There are welding shops in every city that can handle stainless steel welding. Look in the yellow pages under welding. Some facts about stainless steel that few people understand are:
1. Stainless steel is stronger than mild steel, but it has poor fatigue strength. This means if you continue to stress it in the same manner repeatedly (applying the same digging motions on it), it will eventually break where the stress is applied. In easier to understand terms, this means the weakest part will eventually break if you keep digging with it. This depends on the number of repetitions of the digging motion.
2. Stainless steel is much more corrosion resistant than mild steel, but it can corrode in lesser amounts. The corrosion is sometimes located in the edges of weld joints. It is a good idea to rinse off your scoop with a hose when you leave the salt water. This will remove salt that would otherwise sit embedded in crevices in the metal to continue a slow corrosion process while you wait for the next hunt.
3. There are different grades of stainless steel. each has different strength and corrosion properties. The common grades you see are 302, 304, and 308. The higher numbers are more expensive and usually last longer. There are also other more exotic grades and less exotic grades.
In order to keep from breaking your scoop in the same place as last time, you might ask the welding shop to add some gussets to strengthen the weak part that broke. When I do heliarc welding on common stainless steel, I usually use 308 welding rod in order to insure the weld material is better than the stainless steel parts I am welding.
J_P
