Best way to weld up stainless steel Firebars

[greensands]

Hi - I need to make up a set of 8 stainless steel firebars for the sloping grate on my Black Five. First thoughts are to cut a nick in each bar, bend to shape and weld up the gap to restore the bars to full strength as illustrated in the test piece attached. The bars measure 3mm x 10mm and will be 9" in length. Has anybody carried out this operation before and if so, what is the best way to proceed. Presumably, MIG welding is the answer but this is something which I do not possess. The alternative is to cut them out from sheet but this seems like too much hard work to me.
Any suggestions and useful hints would be most welcomed. - Reg


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[andyhigham]

That should bend easily in the vice with a suitably sized hammer

[ejparrott]

Hmm..I wouldn't bet on it...it might do, but stainless is a bugger at the best of times.

For the club Scot I had them laser cut to the correct bent shape from the right thickness material.

[Deleted]

Only one way to find out!

Regards,

James.

[oldnorton]

Reg

You can do a lot with a MIG welder, but they take a few months of use to get the hang of. A 150A unit will cope with that stainless thickness and you could tack in all the stretchers between the bars instead of using threaded bar and nuts, etc. With a deep cut you will easily bend the 10mm x 3mm bars, which I guess you have done in your picture anyway?

Welding it all up is very much what I plan to do, although I am intending to shape the bars into a taper section so that once embers fall through the narrowest part they have a widening bar gap to ensure there is no trapped ash.

Alternatively, Noggin End (I think?) did have some cast SS black five grates and if you don't plan to weld that might be the neatest solution.

Norm.

[goldstar31]

Deleted- lack of response