Newbie stick welding question

I think that it is actually hard to get a stick weld, on clean material, that would NOT have proper fusion.

I mean, if a stick weld spans both parts to be welded, then it will have fusion where it reaches base material. It may be ugly or have slag inclusions or whatnot, but it will have fusion. Not so with mig.

Not that I know all that much... But that has been my experience so far...

Unfortunately I don't have anybody available to teach me how to stick weld. Can you recommend any resources on the internet or a good book? I have seen many books about welding on amazon, but they mostly have an industrial/production focus. I am a hobbyist and all I want is to make excellent welds, the time that it takes to make them not being a concern.

I took a class at ou local community college. That helped, and a lot of practice. In retrospect, I could get half of the benefit from the class, fom just having an experienced weldor teach me for an hour.

It is entirely possible to get a weld that looks good, bad or ugly..and only sticks to one side or the other. Been there, done that. But with stick..its harder to do than Mig.

But still very possible.

GUnner

'In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.' Theodore Ro osevelt 1907

Sometimes that is not possible, though, when said parts have parted company with the trailer and gone their way through the desert or into a very deep ravine. In that case, you only get a good guess. Yet, still, you can look at what IS left, and see if there's fusion or the weld cracked off.

There's things to be said for 7018 burned in real good on adequately thick materials.

Steve

That's really the best thing to do, if you don't have a competent weldor around to show you the ropes. In real-estate, it's Location, Location, Location. In welding, it's Practice, Practice, Practice.

I've only been doing it for 5 years in an industrial setting (naval shipyard). I certainly don't profess to be an expert yet, and I couldn't tell you how many tons of rod I've burned.

Get a job cladding tanks. After you "pave" a few, you'll start getting a feel for it...

(slight caveat: I'm UT and RT qualified on OS, HS, HY-80, HY-100, and more, but I'm still never fully happy with my welds!)

Fusion is also dependent upon required pre-heats. If your welder says it works up to a certain thickness, you can increase that thickness by pre-heating the base materials (typically 125 to 200 deg. F.).

The fusion zone is very small, yes. But if your heat affected zone has "sharp" boundaries (as in welding without enough amperage), you will create stress risers in the base metals, and could have cracking along the toes of the weld. I've seen welds crack as the weldor was welding, once- the cracks were propagating about two inches behind his puddle when I tapped him on the shoulder...

Cold base metal and low amperage can definitely cause problems.

I tried to find some information on your welder and failed. But expect it is a better welder than most of the relatively inexpensive welders available in the U.S. Lincoln has a lot of information on welding rods available on their web site as does Miller. You also got a lot of good info here.

Dan

I like the book "Basic Welding And Fabrication" by W. Kenyon. However, it is not exclusively about stick welding and it may be out of print. It contains a lot of interesting and useful information about practical metalwork.

Good luck!

Chris

You'll also find that some welding suppliers keep a much greater range of rods than others. There are two welding suppliers near me. One supplier is easy to find, but keeps only 6013. The other is at the bottom of a dead-end street but keeps pretty much everything you can imagine.

Chris

Ain't gonna work , cuz I ain' a weldor ... joking aside , this is *VERY* good advice . Having someone who knows how it's done is the best way I've ever found to learn something . Just about everything I know I learned from someone ... who knew what they were doing , and did it very well .

Hi Dan,

It seems this welding machine is only being sold in Turkey. I googled for "expressweld 251" and there are only turkish links. Here is one that also shows the technical specs:

Thanks for the tip about the info on the Lincoln site :)

I agree, IMHO these are the only three rods a real welder needs to master. They are each quite different but each has its place in the quiver.

In order of usage and general usefulness, (if you have a welder with sufficient power), I would say 7018, then 6010 (6011 if AC) and with 6013 far behind. I consider 6013 a very specialized rod and not the best for general purpose.

In order of ease of learning and teaching I would advise 6013 then 6010 (6011) and then 7018 after the former are experienced but probably not mastered.

Practice is the key. A good demo is worth several thousand words.

Good luck.

To me, after thousands of hours of MIG welding, it's the angles, speed of travel, direction of travel, size of the puddle, and the pausing that determines the penetration. Sure, there are some things like thick metal and small wire that won't work no matter what, but there are some small things that will help make it stick.

Steve