I can get 7018 from China. They may have different designation though. Like J421 is 6011 for example.

So basically you have to burn about 200 pounds of filler material before you can get good?

When I practice what exactly am I looking for? If I'm burning 3mm rods, and the material is thick, how much amp do I use?

Why 7018?

Is there such a thing as too high of an amperage? How much should I turn it up?

What suggestions do you have to get better?

I doubt equipment is going to fix the straight line issue.

Can you elaborate the voltage issue? I thought voltage is variable, the machine adjusts voltage to maintain current, and longer arc means higher voltage. You didn't tell me if my practice welds are any good but you really emphasized equipment. Give me suggestions as to equipment then. Is the weld go...

This Old Tony did a video where he took a cheap 60 dollar ebay welder and successfully did a scratch start TIG on it. Those aren't transformer machines. I have no idea how different the voltage is but it isn't producing any different welds compared to all the other stick welds I have seen (quite fra...

If they run at different voltage then how come people use stick welder to TIG with scratch start all the time?

Here's my practice run, I burned a few 2.4mm stick on this going back and forth. The slag looks deceptive, full of holes but once I got the slag off it looked like this. Going to make this piece about 15mm thick before long. I can't see ANY puddles at all, all I can see is the slag and they are quit...

So you got problems with modifying equipment? Yea I don't know why a TIG welder, a AC/DC TIG at that can't stick weld, it's a software thing. I can't exactly modify their software so I just stick a stinger where the + terminal is, and ground clamp in the - terminal and it stick welds. You just need ...

So it's fine to just stack beads upon beads, as long as I get some practice in? At least practicing stick is easier because I not using up gasses. By the way officially I can't stick weld on my welder but I rigged it to do stick. It makes things easier because I can just rig up a trigger and start o...

J422 seems to be equivalent to 6013. I don't have anything this thick, and most scraps I find won't be this thick either. I got some 3mm sheets to test on. A lot of scrap yard won't sell either, and anything 10mm is going to be construction waste (you know I beams and such, and I'll need a truck to ...

So about sticks, what do you recommend? And what do you recommend a beginner to stick weld?

Yet again, you are wrong. The reason you’re struggling is because you have no formal training, little practice, and you’re attempting the most advanced techniques with cheap equipment and unknown rods. You constantly cite the expense as a reason to pursue your choices, but you can either pony up an...

I tried stick welding thin stainless steel using 2.4mm stainless rod. It is much harder. For one I really need about 50 amps before it will strike a stable arc, and this is a big problem: I would weld and it looks perfectly fine, but then it breaks off, and I find out that the weld bead was incomple...

According to current charts 40 amp seems to be the minimum a 2.4mm 6013 will run, otherwise it won't keep a stable arc. But I got an array of thinner rods, and honestly the 1.4mm rod wouldn't even run stably until about 30 amps on my machine, I was able to weld 1mm stainless with it, but I gotta be ...

I haven't tried running a stick rod on DCEN. I always thought they were supposed to be DCEP or whatever. Do I get better result doing it on DCEN on thinner material? I know TIG weld is DCEN. What if you ran stick rods on AC? And what amp do you run the 2.4mm rod on if you are welding something thin?...

They got thin rods out there, I guess could use flux core wires. But can you enlighten me how do I weld thin stuff on a 2.4mm stick? If you ran it at the proper amp it burns through the material instantly.

I think I'm getting it more, I'm able to weld 1mm thick materials with 1mm rod set at 30 amps. It still don't look like Tig welds as well. Also they don't make 7018 rods in smaller diameters, only 2.4mm is the thinnest. And the rods (that j422 stuff) gets much more expensive as the diameter gets sma...

If welding thin stuff, 1.4mm rods. I tried 1mm rods but I couldn't get it to work at amperages that allow me to stick it to thicker material if I'm doing dissimilar material thickness. 1.4mm seems to work best, 50 amps (or so the name plate says).

I don't know. Most people have used Chinese welders and they're adequate. I did up the current, sometimes past what's good for the rod and I'm getting better results, but still not perfect. The trouble is that the slag is so thick, that I literally cannot tell what the actual weld puddle looks like....

I'm not sure, it's called J422. I don't know what it compares to.

I can't just jam the rod down, doing so will stop the arc completely like sticking a tungsten.

I also got some 3.2mm rod with no marking on it whatsoever. All I know is that it's for carbon steel.

I'll stick weld when I'm not that concerned with welds that look great, or if I'm welding something harder to reach and harder to see (basically I don't have to concentrate so hard on arc length when stick welding, or I don't want to use gas, because gas is troublesome and expensive). However on occ...

what I see is dirty material unless the camera angle is bad. clean the millscale OFF to bright shiny material. You probably want another dab in between the dabs you have. hold the torch so you have to peek around to see the tip of the tungsten while pushing the puddle. try just running some beads w...

I think I'd like to obtain some solar flux, I'm not able to find any copies of it in China but I see some other brands of solar flux that isn't quite so expensive. I think I can try for a full pen if I'm practicing, and if I have to purge, then I'll purge, but otherwise I think solar flux is a good ...

When I had a multiprocess that had plasma function, it was up to about 50 amps or so. I always set it to a fairly high current, within reason, and zip through the material at high speed to get the cleanest cut. Meaning I used it to cut 1.5mm stainless at something like 20-30 amps, and for straight c...

Full pen welding of thin stainless results in sugaring unless you back purge them, or use a backing plate. I heard of a product called "solar flux" that you can apply to the back of the weld so that penetration doesn't result in sugaring, but not sure how it works. The problem with backing...