I have a small crack in one corner of a trim piece on my Vista Cruiser. From the research I've done, it should be made of 430 stainless and I was going to buy the correct Mig filler material to place one small spot weld on the back side of the trim for strength and to prevent the trim from tearing of cracking any further.

Who has any experience with this? Will I have more problems than it's worth down the road because the welded area might not have the same corrosion resistance a the base metal? Will the weld area polish and shine up like the surrounding area?

Thanks, Tom

 

I'm not a professional welder but I would think a tig would be better suited for that.

 

Thanks Eric. You are right, but I'm not a professional welder either, so I only have a MIG welder :-)

I have already researched this a bit and although stainless normally requires somewhere near 100% argon shielding gas, I can probably get away with my usual 75/25 mix. The main question now is what filler wire I can get away with. ER 308 or ER309 or maybe ER430 if I can get it in a 2 lbs spool.

I know I could also take it to a guy who fixes trim, but I'd have to research that too and I'm rarely happier when I let someone else do a job for me :-)...

 

It will be really easy to destroy that piece if done wrong. It will need to be buffed afterward.

 

What is the thickness of that piece? If it is as thin as my stainless, I would suggest letting a pro weld it. Like Eric said, really easy to destroy......... (don't ask me how I know).

 

I would think TIG also. I commend you for wanting to try it, but I would find a trashed one to experiment on.

 

I have had a number of 1960's stainless steel moldings professionally repaired, and sometimes it can be seen, and other times it is almost invisible. A lot depends on who manufactured the part, and what type of stainless steel that they used. I have actually found differences on the same car with adjoining pieces. If the part is easily found, and if you damage it beyond repair, then go for it. If not, give it to the professional restorers for repair and polishing. Sometimes we try to save a buck only to wind up regretting it in the end. If you are determined to do this one yourself, then get some stainless trim from a parts car, and practice until you know that you are proficient enough to do a perfect repair.

 

Thanks for all the feedback. I agree and I will try it out on my original tailgate trim first. I bought this one because it was a bit easier to repair.

I just was hoping that someone here had already done this and had a couple of tips for me, but I'll give it a shot since I always like learning new things anyway. The trim isn't much thinner than the roof sheet metal that I've been doing some pretty extensive welding to and it only needs one or two quick spot welds which I can place from the inside and then grind off from the outside.

I spent a couple of hours grinding and sanding the piece today after removing dents for almost a week now. This is what it already looks like before finish sanding and buffing. In fact, since this is only my second time working on stainless steel trim, I was surprised how I can get it almost shiny just with 400 grit wet sanding, let alone buffing. The last piece I did I went all the way down to 2000 grit and it turned out great.

 

Tom, that's the same part I had a lot of problems with. Mine was dented so much that the metal stretched and I couldn't make it look right. I didn't have sheet metal shrinking skills, so I had to search for a better part.

My observation on your thread is from an industrial background. And you may know this already, but in case you don't...
The stainless trim is probably not low carbon, so it is important to minimize the time the part is hot to keep chromium carbide from precipitating. That would tint the base metal black and couldn't be polished out. Same reason to make sure the part is very clean before welding.

Good luck, I admire your tenacity in getting pieces restored without throwing money around.

 

This piece gave me fits as well,, I've got a bunch of them in my attic in various states of disrepair. The metal is very thin, especially on the ends where the dies stamped the shape out. If you can tig weld that paper thin stainless and cut/blend/buff it to a sheen without burning through, I'd say that you were a master trim restorer rather than a novice. Even if you do source another piece, be very cautious when polishing.

 

Normally this type of trim is made of 302 or one of the low carbon grades of stainless. They are more ductile than 321 or any grade with high carbon. If anyone is going to try to TIG these trim pieces, use a 302 to 304 alloy filler and the smaller the diameter the better. I have TIG'ed sheet as thin as .020 but you have to be very quick, use low amperage, and don't dally in one place or you will have a nice hole.

 

Thanks for all the ideas and encouragement. Here's my long-winded answeer, if you really want to know :-)

I guess, part of the reason I am spending so much time on this piece is because I've looked around for a while. I have a hard time believing that there could be any replacement for that damage prone tailgate piece out there that would have much less or even no damage than both of mine. I bought this piece thinking that it had less problems than my original piece and it does, but I didn't see the small crack in the pictures before I bought it, so I figure I might as well deal with it. It probably won't matter much whether I end up with a piece that looks mostly good except for a small crack or one that has a discoloration because my weld won't quite polish out, but I 'm trying to get the best information I can because that what I always like to do and in the end I usually figure it out, plus I have the satisfaction of adding another skill or piece of knowledge. I learned welding, painting cars, body work, upholstery, concrete work around the house, kite surfing, legal work, etc. all by reading a lot and because I'm stubborn and like learning :-)

