My mom's friend is a lead engineer on a project involving offshore oil rigs and umbilicle cords. He says once a pending contract goes through to a supplier, he'll have a very large supply of scrap tubing. He doesn't know the alloy off hand, but he says it's high quality stainless. I know welding stainless is significantly different than regular steel, but barring that, how good would it be to build stuff like shock towers, tube fenders, stinger bumper and possibly a cage? All he has at his house is a 110V Miller Mig, but he has access to a full machine shop at work. On a college budget, free is good, but is it worth it?

umbilicle cords???isnt that the thing u cut when a woman has her baby

i would find out how strong it was before i made a cage, but things like tube fenders, racks, etc i say go for it

In this application, umbilicle cord is a fancy name for anchor or tether.

My mom's friend is a lead engineer on a project involving offshore oil rigs and umbilicle cords. He says once a pending contract goes through to a supplier, he'll have a very large supply of scrap tubing. He doesn't know the alloy off hand, but he says it's high quality stainless. I know welding stainless is significantly different than regular steel, but barring that, how good would it be to build stuff like shock towers, tube fenders, stinger bumper and possibly a cage? All he has at his house is a 110V Miller Mig, but he has access to a full machine shop at work. On a college budget, free is good, but is it worth it?

Find out the alloy 1st, iffen its 300 series it shouldnt be too bad if the wall thickness is ok for the application (elongation issues in comparison to DOM). If its 400 series pass on it, the welding is a PITA particularly if all one has is mig. On a + note, its corrosion resistant and polished SST adds a bit of bling iffen ya like shiny bright...

D.

When using a MIG welder you have to use pure argon gas instead of mixgas. And stainless wire offcourse. Welding it should not be much harder when welding steel.
Only downside is the weld does not run as 'smooth' as with regular steel.
I use SS alot and never had any problems strength wise. The SS I use has about 75% of the strenth as the same size regular steel.