Welding setup for stainless round bar

Hi, I have been trying to weld some stainless round bar to make a small bracket. Is there a general rule of thumb for determining amps etc when welding something like this? I know the stainless welder settings presented in the course say 35mm per mm, but would this still apply?

Any tips would be much appreciated!

Hi Shaun, good question and your spot on, 35amps per mm rule wouldnt work for say 12mm round bar, this depends on the size and the strength of the weld your looking to achieve, if its a small bracket that doesnt take too much load then you could use 35amps to create a nice small weld, on the other hand it might need a nice big weld to maintain strength then 100amps or something like this would be the go. Can you show us the bracket?

Hey Nigel,

Thanks for your help. I've attached a few photos of the unfinished bracket. The thin pieces are 6mm, and the ends are made from 16mm bar. The bracket is to mount a headlight on my motorbike so it's not holding a huge weight, but I'm assuming I would still want a bit of strength due to vibrations etc. I might play around with lower amps, i tried a few quick tests with around 90-110amps and I seemed to be melting the ends of the 6mm bar rather easily which made me think the amps were too high

With the difference in mass between the parts, you will need to bias the heating rather more to the thick-wall tube - are you doing that?

Thanks Gord, yup I've been trying to focus the arc towards the thicker pieces