Shiney stainless TIG welds

[appsys]

Hey all. I've done a lot of TIG welding in the past but I've always wondered how some of these guys get the shiney rainbow colored welds on stainless. My welds are usually grey and dull looking.

I hear from talking to others that I'm welding too hot and basically cooking the welds too much. I've tried welding cooler and moving faster but I still can't get these kinds of results. Will back purging make welds like this? Anything else I can try?

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[brightspark]

I work with nothing but stainless and always use a gas lens wherever i can. Be careful as you can have too much flow which causes turbulance, drawing oxygen into the shielding gas. 10-16 lpm should be ample with a lens.

Another factor is surface contamination make sure the metals spotless. We use IPA or solvent.

[sparky mcfab]

Re Shiney Weld

A Sharp Tungstein Will Help. When The Weld Turns Black That Means You Burnt The Chrome Out Of The Stainless .

[Laiky]

I have had better luck with a standard nozzle than a gas lens on stainless. I believe you need to turn up your flow with the GL on stainless and you will get better results. I suspect that because i thought of a GL as a gas saver it made no sense to me to increase the sheilding gas. If you over heat it or fail to sheild it while cooling you will not get the golden color. You should always sheild the back side if it is heated to red hot or better. Argon works best, but solar flux is good too. Its just hard to clean off.

[fun4now]

SS seems to cool slower, or just needs shielded longer to. so don't be in a rush to pull to the torch away at the end of the weld, be shore to let the post flow cool the last of the weld.

[Engloid]

The color of a pretty, finished weld is nice, but people worry way too much on the color. Of course a dark grey (rough looking) weld usually is indicative of a problem, some blue color isn't going to hurt the weld at all. Any color on a weld is only surface CONTAMINATION. Many times, stainless will rust if you don't clean this contamination off.

all the welds I saw in this thread look just fine to me, even the darkest ones.

[Engloid]

The color of a pretty, finished weld is nice, but people worry way too much on the color. Of course a dark grey (rough looking) weld usually is indicative of a problem, some blue color isn't going to hurt the weld at all. Any color on a weld is only surface CONTAMINATION. Many times, stainless will rust if you don't clean this contamination off.

all the welds I saw in this thread look just fine to me, even the darkest ones.


If you're looking to learn to weld by studying guys that weld manifolds for a living (or hobby), you will hear all kinds of bad habits, myths, BS, and even lies. Be careful.