Is Super MissileWeld® just 312 Stainless?

Is super missile weld rod simply 312 stainless TIG Rod?

 Well....Maybe.

I first heard of super missile  TIG Rod when I worked for the TechOps division of Delta Airlines.

One of the shops used it a lot to tack weld hot rolled steel fixtures.

These fixtures were only tack welded and not welded out and so they relied on the strength of the tack welds.

The lead mechanic told me it saved time and he liked having the super missile rod around anyway for odd jobs.

I was working in the metallurgical lab at the time and one of my jobs was operating the XRF spectrometer that we used to identify metals.

So I analyzed a piece of super missileweld® TIG Rod in the XRF and it came up a really close match for 312 stainless TIG Rod.

That doesn't mean Super missile rod is exactly the same as 312 stainless tig rod  because certain elements are hard to detect with XRF but super missile weld tig rod is pretty darn close to 312 stainless tig rod.

Then I did some research into maintenance welding rods and I learned that sometimes companies will take a really useful dissimilar metal rod like 312 stainless and give it a catchy name and charge a premium for this "special rod".

And that brought back a memory when I worked at a boilermaker fab shop and encountered a box of Eutectic 680 stick rods and one of the old timers said

“you can weld almost anything with that stuff”.

Good chance that eutectic 680 was also a variation of 312 stainless.

( 312 stainless TIG Rod  is very crack resistant is particularly handy when the alloy content of the steel to be welded is unknown. )

Calling 312 a catchy name like supermissileweld® instead of the AWS classification number also frees them up to change the composition a bit….add a bit of boron, silicon or heck even sawdust if they want...because if they don't claim to meet any AWS spec, then they are free to add elements to make the rod even more forgiving than it already is...And 312 stainless tig rod is already very forgiving when it comes to crack sensitivity or hardening due to dilution.

I am not saying that is a bad thing but knowing that 312 is almost the same exact thing lets you save some money because 312 stainless TIG Rod is usually way cheaper than super missile weld rod.

Maintenance rods like supermissileweld® typically do not list what is in them. 

I suppose sometimes if the composition has been tweaked, that might be  a trade secret and proprietary information

But I suspect often times the composition is not provided because it would let the cat out of the bag and remove the super mystery factor.

Here is the nominal composition of 312 stainless TIG Rod

C = 0.15 max

Cr = 28.0 – 32.0

Ni = 8.0 – 10.5

Mo = 0.75 max

Mn = 1.0 – 2.5

Si = 0.30 – 0.65

P = 0.03 max

S = 0.03 max

Cu = 0.75 max

Features:

Tensile strength - Up to 120,000 psi
Yield strength - Up to 85,000 psi
Ductility - Up to 35% elongation in 2" Hardness as deposited - 200 to 300 Brinell Work hardens

Impact resistance - Excellent Heat resistance - High Frictional resistance – Excellent Abrasive resistance - Mild

Will not respond to heat treatment