Hi didn't get a name, I am a sheet metal worker by trade and do a lot of S.S. welding on dishwasher and kitchen equipment ducting. Its mostly 16Ga. metal, anyway I often have to weld S.S. to the regular steel duct and have had no problems welding them together and all my welds need to be water tight. For me the key is you can weld steel with stainless rods but CANNOT weld stainless with steel rods. I normally use E316 rods 3/32" but dont recommend these rods as all position more for flat position. Although I regularly weld overhead and vertical it takes years of practice to do quality welds. The stainless rod E308/316 is basicly a lo-hydrogen rod similar to E7018 for steel. Hope this kinda answered your question if not let me know...

Wade
P.S. If you're working with steel you might as well use E7018... let us know how you do...

316 stainless and 309 stainless are considered by many to be the "superglue" of welding oddball alloys and strange curcumstances. In short, it will be fine as far as strength goes, though it doesn't have quite the tensile strength of the high-alloy specialty rods for alloy steels. For your house/hobby work it will do great.