Ed, you sound like you have dealt with this. At first I also thought this trim would have been made of an easily formable stainless like 304 because that also has excellent corrosion resistance. You are saying 302, which is probably similar. The reason I'm pretty sure it's 430 is because, although it's not as easily formable and less corrosion resistant, it is the only stainless steel that is ferritic while all others are austenitic steels. A fortunate side effect of that is also that it makes it magnetic and what did I find when I held a magnet to all the trim pieces on my Vista Cruiser? They are all magnetic. So as much as 430 doesn't seem like the ideal choice for these trim pieces (although I have seen some of it's uses listed as automotive trim and kitchen utensils), unless I've missed something, I'm pretty sure it's 430 SS. The only question now is what filler metal should I use? I'm stuck with my MIG (no Tig) and it looks like 430 filler wire isn't nearly as easy to find as ER308 and ER309 (and probably 302 too). The question is, how much difference it it really going to make on the two quick spot welds I was going to make to join that 1/4" split? Would the 308/ 309 turn the welded area into non-magnetic austenitic SS? Probably, but what will that do to how my repair will shine up? I already am prepared that the repair might not be as corrosion resistant as it was, but I can live with that, since I can keep an eye on it and could polish it from time to time. I guess I'll try first on some spare trim pieces and see whether I want to take the risk and take it from there. I've never welded aluminum before but I have welded other pieces that weren't supposed to be weldable (actually I just remembered a similar thread on this site about a question trying to weld a factory intake manifold which turned out quite well... https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...-manifold.html )

So now I have my welding supply store telling me to use ER409, another welder who welds stainless says ER408 and you say 302. It might not make much difference at all, but for now I think it can't hurt to give myself the best chance for success with the limited means that I have by trying to get 430wire first. I was going to go with 0.023 wire, since the base material is thin. After that I don't know how I'm going to decide between the others :-)

Ed, would you place the spots from the inside or the outside? My idea was to make them from the inside so the weld just penetrates to the other side and I have minimal grinding on that side, but I haven't thought about it much beyond that and it might make more sense the other way around if I consider that two quick spots might not penetrate the whole length of the break if I weld it from the inside. And two quick spots is probably as much as I want to do :-)

Thanks for all you help

 

First off, unless you can turn down your MIG to almost no current, it is most likely to burn through very quickly regardless of the alloy. If you have a Miller or one of the good MIG welders that has autoset, you will probably be OK.

 

Are you saying that stainless steel would be welded with less current than the same thickness mild steel? I have welded 0.8mm, just would have to be careful not to pull the trigger too long...

 

I'm very interested in seeing if you find a solution. I have a pair of 68-69 convertible rear 1/4 moldings that some brain surgeon drilled holes through at the ends so they could be through bolted .


Considering that a restored set are over $1k now it would be nice to be able to fix them.


When I first got the pieces I reached out to a local metal fab shop and even a jeweler and neither were much help. The first thing everyone asks is "what type of stainless are they made of"

 

At least now you can tell them it is magnetic (ferritic) 430 stainless steel. I'll keep you posted once I get the right filler wire and do some experimenting.

Tom

 

One thing to consider when welding stainless is you want to match as close possible the chromium level from the materiel to be welded. I was taught do not use lower but higher would be ok.
430 has a level of 16 to 18 percent
409 has a level of 10.5 to 11.75 percent I would not use it.
I repaired my 66 trim with 309 ( tig Welded) as I didn't know what the stainless steel was and it came out fine.
Knowing you have 430 my first choice would be er430 (.023 wire in this case for you) If you can use a stainless trimix gas when you weld it and use a copper backup bar to help with burn thru. My second choice would be 309 due to it's higher chromium content 20 to 22 percent.
Now trying to find .023 430 is going to be a challenge, I know of only one company that has / had it on a 2 pound spool and that was Washington Alloys
http://www.weldingwire.com/.
here is a link to their selection guide , they recommend 430,310,309
http://www.weldingwire.com/Images/In...or%20guide.pdf
Hope this helps

 

That definitely helps! Thanks for all the good tips, Nick. I was using copper as a backup for filling in some holes on my car body (works great), but I probably would have forgotten to use it on the trim. As far as I can see it would be cheap insurance against a possible burn-through.

I think I will go with 309 just for practical reasons, since it seems really hard to get ER430 or ER310. Do have a hunch on whether I should use regular ER309 or the low carbon ER309L? They both seem to have a high enough chrome content to cover the 17% chrome of the 430.

The weldingwire chart is interesting. Check out this article which seems slightly different to some of the chart.
https://www.weldingcity.com/welding-...-filler-metal/

Thanks, Tom

 

I think you will find most two pound spools of stainless you can get are marked 309/309l.
I can't member the last time a saw a small spool of just 309.
I don't think will go wrong with either.
And yes normally 309 is used to weld dissimilar material and 309, but in certain cases there are exceptions. The 309 worked well for me but the finishing after the fact is a pain in the butt, grind, sand, buff and in my case repeat a couple of times

 

Awesome! Thanks. If you mean the dent removal, grinding and polishing are a lot of work, I agree, but the first piece I ever did a few weeks ago turned out great. In fact, I was almost a little surprised. I didn't really realize that I'd be able to sand sheet metal, especially stainless pretty much just like I do for paint prep. By the time I got down to 2000 grit I almost would have been happy to leave that semi-gloss sheen for my trim instead of a full gloss. But I agree it takes a long time ....

 

Nick. Not to belabor this too much and it probably won't make much difference, but what do you think about using ER308L? It has 22% chrome and might be a better match than ER309L?

Kind of like people who use premium gas in a car that's supposed to run on regular. In my mind it could even decrease performance because octane doesn't have the same energy content as benzene and so the premium actually has less percentage content of the stuff that actually produces power :-)...