Welding Tips and Tricks

Is there a real difference between say a Lincoln wire, Hobart wire, and a big box wire. They are all Er70s-6 or choose your other filler material and up to certain standards, but what is the difference between mig, flux core, stick electrodes, or tig fillers. Is there enough difference you could have defects or is it a lot of feed ability and flow. I know we had a spool of self shielded flux core for awhile and now switched to Lincoln and all feeding problems went away. We use the big box brand in our mig welder in 30 lb spools due to price but will switch to blue demon next time online for a cheaper price. How are the prices different if it is the same? Are different big box brands different. Menards doesn't even have labels on some of theirs-like no 6013, 7014-just "welding rod"

The real weld wire and rods will run a lot smoother and look better when complete, so it seems to me they would be a better quality weld I think, I don't use the big box stuff that much, but Ive used enough of it to notice the difference without even lookin which box they come from

I've noticed distinct differences between brands on the same # wire or rod. Even when the written analysis appears only minimally different. (Does the big-box wire/rod have a written analysis?)

Steve S

I tryed a roll of Princess Auto store brand simply because they were out of Lincoln flux core wire which I have always used. No comparison. The store brand has some kind of coating that comes off and plugged the wire wiper in no time and then passed by and started to plug the gun and tip. The first I noticed was the wire not feeding right and messing up the welds. I had only used 1/4 of a 10# roll when this happened. With Lincoln wire a full roll hardly leaves a smudge on the wiper. I blew out the liner - swapped back to Lincoln and problem solved. The other wire welded crappy from the start but I don't know if it was the wire itself or just the coating being sticky in the liner. In this case there was a big difference.

I was thinking today and remembered all the welds I have done at the farm and tech school with mig. They do have a lot nicer appearance when finished and have the normal silicon deposits with the name brand wires. The big box store at high school though usually either had a plain dull gray and a flaky dark gray.

Farmwelding, I'm far from being an expert welder and mostly stick weld but I can say that the brand name rods weld better for me than the off brand or no name stuff. Probably the biggest difference is in 7018 rod where Lincoln Excalibur is hands down better than anything else I've tried.


Lance

Farmwelding wrote:I was thinking today and remembered all the welds I have done at the farm and tech school with mig. They do have a lot nicer appearance when finished and have the normal silicon deposits with the name brand wires. The big box store at high school though usually either had a plain dull gray and a flaky dark gray.

" I was thinking today"....I thought I smelled smoke

So I needed some 7018 rods for this weld rig I am building and stopped at the hardware store...picked up some Lincoln rods in a plastic box... 5 lbs of em...they don't really run all that good...lots of splatter and whatnot...kind of shitty actually...the flux on the rod is a little lighter in color than the rods you get in a can from Lincoln...then I looked at the box when I grabbed a few...yup...made in mexico

They will be ok for this thing I'm workin on but I wouldn't wanna weld a new lip on a dragline bucket with them.

All of Lincoln's rods are made in Mexico.

The 50# tin sealed with inert gas is higher quality for the perceived customer (commercial/industrial). The rods in 5# plastic boxes (NOT moisture-tight... plastic is stunningly permeable) are assumed to be for the hobbyist/homeowner/tiny shop crowd.

Steve S

At the nuke I worked at they buy it in cans then someone opens the cans and immediately repackages them in 1 lb packs with a standard food grade vacuum packager.

Otto Nobedder wrote:All of Lincoln's rods are made in Mexico.

The 50# tin sealed with inert gas is higher quality for the perceived customer (commercial/industrial). The rods in 5# plastic boxes (NOT moisture-tight... plastic is stunningly permeable) are assumed to be for the hobbyist/homeowner/tiny shop crowd.

Steve S

I didn't know that...I figured the good rods were made in Cleveland.

Popeye, I spoke a little fast.

You CAN get American made Lincoln rods, if you specify the "Buy America" program. Your LWS is not going to have them on the shelf in most cases.

http://www.lincolnelectric.com/assets/g ... mc1330.pdf

Steve S

Here's hint of what a "buy American" product can look like... Steve S

Ive seen some that packaging already when I was traveling, never had the time to give it much thought though.