A Stainless Steel can of worms....

[cncman333]

Before I open this can of worms let me say that I am 99% sure that my Streetfox frame will be built of aluminum, but a machinist freind of mine made an interesting suggestion - What about Stainless square tubing? It would weigh within 10% of a mild steel frame, would have roughly the same bend and break characteristics, would not rust, and would look cool.

The Warrior uses the natural flex of the frame to provide suspension, so for my alum frame I am going with the Streetfox, but SS would probably be a viable option for the Warrior.

Any thoughts on this?

[fultondp]

See!

I new aluminum was evil, it's a gateway drug to other metals! :devil:

Darren

[trikeman]

SS would certainly look cool, if you can stand the cost. I'm cheap, so I just use paint to keep my stuff from rusting. You could just go with mild steel and get the whole thing chromed, but I don't know how much that costs.

[Radical Brad]

I have used stainless before as well. Besides the correct rods, I did not do anything special when welding it.

Brad

[trikeman]

I have used stainless before as well. Besides the correct rods, I did not do anything special when welding it.

Brad

When welding stainless steel, you have to use the right wire (or in your case rod) or the welds will rust.

[savarin]

When welding stainless steel, you have to use the right wire (or in your case rod) or the welds will rust.

and polish the ground weld.
Would look mega cool though

[macka]

The prep for the welding of stainless is easier then aluminum, and yea, it would look awesome in its natural finish. Make sure when you set up the tubing it has a slight chamfer (like 10* or so) and only chamfer it to the mid way point. This gives you a bit more surface area for your weld to grab onto.

[swizz69]

I'm sure stainless is a higher tensile strength than mild steel & in thin wall tubes can crack under stress. It certainly does when used in car exhaust systems - i've repaired a few that have gone on the welds.

[wiretie]

I used to work in a boat yard where I had a friend who used to tack weld the rails in the yard with a stick welder then take them back to his shop and tig them. this was before portable tig welders were relatively inexpensive I checked with him before posting and he uses a syncrowave 350 but he says stick welding stainless though not as pretty, is a viable method for joining stainless. He says he only uses 316L for stick welding and he uses 316 for his tig wire as well. Aquamet 19,22 and 316 are what he considers stronger than mild steel worked by anybody other than a trained professional. I don't know, but this guy was a third generation machinist and says he's never had a weld come back to him.
-Briggs