 yet so I used fluxcore. I thought 309 rods for the Stickmate were DC only? I have the AC only stickmate.

[EdKing]

You can use whatever rod you have, as you are welding the stainless to mild steel. The reason you use specialty rods for welding stainless is to keep it stainless. The only bad effect on your cart will be the area where you welded will rust the same as the mild steel on the rest of the cart.

Ed

[miweldmi]

I am going to paint the welded areas anyway. I have the handle masked off right now so the handle will not be painted but the mounting arms and the welded area will be. That makes sense, it welded pretty easily and I understand when adding non stainless metal to the mix you are removing the stainless properties of anywhere you weld. So really it is just steel, weld it as you will except that it may not be entirely stainless on your welds. It did seem to wet out a little bit more than mild steel though. Like when using a 6011 rod where it digs in to the base metal more.