Arc Gouging

There are AC electrodes and there are DC electrodes. Don't forget air at the appropriate pressure and volume. And don't forget to have the air holes in the holder pointing in the right direction.

By beefy, do you mean something like an old, gray Lincoln DC-600? They do just fine with air arcing. Some fancier machines don't seem to like it much.

And wear hearing protection.

Air volume might be a problem but I will just have to see how much I can blow. IIRC we just had a 5HP gas powered Craftsman with about a 25 Gal tank, so I should be ok. I am confused about the electrodes now. All I have ever seen were copper plated carbon?? I have an old Dialarc that is a heavy monster, but the unit I used before was mounted in a truck and took up most of the big delivery van. It was an old GMC Bread truck converted into a portable welding rig. We used the arc gouging to scarf out cracks in big front end loader buckets and such. Geez .. now ya made me think about it it was almost 40 years ago :) Anyway I just want to fiddle with it and not hurt anything. Thanks for the info Glenn

I wouldn't worry about the AC rods. They have extra arc stabilizers to make them work better on AC only welders than the standard rods. I have never used them and my guess is most folks nowadays have not either. FWIW there are even plain carbon rods (no copper coating) for use where you cannot risk copper contamination. The copper coated, DC rods you are familiar should do the job in you have a DC welder that will put out enough current.

Thanks Footy, Does it make a difference if I run DCEP or DCEN? I am gonna hose down the driveway this weekend and give it a shot just for grins. I do recall it throws lots of hot slag a long ways. I wouldn't want to light stuff on fire just for an experiment :) I will let ya know what results I get with the A/C -D/C dialarc and this