Blue DemonER309L X .045 X 36" X 1LB Tube stainless steel TIG welding rod

Firstly, I am NOT a welder and did not purchase these for welding. I was perusing You Tube to get advice on how to use blocking wires for knitting projects and came across a video where they guy on it talks about these tig welding wires that are identical in strength and quality to the blocking wires for knitted projects. Boy was he RIGHT. They are also longer (30” for blocking wires vs. 36” for these), include a lot more wires in one tube and are FAR CHEAPER than anything labeled “blocking wires”.In the comments section of the video, someone mentioned that there is a tab at the top of each wire that must be cut off, then the wires must be smoothed out at the end, but I did not find this to be the case with these wires. I used 6 wires to block a chevron stitch baby blanket and it came out perfectly!The wires even come in a reusable plastic storage tube that twists open and closed for convenient storage when not in use. So, walk out of the craft store and march your browser straight to Amazon and get these instead. You will feel like you outsmarted The Man, a least a little.

This filler rod is by far the best rod I've used to weld with, generally my go to for mild steel is ER70S, but even then I always run into issues with that rod, it's very temperamental with heat. This stuff however seems to be a lot more forgiving. The strength properties of ER309L is fairly close to ER70S(Tensile strength of ER309L is actually higher) so I've been using it for practically everything.I used it when I cut down a ford 8.8 rear end and wanted to strengthen the tube to housing joint since it only has plug welds. It works great for welding mild steel to cast, very easy to make it look like stacked dimes and I haven't broken a weld yet. I actually haven't used it to weld stainless just yet, but I'm fairly sure it will weld like a dream compared to mild steel. Just keep away from aluminized steels, it doesn't necessarily like it too much and the weld will look horrible, although I don't think it has any affect on the strength.

I was very pleased with these rods. I receive them sooner than expected. I believe the product packaging started out pretty good but the shipping process put a lot of stress on the light gauge plastic tube container the rods are packed in. By design the tube separates in the middle to access the rods but the light plastic envelope they used for shipping offered no protection for the product and the plastic tube arrived broken in the middle..But I bought rods not a plastic tube. Rod quality is high. I am using the rods for welding 20ga and 22ga mild steel sheet. The rod flows well, helps reduce heat and so far offers a clean weld.

Finding 1 lb. quantities of .035 SS filler rod was not easy. Lots of 10 lb. packets but not the smaller quantities. This arrived quickly, was perfect for some artwork I was working on and even though a bit spendy at over $30/lb. I neither needed nor could afford 10 lbs. Will order again.

I use these for blocking knitting and crochet. The ends are a little rough but can be smoothed off easily. In the yarn world, this many blocking wires would be $50+. They can be cut with wire cutters for shorter pieces. The tube they come in are great for storage, just be careful to open the tube at the screw area in the center of the tube.

I used this ER309L on a motorcycle exhaust to weld 304 austenitic stainless to 409 "muffler" stainless. The .045" diameter was about right for thin sheet metal like this, and it worked great. I was unable to gas shield the back side well enough to avoid some "sugaring", but that's no fault of the filler.

Haven't got to use this yet, but if it works as good as the Blue Devil aluminum wires I've used I'll be happy.

These are great. Much cheaper for me on Amazon then buying at my local store, since us hobby welders don't get the big discounts the pros get.I used these to weld some 409 stainless steel exhaust pipes together with my AHP Alpha Tig 200. Magnaflow pipes to be specific. Works great, welds are holding up strong many months and 5k miles later.