Stick Welding Rods

Tue Dec 30, 2014 10:37 am

I hope everyone had a good Christmas!
Here is some info on Stick Welding Rods...What is your favorite rod?
Best to you, Jody

Louie1961 · Tue Dec 30, 2014 7:48 pm

Merry Christmas (it is the sixth day of Christmas after all) and happy new year! Great job on the video. well done, I really enjoyed it. You know what would be a cool follow up is a review of the stick welding qualities of the higher end machines. You covered the "beginner" machines, so it would be interesting to me to see your take on stick welding with some of the high end machines and the pros and cons of each: precisionTIG, Syncrowave, Dynasty, Maxstar, invertec, etc. Some of the higher end kind of stuff a home shop guy might have.

Antorcha · Wed Dec 31, 2014 5:18 am

Man. You trying for a storm ?

Hilco 6013 Red Extra.If it's under 3/16 anything else is BS.

jwright650 · Wed Dec 31, 2014 9:28 am

Any discussion on the 1109 rod?

Wed Dec 31, 2014 9:48 am

@Louie a mate of mine has a Rohm inverter. A tiny thing, cist a packet, over a grand I think, he said its the best stick welder he ever used. 3.25 7016 all day vertical up fillets, only stopping long enough to change rods, a beast and a tiny unit to boot.

rake · Wed Dec 31, 2014 7:58 pm

Back in my shipyard days we pounded literally tons of 11018 and 8018
They didn't even allow 7018 through the gate. We were welding mostly HY-80

11018 always seemed to run real smooth and it was clean, strong and looked top notch.
Minimal spatter too so clean up was pretty easy. A lot of the stuff we did with 11018 was
also X-rayed

It's a great rod for repairs on heavy equipment like backhoe booms, bulldozer blades, buckets, etc.

Stirmind · Mon Jan 05, 2015 1:55 pm

I must say I've never welded any of the high tensile Lo-hy rods, in fact I never even heard of them until watching Jody's videos. I was an "on the job" trained fitter-welder in the petro-chem industry for about 10 years. Building tons of pipe for fuel depots, ship to shore lines under piers, a 20" line for Jet-A to the airport, and tank farms all over Hawaii and Micronesia.

We used pretty much just 3 types of rod, 6010, 7018, and 7024.

One job on Maui we got stuck with 7010, since the engineer was worried about porosity from the wind, as Maui is the windiest island in Hawaii.

Shows how sheltered you can be growing up in Hawaii, learning only to weld with what we had on the job, and no formal welding education. Although the abuse you take as a fire-watch and helper is probably worse than the hazing kids get in college! LOL!

Stirmind · Fri Jan 30, 2015 1:41 am

Are there any arc shots of those high-tensile rods getting used on here or YouTube..I looked but couldn't find any quality shots, thanks.

Fri Jan 30, 2015 1:50 am

Correct me if im wrong, but the tensile strength wouldn't have a great deal of effect on the way a rod welds....?

Stirmind · Fri Jan 30, 2015 12:15 pm

I wouldn't think so, but then again as I've never welded with one I don't actually know or would even begin to claim to. In my imagination I would think that the flux coatings on a 11018 and a 7018 are both quite similar, if not identical, but as I've never run a bead of any I'm unsure and would love to know.

I live in a very rural area and it's at least an hour each way to any town with a welding store, so dropping by to pick up a few to try out isn't as easy an option as it is just looking here online

Thanks for the reply...Aloha.

rake · Fri Jan 30, 2015 3:51 pm

Flux coatings are proprietary to the manufacturer and can vary greatly from one another.
That's why 7018's like the Lincoln Excalibur run smoother than some other 7018's. Fluxes also
vary with the makeup of the filler wires themselves. Why? Because the manufacturer wants
you the consumer to love their product over the competition. Brand loyalty translates into increased
sales and profits.

Stirmind · Fri Jan 30, 2015 5:54 pm

I suppose maybe I was unclear in what I was intending to convey, and maybe that's why I'm not getting the answer I was after. I've welding literally tons of 7018 and was inquiring as to how the view of the puddle compares when welding with one of the higher tensile strength rods as opposed to that of a 7018.

While I understand that there are certainly differences in each manufacturers flux composition and thus differences in the slag pool's properties and puddle's visibility, there are certainly some comparable factors with each type of rod, being the flux either cellulose based like a 5P, or an Fe powder based flux like on 7018s and 7024s.

I've already figured it out by directly contacting manufactures, so my question's been answered...Aloha