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Spot Weld hard stainless steel wire?????

I have an application for rings made of 1/16 inch diameter hard ss wire. The rings are around 3/8 to 1/2 inch in diamater and the ends butt together.

I have been connecting them with Harris 56% silver allow using Harris white flux, heating with a simple butane torch. This works great and the rings are strong, a requirement.

Now I'm wondering if I can use a small spotwelding machine that I bought at Harbor Freight. I'd form the ring and place the joint of the ring in the spotwelder's electrodes, zap it, and then hope it works.

Sometimes I use either smaller or larger wire, 1/8 inch diameter max.

I bought the wire from McMaster Carr.

Any suggestions as to how to do this?

Thanks in advance,

Wilby

Reply to
wilby
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Stainless should be no problem to spot weld. But may be hard to get something that looks nice. You could overlap the ends and get a strong weld, but might not be good looking. Or you could spend a lot of effort to make something similar to a bandsaw welder. Something that would hold the ends butted against each other and push the ends as it welds.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

Hi Dan:

Thanks for the response, I'll play with this and at least learn something.

Wilby

Reply to
wilby

Sounds like chain mail.

Mine snags on cloth so I have to wear a leather jerkin under it and a cloak over. How easy is it to smooth the spotwelds?

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

My application is in the construction of salt water fishing gear. I suppose wearing chain mail might protect me from shark bites?

Wilby

Reply to
wilby

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jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Well, I just read "... Similar to chainmail, divers wearing sharksuits can suffer from broken bones from the sheer force of a shark chomping down on a limb."

I think I'll stay in the boat, thanks anyway. I'm a whimp when it comes to jumping in the ocean with large toothed creatures.

Several years ago I was fishing near an island off Mexico in the Pacific. We were trying to catch yellow fin tuna but all we were getting on deck were big bloody tuna heads. The reef sharks were thick and right on the surface, they ate all but the head. Big white smiling teeth all around us.

I could imagine that this is exactly what it looked like when pirates threw their enemies to the sharks. A person would have lasted about three seconds before they were in several different shark stomachs.

We pulled the anchor and headed to another island.

Wilby

Reply to
wilby

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