Yes, I am aware of that. Only two of these boxes are without lid. They are probably not any good. Or they just need to be baked. As I said though, I wanted to help her out cuz I felt bad for her. And a lot of these are completely unopened. Not too big of a deal if a couple boxes are toast.

 

If there's even a half # of nickel rod in that stack you made out like a bandit. I see some aluminum and SS rod in there those ain't cheap either. Last time I bought nickel rod though I think it worked out to like $8-$10 per rod. Yeah per rod as in singular.

 

Wow! That's ridiculous!

There are a bunch of weird rods in here that I've never heard of these numbers before. Bunch of stainless steel rods and quite a few aluminum rods. Are these things that I can use with my welder? When I get back to the house I will post a few pictures of some of the rods and the numbers on them.

There's a couple boxes that have huge rods in them. They look bigger than 1/8 in. The flux coating does anyway.

 

The other thing is, there's a lot, a lot of 7018 rods. Quite a few of them actually say AC on them. On the rod itself. But the other ones just say 7018. Not sure if they're AC or not. Some of these are not in the original containers and some of them are in the original container with the label scratched up. Will I be able to tell rather quickly when I start welding if it's made for AC or not? Or will it just not run as smooth?

 

99-03 7.3 members showing Hyakkimaru "stick" techniques.



Guilty... it was I who recommended starting with 1/8", as I had believed you would be welding thicker stuff, like trailer ramp hinge pin holders such as what you presented in post #1.

I would argue that you would benefit from "sticking" with 1/8", and try turning up the heat to 125, and get a feel for it. Who cares if you blow holes in scrap?

A rough rule of thumb is 1 amp per .001 of rod diameter (base metal of rod, not flux coating). Since 1/8" = .125", there is your justification for trying 125 amps.

An interesting thing about working hotter, which forces one to work faster. is that there is less dwell time for the heat to conduct and radiate through the rest of the part.

I have a little 115v wire feed welder, and it only sizzles on one setting, and I only run .023 solid wire in it, shielding with gas. If I sit in a joint long enough, it can weld up to a 1/4" fillet. However, during that dwell time weaving, the part I am welding has had the chance to conduct the heat throughout itself. I use copper or aluminum chill blocks behind the joint to wick away the heat where I can, but there would be less time for the part heat up to happen if I used a higher heat welding process (bigger power supply, larger diameter wire, more current carried to the joint in the same unit of time),

As soon as a heat source is removed, cooling begins. Hitting a joint hot penetrates the parent metal deeper and quicker, and if one doesn't move along faster, burn through will occur. But the thing about moving faster is that the heat source is removed sooner, thus cooling can begin right away, rather than maintaining a lingering presence of a heat source (because the source isn't hot enough) which allows more time for heat to conduct to the rest of the part (causing distortion when the part cools, as the metal crystals reorganize themselves more compactly than when originally formed).

The "lingering" scenario with my little 115v wire feeder can be contrasted to a "hot and fast" scenario with my 230v 300 amp wire feeder, where an example of hot and fast is illustrated below:



Now that you've got the heat, might as well use it.

Wear protective (cape sleeve, bib) covering to protect yourself from flying hot dingle berries inherent with AC stick welding.

Try running the 1/8" rod at 125 just for fun, and deal with all the spatter and disaster it brings while adjusting your rod feed speed (arc length at the weld pool) and travel speed. Weld on top of your existing welds on the lawn mower blades. (remove slag first of course) Turn the blades over (if you haven't already) and alternate sides so that the blade doesn't become a banana.

 

Interesting. I will have to experiment with this hotter and quicker movement and see how it works out in comparison to the colder slower moving beads. I now have me a whole slew of different rods to play with, which will be interesting to see how the different rods work but for now I'm going to stick with 6011 while learning. I bought me a couple of sealed rod holders while I was in town today for the different canisters that didn't have lids on them.

I don't know what I'm going to do with all these aluminum and stainless steel welding rods as a lot of them are not in the original packaging and I have no idea the settings to use or if my welder would even be recommended for those rods. I assume the aluminum welding rods are going to be on a much colder amperage setting. Probably similar with stainless steel. But, I'll worry about that another time. For now I'm going to go and take pictures of all the rods I have and post them so somebody can tell me what some of these crazy rods are for.

Thanks for your lesson and explanation!

 

Also provides protection from the “sunburn”. Exposed skin can/will take a beating if you weld for a while.

 

Wear a beanie under the weld hood. Or a yarmulke.

 

This just reminded me he's yet to experience the joy of flash burned eyeballs. There's only one cure I've found that quiets the agony that night brings, and you're not old enough for it quite yet.

 

Unfortunately I have enjoyed the experience of flash burned eyeballs. I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn't open my eyes because they were so gummed up. I had to force them open. It felt like having a bucket of sand poured in my eyes and trying to rinse it out with water only made it worse. That was a really rough night. This happened while I was working at the mechanic shop I used to work at. My boss was having me hold stuff in place while he tack welded it and he didn't warn me before he started welding. I got burned pretty bad on my eyeballs that day. I also had my pants basically catch on fire when some molten Sparks flew into my pocket.

There wasn't anything I could do about my eyes being burned except deal with the pain for that night. It was very rough.

I turn 20 in april. Give me one more year after that and I'll be ready! honesty I'm going to stay away from drinking. I don't mind being around buddies that are drinking, I just don't want anything to do with me personally drinking. Too many bad experiences as a child. Same thing with drugs, toxic relationships etc. That's part of the reason why I'm still single. Seen too many bad relationships and kind of scared to get in one in fears that I will get one similar to what I grew up around.

 

More or less the same as snow blindness. Just faster.

 

Some of the wisest words I've ever heard a 19-year-old say. Good on you man! One thing I would say is don't be afraid to get in relationships, relationships are a lot like trucks, you just have to know how to pick the right one . I have to say I have been enjoying this thread, it gave me motivation to try and stick weld as 99.9% of the time I have welded something it's been with my MIG machine. I will say that I am finding out that I have been spoiled with MIG as stick welding does seem a little harder. Like anything practice makes perfect and it sure is nice not to have to use up that expensive shielding gas!!

 

Just to be clear: Drink it, don't pour it in your eyes.

 

Yep that's the good stuff. Not much can be done about it other than finding a means sleeping through the pain. Once you wake up come morning your fine. So what kind of hood did you go for, auto or single shade? I tend to prefer an auto for fit and fab and mig work , but for burning a bunch of rod I'll take an old school Jackson or a Huntsman picture window.

 

I went with an auto. Nothing crazy. Just some run-of-the-mill, decent auto darkening with adjustments. It's the same one my brother has and it works well. And it's cheap.