Welding thin stainless steel

[Nightjar]

It is a long time since I needed to do this. Has there been any improvement on TIG for welding thin (22g & 26g) stainless steel?

Any welders to prefer or to avoid?

Colin Bignell

[Nthkentman]

It is a long time since I needed to do this. Has there been any improvement on TIG for welding thin (22g & 26g) stainless steel?

Any welders to prefer or to avoid?

Nope...... But if you don't need structural strength as opposed to looking pretty there are a myriad of adhesives that might do as good a job

[Bob H]

Araldite comes to mind here, but there maybe something better on the market nowadays.

[Nightjar]

Thanks. I thought I'd ask in case I had missed some development. I'd not heard of MAPP gas until it was mentioned in a thread on here.

Strength is needed. It is to join the cylinder on the right of this:

to the main body. The whole of the body hangs off the joint when the screen is in place on the end of a pipe - 6" bore pipe in this case, although there is also a longer 8" version.

Colin Bignell

[Nightjar]

Wrong sort of joint. The adhesive could be subjected to a peel stress, which epoxy adhesives are not very good at resisting.

Colin Bignell

[Dave Liquorice]

Does it have to be welded? Could a flange be formed on the pipe and stainless nuts/bolts used to join it to the filter?

[Mini Me]

In which case use a more suitable adhesive, maybe polyurethane using rivets to resist peel, incorporating some means of maintaining a consistent adhesive thickness with a spacer or formed bead.

[Nightjar]

The current system is to make a series of cuts along one edge of the cylinder, fold those out to form a flange and solder the whole lot together. However, that is incredibly tedious and time-consuming. Hence, I thought of making a series of short welds around the join, for strength, and finishing off with solder, to seal the join. Sealing the join is important, as it is an insect screen and it cannot have any holes larger than 57 microns.

Colin Bignell

[Brian Gaff]

Making a high speed jet fighter over there then? Brian

[Nightjar]

Insect screens to go on the overflow and warning pipes for water supplies.

Colin Bignell

[Nightjar]

Riveting would be more work than I have to do now, which is not the idea. I am also limited by the equipment that the chap who makes the parts for me has, which rules out any formed flanges or beads, or indeed, any type of re-design.

Colin Bignell

[F Murtz]

You can silver solder stainless.

[dennis]

The holes in the side are a lot bigger than 57 microns, is there something inside that you have to join to?

[Tim Lamb]

Sleeve and rivet?

Cut a short length off your pipe. Cut across that to form an open band. Butt the pipes together. Glue and or rivet the band over the top to form a join?

I've not seen them but I assume you can get stainless *pop* rivets.

[Nightjar]

True, but there are already some problems with heat distortion when soft soldering. Part of what I hope to achieve is to lock the two parts together with the stitch welds, to reduce that.

Colin Bignell

[Nightjar]

The outer skin has two layers; the perforated metal for strength and a fine wire mesh inside that, which is the actual insect screen.

Colin Bignell

[Nightjar]

I'm trying to make less work for myself, rather than more :-)

Colin Bignell

[newshound]

You probably need a welder (person) rather than a welder (machine)

:-)

[newshound]

I mean TIG of course. I used to know a maestro who, I think, could have done it easily.

[Nightjar]

Are you suggesting that there is a gadget that I don't need? :-)

Colin Bignell