Welding Tips and Tricks

One of my clients, in my non welding day job, asked me to help repair an arena drag they have. Said piece of equipment is used to drag a horse riding arena to break up and even out the footing. The teeth are worn and they've asked me if I could weld on some new. Looks like its just 5/8" square, cold rolled, I was just going to weld the new tooth behind the the old, running beads on the old tooth and the body of the drag. Obviously cleaning areas to be welded before.
The weapons I have at my disposal are a Harry homeowner Millermatic 135 and a Lincoln Squarewave 200. I was thinking of stick welding with the Lincoln, it's been about 30 years since I've done any MMA welding, but i found some 6010 and tried running that on some test pieces with less than desirable results. I'm fully willing to accept it's me and I need more practice, but is 6010 ok with an inverter type welder? Is there a better rod more suitable to this task and or my welder? Should I use another process? flux core? Should I just give up?

Any advice gratefully received. Thanks.

Ray

Your square wave will be ideal for this job. It's dirty so stick is the way to go.
6010 is not the best rod for this application, IMO, due to possible fillets and no bevelled preps.
7014 would be easy to use and effective here as long as there is no vertical up welding.
If you do have vertical up welding then 7018 is the rod for the whole job. Practice first. Don't worry about baking these rods for this non-code welding application.

Welcome to the forum, Ray! 6010 electrodes don't run well on an inverter welder unless the machine is designed to accommodate them.

It's a good idea to practice up on your stick technique. Coldman's post on rod choice is spot on. As a rule of thumb set machine amperage to decimal rod size x 1000. So, 1/8" rod = .125 x 1000 = 125 amps, then adjust as needed. The saying is "Set amps high enough so you can hold a tight arc without sticking the rod, then hold a tight arc".

Good luck with it, let us know how it goes!

Until you get practiced up I would recommend 3/32 7018 at 80-90 amps.

Your other option and perhaps easier, is to run Flux Core wire thru your MillerMatic. A spool of 0.035 wire will make welding that in any position, any direction, a piece of cake. No gas, no sticking your rod, and dead strong weld.

We have an arena rake and the teeth are hardened, you might double check the teeth to see if they're case hardened. That rake doesn't look very old and the teeth seem completely worn down, so the owner might want to switch to a hardended material to get a longer life.
I have a SW200 and although it's advertised to work with 6010, it is not nearly as easy as with a transformer machine so I wouldn't use that rod if you're just getting back in the saddle. I'd go with your mig machine, especially since you haven't stick welded for awhile.
I'd suggest alternating around on different teeth to avoid warping the rake. So weld one edge (or maybe half an edge) of a tooth, then move over to a different side of the rake and don't come back until it's cool. It would be easy to warp that thing. It would help to clamp the whole thing down to a large heavy work table if you have access to one.

Another thought, some arena drags have removable teeth. You could do a similar thing without any welding. Take a new tooth and drill two holes through it, then clamp it to the inside of an existing tooth and drill matching holes through the existing tooth. Then you could bolt the tooth on and replace it if necessary.

Thanks very much for all your replies. I might go the Flux Core route, given that I haven't run stick in such a long time. I'm thinking most of the welding is going to be vertical, I don't have anything big enough to move that thing so I can weld on the flat. I wasn't sure if the little Miller had enough grunt to make things stick. I do have it loaded with Lincoln Innershield NR-211MP at the moment, and that is allegedly good for use in all positions. I built myself a rack for hanging steel in the roof of my shed and had never tried flux core. My attempt wasn't the best looking in the world, but not too bad either, as of yet I haven't had 300 lbs of steel fall on my head so.... Worst comes to the worst I'll get some rods, practice up and have a go with them.

Mark - the rake definitely doesn't seem that old, I was thinking of using some Borium / Drill Tech on the tips of the teeth. I'm a farrier and have a bunch of that laying around that I don't use any more - I'm not sure, just went through my mind when I first looked at the job!

I really appreciate you guys sharing your experience, I've taken note of all that you've said, and when I get time I'm going to have a go at stick again for sure, I really enjoyed it when I was a kid. In my trade there are plenty of people willing to shoot you down if you admit to lack of experience. There are plenty of good people too, but the internet is full of people willing to criticize rather than help.

It will probably take a while to get this thing home and sorted, but I'll let you all know how it goes. In the mean time, any more information will be gratefully received.

All the best.

Ray

Yet again I'd resort to grouser stock. It's bullet proof. In your application, unless you plan on a heck of a lot of grinding first, I'd use 6011. I won't comment on the flux core, that might work.

This is the first thing that came to mind. Unfortunately I do not have experience with facing or banding yet. Maybe you can find something similar that it is your amperage range and doesn't require ordering miles of it at a time.

http://www.lincolnelectric.com/en-us/co ... acing.aspx

carthorse wrote: I'm thinking most of the welding is going to be vertical, I don't have anything big enough to move that thing so I can weld on the flat.

If it's attached to a tractor, remove the toplink, get a couple of gorillas to help you lift the drag into a vertical orientation, then chain the drag frame to something on the tractor to hold it up. Then raise the 3 point to the highest position and you should be able to sit and work on the bottom tooth in the flat. Spin the thing like the wheel of fortune to move to another tooth.

Just checking back in. That was a big job! Mark - thanks for the idea for setting up the drag - of course my old tractor at home wouldn't start so my trusty flat bed was the fixture plate.

I ran a few test pieces and I didn't think that my little Millermatic had enough ass to weld all the joints on that 3/4" stock, so I bought a fair load of 7018 and practiced. A lot of the early welds were a bit dodgy looking, but by the end, it was going pretty well. I welded out all the out of position odds and ends with the Millermatic. It was maxed out and kept tripping the breaker but I learned a lot about flux core. Overall it was a great project - a lot of welding and consequently for me a lot of practice. Thanks again for everyone's help. I think my stick and Flux core skills are a bit better today than 3 days ago.

U can’t run 6010 w the Lincoln squarewave 200. Tech suppt. Said the welder is not designed to run 6010 bc it’s an ac/dc rod and the welder is designed for dc only, as it pertains to stick welding

Don't forget to check out the dates on the last post before you reply. The last post was 3 years ago.

Now that it was drug up........ how did the repair on the Drag hold up?
Curious minds want to know!

Pretty good! Nothing broke off - I still go to the same farm to work and I think it probably needs done again. Blue stone is pretty abrasive!


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