Aha, bet I gotcha on this one - rare rod.

I don't know in particular what MG 560 is, but the MGXXX rods are maintenance/alloy type rods made by Messer-MG. I've got some of their stainless rod.

JTMcC.

If I recall correctly, the MG560 was a rather impressive cutting rod...one that gave an O/A torch a run for the money. I met that one circa 1985. I recall that my employer at the time would turn red in the face and screem like a banshee every time I picked one up. It cost $1.00 per rod 20+ years ago. Yes, you read that correctly. I'm not sure what the equivalent would be in today's dollars. Lets just say that in the interests of staying employed, I did not pick one up very often. The rod was kept around for emergency use only, to keep the shop running incase gas for the O/A torches ran out.

I also met a MG289 rod around the same time. This one was breathtaking in more ways than one. Yes, you could weld steel plate to oily cast iron as easily as you can weld mild steel using 6013 rod, that is, if you could afford the rod -- I was told that the cost per rod was more than the minimum hourly wage at the time.

These rods were made available to me courtesy of my employer. Naturally, being a young and foolish employee at the time, I didn't pay attention to who made them, nor did I appreciate how rare and unique these rods were. Are these rods still available? Who makes them? Where can I get some? Now that I have a much better idea of which end is up on a welder, it sure would be interesting to play with these rods again. :)

There is a company that sells similar exotics Certanium. They were bought out by Cronatron.

Ive got a pretty fair assortment of a lot of their Mxxx type rods from an aerospace company that took all their welding, maint included..to contractors and had 500 lbs of assorted rods on the shelves.

The plant manager gave it all to me , along with the Miller Dialarc

250 that now lives under my welding table. Giving him a 15 minute service call and not charging him, paid off pretty good...

Gunner

"If thy pride is sorely vexed when others disparage your offering, be as lamb's wool is to cold rain and the Gore-tex of Odin's raiment is to gullshit in the gale, for thy angst shall vex them not at all. Yea, they shall scorn thee all the more. Rejoice in sharing what you have to share without expectation of adoration, knowing that sharing your treasure does not diminish your treasure but enriches it."

- Onni 1:33

Thanks. I think I'm going to order some of those Certanium cutting/gouging electrodes just to get my nephews educated. :) They've been bugging me to buy them a plasma cutter.

Yes, the electrodes are expensive, but in the home workshop, a box of "real" cutting rods might be a very cost effective and space saving alternative to keeping an O/A torch or a plasma cutter around, if all you are going to do is hack off a chunk of metal from a sheet of 1/2 inch steel plate once in a blue moon.

Wowzee...If I were a recipient of such an inventory, I wouldn't be sitting on it. I'd be busy converting it into cash. Make up sample packs of 10 rods per pack and sell them at $20.00 per pack.

An exotic rod has to be experienced firsthand in order to understand what it can do. No amount of sales and marketing literature is going to explain it.

You are giving mystical and magical properies to plain old maintenance rods, that have been around forever. They are not magical, they are usually stainless rod or modified stainless rod. Many a shop has used ss rod or high nickel rod for the same tasks, successfully for decades. I'm not dogging the eutectic, mg, castolin repair rods, but don't impart qualities to them that they don't posess in the real welding world.

JTMcC.

>

Hmmmm...do I sound that bad?

I've been trying to deal with a couple of teenagers all day. One is enthusiastic and willing to try anything. I've been running hard, trying to make sure he doesn't hurt himself.

The other one folds his arms across his chest, slouches down, and says, "I'm bored." I've been trying light a fire under him all day. Maybe, I've been making a fool out of myself all day? Yes, welding can be rather boring, and one welding rod looks like the next, but when you are 18-years-old, in your uncle's fabrication shop full of equipment you've never seen before, I just don't understand how one can be bored. Maybe they don't make "men" the way they used to?

You see, this old fart has been looking at the "real world" all day. When viewed through the eyes of a 17-year-old, the world is fill with wonderment. When viewed through the eyes of his 18-year-old sibling, the world is rather boring. So, which world is real? What did your "real world" look like today?

"Speechless" wrote

Surviving an 8 hour heart surgery and months of recuperation after ten years of heart disease, every day looks wonderful to me.

Appreciation is not learned. It is experienced by first having deprivation.

Your prissified bored one needs to go hungry. Go without. Not have things he's used to. That may get him thinking. If it doesn't, quit providing these things and have him earn them for himself.

You don't know what good tastes like until you've experienced a big mouthful of bad.

Steve

Well my real world has it's moments, but the characteristics and mechanical properties of a welding rod are determined by chemistry, not the interesting happenings in my day ;)

JTMcC.

>

I try to not gage those kids by the way they act on any given day in their teens. The world will look quite different to them after a few years. If you think back, it can be quite a pain being a teenager ;)

JTMcC.

"JTMcC" wrote

When I first caught myself saying things my Dad had said to me, I understood. "Turn down that music!" "Hah, you call that music?" "Did you get a haircut, or are you in chemo?" "You paid someone to do that to your hair?"

I spoke too quickly and harshly previously. While I think appreciation comes from learning some of life's lessons, I missed the point.

Maybe the one teen just hasn't found what it is that lights his fire. Everyone has something that excites them. And for everyone, it is something different.

Maybe one is bored with welding and metalwork, but has other interests.

All the answers are within that person and they have to bring their own answers to the surface. All you can do is watch, and sometimes that is painful.

Steve

Well, thanks, folks. It is a hard group to 'get'. I really would like to hear from someone who has used the '560.

Thats sig material. Truer words were never spoken.

Gunner

"If thy pride is sorely vexed when others disparage your offering, be as lamb's wool is to cold rain and the Gore-tex of Odin's raiment is to gullshit in the gale, for thy angst shall vex them not at all. Yea, they shall scorn thee all the more. Rejoice in sharing what you have to share without expectation of adoration, knowing that sharing your treasure does not diminish your treasure but enriches it."

- Onni 1:33