Cutting - Welding Sparks a flying

Books

There are alot of good welding books around and cheap too. I took 5 years of welding from JH to graduation but still needed a book to cover the newer stuff that came out later on. I have tanks, arc and mig welders but don't really use them much unless something of mine or a friends breaks.

I have done and still do hard surface work on my snow plow on the heavy wear areas.

The electrode for stick welding is the consumable rod. In MIG it is the wire that feeds through the gun. On a TIG it is the tungsten that is in the torch.

The rod makes a difference because as there are different types of steel you need like filler metal. There are also different properties that rods have like 6010 (60k tinsil strength, 1=all position, 0=coating Cellulose sodium. 6010 is good for deep penitration and when there is crap around the weld are (Ie not cleaned up like it should be). Not all electrodes are created equal. The 6010, 6011 was a guess because they are common and do not require an oven to keep them warm. 7018 is low hydrogen and because of this needs to be stored in an oven at 250-300 degrees or the original unopend container. If it is not it will suck up water in the air and your welds will be bad and probably have cracks in them.


To your question about the plow what EXSarge is doing is called hard facing. You can get Electrode that is harder then the base metal. You weld stringer beads on the base metal and this wears instead of the base metal.

I love working with metal. I am currently working on my Black smithing skills. At some time I would like to cast bronze items once I build my foundry as I don't want to posion my forge for forge welding.

Cheers
Martin

What part of the country do you live in CC?

An electrode is the part that carries the welding current, and a rod is the filler metal. In the shielded metal arc welding process (stick welding), the 'stick' is both the electrode and rod. If you look closely at your sticks/rods/electrodes they will probably say "ER6010" or "ER6011" or perhaps "ER7018". They might instead have a code specific to the manfaturer, but those are the AWS (american welding society) codes for the most common mild steel rods. Each letter an number means something, as noted above, and in this case "ER" means it is both the electrode and the rod.

Hard surface

If you ever watched or have seen some heavy equipment shows or
actually equipment up close you will see lines of weld on heavy wear surfaces. These welds are of a very hard steel and help prevent premature wear on the bucket or blade surfaces especially when working in heavy rock areas.

I hard surface my plow blade shoes which slide over the pavement and keep the blade of the plow up to prevent it from tearing up the pavement.

Incidentally, if you're going to do any serious arc(stick) welding it is best to heat the electrodes (sticks) in an over to dry out the coating on the electrode. It doesn't have to be hot but just enough to get the dampness out, especially if they are stored opened in a damp area. This is especially true of the hard surfacing electrodes. A good friend welds for a living in a big production shop and he tells me all of their electrodes are immediately stored in an oven when received.

Re: Hard surface

ExSarge said:

If you ever watched or have seen some heavy equipment shows or
actually equipment up close you will see lines of weld on heavy wear surfaces. These welds are of a very hard steel and help prevent premature wear on the bucket or blade surfaces especially when working in heavy rock areas.

I hard surface my plow blade shoes which slide over the pavement and keep the blade of the plow up to prevent it from tearing up the pavement.

Incidentally, if you're going to do any serious arc(stick) welding it is best to heat the electrodes (sticks) in an over to dry out the coating on the electrode. It doesn't have to be hot but just enough to get the dampness out, especially if they are stored opened in a damp area. This is especially true of the hard surfacing electrodes. A good friend welds for a living in a big production shop and he tells me all of their electrodes are immediately stored in an oven when received.

Click to expand...

Sarge, I would have to say that he is probably using Lo Hydrogen elecrtrodes like 7018 if he is putting it directly in the oven. If you put 6010 or any of the Cellulose coated electrode in the oven it will actually destroy it. I do agree it should be placed in a area that is not damp.

Cheers
Martin