Welding Tips and Tricks

Now that the owner of that weld has obviously mastered welding steel together, he has taken his box of 6013 Satincrafts and the handy suitcase welder he bought at the hardware store and is now working on his first box trailer


Seriously, anyone here ever used Satincraft 13's. Is it just me or do they make welds like that for everyone? Someone once told me they were developed for automotive repair on body work i.e. fast welds on thin sheet metal. And somehow they just became a general purpose rod. Everything I've used since is significantly better.

MosquitoMoto wrote:Yep.

Apparently one of steel's weaknesses in construction applications is that it can fail through fatigue.

Can is the keyword, and its a strength, not weakness, of using Steel for structural. Steel has a fatigue limit, which mean if youre below that stress level it will hold forever.

Aluminium is also used for structural but doesnt have a fatigue limit. Meaning, it will fail due to fatigue sooner or later. If done correct time to failure is very long though.

Using the photos of the aluminium you describe isnt wrong but you need magnification pictures of the fractured surfaces to determine if its a fatigue failure or not.

I've seen awesome pipe caps done with satincraft13 plenty of times. I avoid it like the plague because I get bird poop every time. If I must use 6013 I will use WIA rods but its been a long time.


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Satincraft 6013s are ok for flat work, done a few "non critical" handrails at work(lead refinery), with a wide bevel with little to no land they lay in nice and flat. No need for a grind smooth after.
People say they dont make a strong weld but these get belted with 1T crust butts constantly hanging from a crane none have broken or cracked yet(done a few years ago).They do have one side plated in though, Ithink it was 75x5mm sq tube or whatever the aussie standard tube size is

I think 6013's need good prep to be successful and run them hot... in a easy position forget vertical up as they freeze to slowly imho.

I like satincraft 13s and use them regularly. But I suck at vertical so I can't comment. 12xps are a far better rod for verts though. I don't have enough spare cash to buy my preferred rods, so I make do with what I have got. (Murex, Esab and some free horrible Bohler ones)