Bright Flares

Its entirely possible that the stick of 7/8 stock you got is some wierd mystery metal that came from the depths of outer Mongolia and was used for ground straps for privies. Some of my clients get that kind of crap on rare occasions from their vendors, usually at the end of the month deliveries.

"hey..ah..we are short a stick and we have some of that leftover from that old sales source we fired 5 yrs ago...so put it in the pile and bundle it..they will never notice the difference!"

Ack!!

Ive been called in more than once to fix a machine that was running a bar feeder and suddenly with a new bar..all kinds of wierd and strange shit starts happening. One fo the best was a company doing lots of

303 parts and they suddenly had a new piece of some hard shit in the machine. Ate the cutters off, ate the drill bit off, and stuck the stub in the bore. Running a bit "fas" t for that stock. and that tooling.......they thought the machine had gone fugazi.

I looked at the stock sticking out of the spindle..grabbed a file out of my tool box..tried to make a mark..tried....and called over the supervisor and suggested they may have a "bad" piece of material. It had actually machined almost 2 feet of the bar before coughing to a halt..and they had to go through the entire feed basket trying to find the off the wall parts. Someday someone is going to install a plumbing fixture that will never wear out.....chuckle. The owner sent a chunk to his brothers lab and they did a spectro of the metal and determined it was Inconel 600 or similar

Gunner

"The socialist movement takes great pains to circulate frequently new labels for its ideally constructed state. Each worn-out label is replaced by another which raises hopes of an ultimate solution of the insoluble basic problem of Socialism, until it becomes obvious that nothing has been changed but the name. The most recent slogan is "State Capitalism."[Fascism] It is not commonly realized that this covers nothing more than what used to be called Planned Economy and State Socialism, and that State Capitalism, Planned Economy, and State Socialism diverge only in non-essentials from the "classic" ideal of egalitarian Socialism. - Ludwig von Mises (1922)

Reply to
Gunner Asch
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Not so well. the contamination on aluminum is aluminum oxide and needs to be either mechanically or chemically removed. Likely insoluble in acetone.

Reply to
John B.

15 SCF/Hr sounds about right for argon but if you are using C25 it might be a different story. I've never used anything but pure argon for stainless. Have a look at
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it's got some good pictures and descriptions of problems.
Reply to
John B.

"John B." wrote

Bookmarked the page ... and thanks ! -- Snag

Reply to
Snag

Since it only is bad on Stainless and is non existent on aluminium, it looks like that rules out anything to do with the welder or the shielding gas.

Bright yellow is the color of sodium. So sounds like you might have salt contamination. So here are a couple of ideas. Could be the stainless rod. You might run a bead across the plate without adding any welding rod. If that is good , then try holding a piece of sandpaper and pulling the rod thru that. That free rod came from a scrap yard and could be the problem. Running a puddle across the plate without adding any rod will tell you something. You have several kinds of stainless rod. Do you get yellow flares with all of them?

------------- The flares occur whether or not I'm adding filler , pretty sure it's not filler problems .

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Could it be the plate? Cleaning the plate with water should get rid of any salt, but you might want to try scrubbing with scotch bright or fine sand paper. Maybe it is the flap wheel that is causing the problem. The same applies to the rod.

------------- I'm thinking it's contaminants on/in the plate I'm practicing on . Flap wheel has also been used on aluminum , and might be contributing . I did a couple of test passes on other stock with no /minimal flaring .

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And there is still the possibility that the plate is some odd alloy. Titanium ought to give white , not yellow flares.

---------- Slim chance that it's an exotic , it was destined for part of a commercial cabinet installation .

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Anyway a few tests ought to nail it down to the rod, the plate , or the flap disc. Let us know what you find.

You might check your plate with a magnet. 300 series stainless ought to be nearly non magnetic. It is non magnetic except if work hardened. 400 series is magnetic. Neither ought to be giving flares, but it is another data point.

Dan

------------ I've pretty much narrowed it down to the stock I'm practicing on , since other steel/stainless doesn't do this , or not nearly as much . Thanks ! -- Snag

Reply to
Snag

Well the next thing to try is cleaning the plate. Back in Washington State one of the larger supermarkets carried Citric Acid in the bulk food area. It is used for baking. Anyway it can be used on stainless to clean it and passivate it. Or maybe some phosphoric acid. Tractor Supply Company sell s it for cleaning milking machines. It is also sold by auto parts stores to use prior to primer coats. But I think more expensive than the stuff at T SC. Excellent for rusted regular steel Would probably work on stainless s teel, but I have not tried it. And then there is Vinegar. I use it on the electric kettle to eat off the calcium deposits. Works well for that.

I would try water first, but if that does not get rid of the contamination I would try some of these other things. Ernie probably has better ideas. Anyway I think it would be worth a little experimenting because you might r un across the same problem in welding stainless for a paying customer.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

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