It was a rush job and the only rod we had on hand at the time was 316L in 1/16 GTAW rod. We were attepting to make the welds as small as possible so that we did not have to polish them all the way out. We were originally going to use 308 flux core on the rail but it did not accomplish what we were looking for, it made the welds to big and caused way too much clean up. We starting using the 316L and it did a very good job, so we used it. I did not see a big difference other than the tensile strength when i looked in D1.6 which really does not really apply to this since it is gauge material. I just figured using GTAW and such small amounts of filler would help the base metal pick up in the welds and help allievate the diffrence between the 2. Also since it was low carbon I would not have to worry about corrosion at the weld boundries.
Not to change the subject but I was wondering how the joints were prepared prior to welding? Some companies permit handrail 1 1/2" pipe minimum sch 40 to be used as square-cut and butted tight.
I Inspected on a job a few years back that put a little weld on and after polishing most of the welds cracked posing a fall protection issue. They also tried to get away with large spotwelds and bondo. haha
Anyway I thought I'd throw that in about the small welds. If I have critical handrail I try to use chill-rings to guarantee weld joint penetration that you can't grind away.
Rush jobs usually come back to haunt you.
I wouldn't be concerned about the filler you used, for that application you're not going to have any problems at all. If you are an experienced welder and used a little common sense than I'm also sure that you're joint configuration was adequate for the job. We've performed similar tasks using 316L on 304 material with out any ill effects.
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