we have all tried tacking up some metal on a metal table and then suddenly its stuck to the table itself where you didnt even weld it- right? so i tried to utilize this today but to no avail, now ive mostly worked with carbon steel but current project is purely 316 stainless steel, and TIG welding. i could not for the life of me replicate the nuisance even going hard at welding on a M12 bolt plated with the face down on a 5mm stainless steel plate- of course the metal plate connected to power so the current would pass from the plate to the bolt i was welding on

is this just one of those godless frustrations that cannot ever be utilized because its simply a nuisance? i get you can drill a hole and weld into that, but you cant really do that if you for instance have a long rod - im looking for a way to join a tall piece of metal to a metal plate for supporting it before i even start tacking it up- is this not possible - am i the first to try to utilize the nuisance? what am i doing wrong. stainless steel in my opinion should be more prone to this dread as just bolting the damn stuff together can have it get stuck and seemingly weld itself together

the theory as i assume it- is that when you push excess current through a very small connection, that then overheats and the gap causes it to weld together- the letters and numbers printed on a bolt head should be a great canditate for this kind of fusion, i even tried resting just a damn corner of the bolt head onto the steel plate and then buzzing the bolt for 20 seconds, zero acknowledgement of my efforts from either bolt or plate.


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