Weldability of dissimilar steels for high-end cutting toolswith A-TIG welding

In TIG welding of high-end cutting tools, the entire tools must be preheated. A-TIG welding was selected in this paper to weld 430 stainless steel knife back and sandwich(3Cr13-1Cr17-3Cr13) stainless steel blade, and study the effect of fluxes on the weld shape. The differences between A-TIG and conventional TIG on the weld penetration, pores in the weld, microstructure, mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of the joint were studied in this paper. The results show that satisfied joint with excellent weld appearance between 430 stainless steel knife back and sandwich(3Cr13-1Cr17-3Cr13) stainless steel blade could be achieved by A-TIG welding. No defects were detected in the joint and the grains in weld were refined. The HAZ was very narrow and the tensile strength of joint was 606 MPa. The activating flux did not reduce the corrosion resistance of welded joint.