Stainless welds

[Amgine]

My boat has a stainless plate welded to the pulpit for the nav lights, and it snapped off, leaving the light dangling by its wires. I've spent a couple seasons sailing with it taped into place, but I know I need to have it welded. Where do I find someone to weld stainless? Will I need to remove the pulpit from the boat and bring it to the welder, or can they come out to the boat? (since the wiring goes up and through the pulpit tubing I'm not looking forward to taking it apart and then rewiring it.)

The other stainless weld I noticed broken is in the port settee locker. It's one of those long lockers with nearly the whole top of the locker opening, with two long stainless angles on the front and back of the locker and a single cross piece welded in the middle to hold the front to the back. The cross piece has one weld broken. That one can easily be removed and brought in to the welder.

[Godot]

Let your fingers do the walking.  Or talk to your marina who probably can do it for you or recommend someone.

I know that welders often travel.  I strongly suspect that it will cost you extra, especially considering this is a small repair, unless you find someone already working on another project nearby.  There may be a minimum charge.  But most of the welders I know are independent folks, who have their own ideas on how to run business.  Best bet is to ask around.

Personally, I think I would remove the pulpit.

[Cmdr Pete]

I've been looking for a bracket to mount a bicolor running light on my bow pulpit.

Haven't found much. But, I noticed that Aqua Signal makes different pulpit brackets for their series 25, 40 and 41 lights.

Another option perhaps

[chris2998]

pickup a phone book and start calling. If you have wires going through this thing I'd take it apart and take it off the boat because heat will destroy the wires plus I'd Tig weld it if it is stainless. Tig welding it will leave a very pretty and extremely strong weld if done right. If you were near me I'd weld it for ya just to be able to go out sailing with ya haha.

chris

[matt195583]

You can weld stainless with an ordinary arc welder .. it is a litte trickier than welding mild steel as the stainless doesnt seem to show the heat the same . and the electrodes are pretty expensive .

I guess my point is if you have a small handyman type arc welder maybe look into getting some SS electrodes and some scrap stainless hand have a play around before you get stuck into any thing important . My other point is that the cost of having a welder come to the boat would probably be more than a cheap welder and the electrodes ....... food for thought .

[chris2998]

I wouldn't stick weld stainless, I've done it before and really didn't like it. You can either tig or fluxcore stainless and you can make a really good sound weld. If you pay someone to tig weld it I'm sure it will cost more, Tig is just more expensive because of all the gas and the tig welding parts aren't cheap and not alot of people can do it but give it a try if you have a friend with a welder play with it some. You can always post pictures on here of your progress or others sites like aws.org which there is nothing but welders there, you maybe able to find a welder on there that is in you're area, just go to the forum. I'm on there alot

[matt195583]

Just out of curiosity what is it you dont like about stick welding stainless ? I have done a little bit of SS tig work and some with stick I think stick is alot easyier to learn in a hurry and in an hour or two of welding it i was getting nice clean welds. whereas TIG was still looking pretty average after a week or so. mind you most of the work i have done is MIG or STICK .and mainly mild steel or bisaloy.

[polecat]

Amgine - Tig is definitely the way to go - gives a nice clean weld, impurities left in the weld may cause problems later.  I just went through this on a Hunter 23.  You'll most likely get a much better deal overall by taking it to a tig welder. I'm not to sure you can get flux cored stainless - I couldn't find any. Just call your local welding supplies store and ask for a good marine tig welder -- you'll get more than a few choices.  If you take off the bow pulpit, be carefull when you pry it up after removing the screws as the DC wires get to the light by coming up through one of these.  You should have enough slack  to get it loose.  Take the wires loose from the light & tie on a piece of safety wire or such long enough to remain in the pulpit as you remove the electrical wires.  Once the welding is done you can use it to re-string the wires back up through the pulpit to the light.
good luck
jim

[dnice]

I took welding classes at a trade school for 2 years, It was very common for people to bring in things to be welded. We would get the practice, and they would get a free weld :) we even took on pretty big jobs, like a boxing ring, and more than one pickup-truck ladder racks.
So if you got a local trade/tech school, it may be worth checking out. It will be just as good work as any pro, since the teacher will make sure it gets done right and Since stainless is usually reserved for the most talented/advanced welders in the class.
I would also prefer tig for stainless.

[AdriftAtSea]

One thing to be aware of is to make sure they use the right grade of welding wire for the repair.  I've seen repairs that failed very quickly, since the wrong grade of welding wire was used, leaving the welded area galvanically active.  If the stainless steel is 316, then you want them to use a 316L stainless welding wire. etc..

[WindyWay]

I plan on using a my Mig welder to weld a small circle base to my bi coloured nav light on the FWD pulpit. The light is currently on the deck but I'm putting an anchor roller there in it's stead.

[chris2998]

never mig welded stainless all you can do is give it a try and see how it looks I'm sure it would be ok, I think it would probally be easier then stick welding it.

about the stick welding stainless I just never liked it is all I feel if it is on a sailboat it should be tig or even fluxcored for the strength and it just looks cleaner then stick, I've got a stick welder and tig welder I built a trailer useing stick process and it worked great and is extremely strong but higher quality stuff or smaller stuff that needs to be more precise I use tig. Mig you can get a good sound weld just make sure you got the heat up so you can make sure you're getting good penetration. I know i get accused at work alot of welding a little hot on carbon but I'd rather be hotter then cold. I want good penetration.

like someone else said make sure you're useing the right filler material or wire when welding and the correct gas, Call you're local welding supply place and they can help you out with all this or ask them for a good welder around.