Does anyone have experience putting together a custom stainless grille? I'm going to use 304 stainless and would like to polish before any welding. I figure it'll be a lot easier polishing individual bars than a finished assembly with awkward angles and areas. But, will the act of tacking the bars together cause enough damage to the polished finish that I shouldn't even consider polishing in advance? If the haz isn't too large, I may not even re-polish as the tacks won't be visible. Any suggestions?
If I were you, I would definitely polish before assembly. It'll be much easier, and I'm sure you'll do a better polishing job that way as well. Even if you do get a bit of visible HAZ, you can just polish that out on those small sections, instead of dealing with the whole thing.
Polish first then use a acid to take the blueing that comes from welding. I use it all the time for polished stainless projects. I get mine at the local welding supply,ware gloves it turns your fingers yellow for a week. Strong stuff.
Stainless doesn't metalshape well at all. If you have a lot of surface area you have to match to on the car and need to shape for precise fit you could do it in brass and have it plated. Thats what we do anyway.
I would defanitaly polish first then touch up. I just built a tube rear bumper and small front nerf for a 41 Willys out of stainless, couldn't imagine how hard it would of been to polish that 3" pipe if it had the brackets already welded on. Ugly enough job without. After, just a little touch up with a hand buffer. Never heard of an acid to remove the blueing, I'd like to know more about that.
Dynaflux htr-30. Welding suppliers carry it at least by me they do. I do a lot of polished stainless work and finished with a #4 sanded finish. Mostly fuse weld the joints and smear this stuff into the welds. 1/2 hour later use hot water to rinse,welds look like chrome. Making furniture and frames for the fashion district,stainless is soo in right now,lol.
I agree, polishing first will make life much easier in the end. I built the stainless tube grill in my '62 Merc using the techniques that Nominal described in a very good technical post. It has a brushed finish, but the process would be the same. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/technical-mercury-tube-grille.801795/
I have built 2 grilles out of 304 3/16"x1" stainless bar stock...both for 35 Fords. Don't know what type of car you're working on but 1.) only use MIG if the tacks are completely hidden. 100% of any final or finish welding use TIG 2.) Polish EVERYTHING you even think might show ...do it after the bars are cut/formed/shaped/whatever but prior to any assembly or welding. It can be a really big job but can look great afterward.
I'm trying to build a grille for a 65 TBird. It'll be similar to the original (except with 1/8 x 1/2") horizontal bars, but the verticals will be placed behind the horizontals. I intend to tack the horizontal bars to the verticals 'from beneath' the intersection. I don't think it should be terribly complicated . Thanks for advice guys
What ever you do don't get mils steel wire brush anywhere near the stainless. You end up with ryst spots that you can't get rid of. Had a brain farther when I did my back bumper and the spots where. The wire brush hit still show.
Any there any concerns with using a metal hacksaw blade to cut the stuff, or a hacksaw that has been used to cut mild steel in the past? What about a cut off wheel - use fresh one?
I tig welded where joints were to be smoothed and polished, brackets/mounting tabs silver solder for low warpage.
Silver solder holds great, I use it quite a bit to fix things. The new bung on my oil pan is silver soldered in place. You need the parts to fit together pretty well for best results.
Hey Gary Any suggestions where to get the dynaflux stuff? Up here in Canada there are no local distributors stocking it but they'll bring in a case lot. Don't need that much. Haven't found anyone online that will sell a single bottle. Do u have any online sources?
Well, I got it done. My experience with the Dynaflux acid is a bit different from Gary's. It wasn't quite chrome-like after applying...more like a dull finish...but I applied it to a polished finish. After rinsing the HTR-30 off, the weld areas could be polished back to the near mirror-like finish. My question is how to protected the raw (but polished) 304 stainless surfaces? Does anything need to be applied or should it be left as is? My Dad likes his chrome polish on his T-Bird. Will this harm stainless? I intend to test on a sample piece. Obviously the car will stay away from the road salt; I hear that's bad for certain types of stainless. Thanks
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