Blue Demon spool stainless steel flux cored gasless welding wire with Hobart Tip

I recently built a swim platform for my boat and in the process had to make some brackets using 3/16" stainless steel plate. Doing a little research I found that the c25 I use for MIG welding steel would not work for stainless so I was left with a couple options - buy more gas (expensive) or opt for flux core stainless steel wire and since I rarely work with stainless decided the wire was the best choice.I'm probably not the best person to write a review on this wire as it was my first time using it and I have nothing to compare it against other than other flux core wire that I've used in the past for mild steel. The wire seemed to run OK but I did notice that it was slower (if I recall correctly) than the other steel wire. It took a little fiddling with my welder settings but in the end it laid down a decent bead with the usual splatter involved with flux core. I would like to have had more material to work with so that I could have played around with my settings a bit more but stainless steel is expensive and I only bought what I needed so I didn't have that luxury. Overall I was pretty happy with the wire. Certainly much less expensive than having to buy more gas and while not the prettiest welds I've ever made, the wire did what I needed it to do and fused the pieces together.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional welder; most of my experience (~3 years) is with GMAW on mild steel, and I generally dislike dealing with FCAW. Those of you with more experience with FCAW can chuckle into your sleeves all you want at what are likely greenhorn observations I detail below.I put this wire through a 230V Millermatic 180. Part of the job was 1/4" 304L stainless square tubing and plate, horizontal and outside corner welds; this worked well for that purpose once I dialed in the settings. A few things that helped:-Preheat the living hell out of the workpiece, or standby for cold starts and no penetration.-My welder needed waaay higher voltage settings, waaay lower feed settings than the manual recommended; test on scrap until you get it right (of course).-No weaving, drawing e's, or deviation from a straight path in general; gun attitude should be straight in or pull. Otherwise, you'll be getting pockets of slag and cold seams on the edge of your bead; not fun to clean up. It's also a lot easier to see the puddle if you pull, and pushes the slag back along the bead. Also, I found that 3/4" of stick-out worked well; any closer and I got more splatter.-If you have a straight bead, just let it cool until it starts snapping, then hit it with a torch for a few seconds and the slag should flake right off. Going around a bend, it's a different story; I found myself wishing for a needle gun or blasting cabinet several times.The hardest part of the job was welding some ~0.065 tubing into a penetration in 1/4" plate; I had to dial the voltage down to prevent blow-through, while still getting decent penetration into the plate. Wound up laying down a fat bead directed more toward the plate, and then going over a few times with the voltage turned way up and the feed down low. Hard to maintain a pull gun attitude around a small radius, and to spot/remove all the slag, so it ended up bubbling to the top and requiring more passes, each pass requiring more whacking, scrubbing, and wire-wheeling. It was a nightmare and took way too long.Conclusion: If you have a small stainless project that requires horizontal or flat welds on simple geometry, this works well and is an inexpensive alternative to dropping a bunch of money on stainless wire and a bottle of tri-mix. Just refer to my advice above. More complex geometry, and you've got a real headache coming to you. fwiw.

Thnks

I would consider myself a amatuer welder. I have made and replaced many rust areas on a Datsun 240z so have become decent on welding thin steel. I purchased a stainless steel 2-1/2 exhaust pipe kit and this wire to fabricate my own exhaust. It does work. A few notes. It creates a very tall heavy weld. Be sure to lay it on thick zig zagging across the joint. I tried to stitch weld and had many pin holes. The pinholes are difficult to fill. Zig zag and it will come out good. I then ran a flap wheel to clean it up. It's not a pretty weld, but it's under a car so who will see it. It does save you from having to buy a $1,000 welder or the $1,000 to have a exhaust fabricated for you. I also used solar flux on the back side of my welds, so for around $80 you can weld stainless. It was a good intro to stainless and did leave me wanting a tig to learn how to make pretty welds.

Purchased this to make a grill grate frame for our new fire pit. Used it with a Harbor Freight/Chicago Electric EasyMIG 100, max amperage and feed setting of 3. I'm an amateur welder, but it still did very well. I wish there was a little better penetration, but a slightly slower feed rate may have helped with that. I was using ¼" thick stock, but it's light duty, so what I did get will be fine. The hardest thing was getting the spool loaded. As other reviews mentioned, the wire wants to unwind. Trying to get it fed into the welder without unwinding was difficult, but I managed to get it done. I don't know how easy it would be to weld vertically, but horizontal wasn't bad. Overall, I was impressed with the product (and the welder since it was from Harbor Freight) and I'm excited to use the grill I made.

So... nothing wrong with the wire. But it’s not easy to use. It comes out very drippy as its being welded. I found that straight lines are fairly easy to control but when going up a seam, any air between the pieces would ruin the shield and would pileup. It worked best running high amperage and medium speed. Need to work fast and being stainless is quite hard to grind welds clean. Should I do more stainless work I would go with solid wire and use gas as will not be so drippy of the end, plus no flux to try to remove. So in conclusion, is quite hard to do super nice work with it even after I cleaned the steel and did all the prep work perfect.

I am only a hobbyist when it comes to welding. I was renting the proper shielding tank but for the amount of stainless welding it was not practical anymore. Found this item on Amazon and thought well let's give it a try.Have only done a few test welds so far but other than the price I highly recommend this product. There is not much splatter and the fumes are minimal and the welds are solid. For small jobs the price will be forgiven.

Its not ideal for thin materials, but it works.The issue for thin materials, the 308 wire doesn't flow well at low current voltage settings of mig machines.You can get a less blotchy clumpy weld by turning up voltage and current of your machine.But doing so in thin materials like automotive exhaust risks melting through and causing holes in your exhaust to back fill.If your project involves thin materials and your on a budget, it will work. But you might be better off paying for 308lsi (silicone added to allot for fluidity and flow)And tri mix welding gas.

This is a lifesaver. When having to weld exhaust and shield gas isn't available, this will save the day. Just make sure you have your welder setup to DCEP when using this. If you don't know what that is you probably shouldn't be welding...

I am not a welder, just learning. Could not get the proper wire feed , amps/voltage and travel speed down pat before I ran out of wire. Lots of burn thru and splatter, that's my fault. Nevertheless, nice shiny stainless steel beads while trying to weld on cheap 409 stainless .060" wall exhaust tubing. Will purchase again when skills increase. Rather expensive for a 1 lb. roll of flux-core wire, perhaps price will come down in the bear future!