Stick welding puddle what should it look like?

I'm a newbie to stick welding and all welding in general. When I am stick welding I notice that the puddle is disturbed by the arc far more than mig, tig, or O/A. I have more experience welding in mig, tig and O/A; and when I am welding with these methods the puddle remains just that, a nice puddle as I move along. With stick welding, however, the puddle is sort of blown back by the force of the arc.

I adjusted the arc force control to the minimum setting where I could still comfortably hold an arc, yet the puddle is still slightly disturbed by the arc. When I am doing a inside fillet weld the puddle is actually a "C" as I move along. What should I be seeing? Is the arc force control still to strong or am I suffering from arc blow? Or is everything correct and the way it should be. Thanks for any replies.

Aloha, Russell

Reply to
Russell Shigeoka
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With 6013, I see a well defined oval shaped pool of liquid, but with noticeable ripples and a depression on the side closest to the stick, kind of like it was being blown by a stream of compressed air. If I were to hold my lips an inch from a cup of coffee, and then I blew, I would get a similar effect.

Reply to
AL

It is possible to get a really nice looking puddle and have a terrible weld. This would be done by just running down the crack of a joint, and not flowing the metal to the sides or pausing side to side to melt the base metal. Welding is much much more than just getting a nice looking weld. It has to do with understanding what is going on under that flame. Some of the commonest weld flaws are cold lap, incomplete penetration and lack of fusion.

Read and study a bit more about the principles of melting the base metal, the purpose of rod movement, arc length, and rod angle. It is all a beautiful thing when it all comes together, but it all happens right there in the puddle because that is "where the rubber meets the road" and the other parts of the vehicle are important, but that is where it mostly all happens. Improper rod movement, improper arc length, and improper arc angle can ruin a weld when everything else is right. When I get ready to strike an arc, I go through the movements of a pool player getting ready for that final moment when he actually follows through, and has just that one try. Visualize what I am going to do. Check angles. Plan ahead for things that might get in my way as I progress along the bead.

If you have someone who knows how to weld, have them weld for you and you watch. Explain that you want to comprehend exactly what he/she/it is doing regarding the puddle and the rod movement, including pauses in that movement to momentarily make your puddle eat into the base metal a bit. Sometimes welding, as with 7018 us a relatively smooth boring travel in a straight line where you just crank up the heat, and if everything is lined up right, you come up with a beautiful looking strong weld. Then there is the 6010 rod in an out of position weld where one is applying blobs of molten metal in an intricate ballet like a mud dauber on steroids making a house on the underside of an eave. And trying not to blow a hole in it or have the whole thing fall down.

You will have "aha" moments where you will grasp what I am saying. It will all come together like the first time you stay up on roller skates. Hope this helps. Sounds like you are on the right track, and are fine tuning.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

-- lots of very good advise snipped --

The best guidance I've ever gotten was to weld up some scrap, then test your weld to destruction, and/or cut it up. Not only did this help me learn to weld the first time, but when I started up again after 20 years off it helped me re-learn much of what I'd forgotten.

Reply to
Tim Wescott

Hi Russell, everyone

As also recent learner of stick welding, would strongly second Tim's advice. If you break your welds open, you will learn a lot.

By the way, of the welding processes - oxy-acet, TIG, MIG (which I have never done) and stick - stick was reckoned to actually be the hardest in many ways. It was certainly the most problematic to pass at UK craft qualification "City and Guilds" standard.

Breaking open welds - this applies to all fillet geometries including "T"-joint, corner-joint (inside and outside) and "lap":

Cut 25mm / 1inch length piece out of weld length, "nick" the weld from the "top", fillet, surface with a hacksaw to about half the depth of the weld - cut in from the middle of the fillet face towards the inside corner of the joint - then break the weld, usually by clamping one plate in a vice while hitting the other plate with a hammer. Look at the weld corner. Was there a "tunnel" down the fillet-corner? Ideally, you want the "upright" plate's edge to be gone - melted away and complete corner fusion (equivalent to "penetration" in a butt weld). Prefer a less-smooth weld with a good corner-fusion to a very smooth weld with a marked continuous corner lack-of-fusion defect. In general, when doing City and Guilds, you are wasting your time if you do not break open every weld you do.

Can see one side of a nick-break test on my page

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For butt joints, you cut out a smaller width of the weld - say 12mm /

1/2inch, grind away the weld until the piece is flat uniform thickness, then bend around a bar of about 2X plate thickness. If it hasn't broken when the weld is wrapped around the bar, it's provenly fit for most purposes.

The "C" bit in Russell's original post. "Horseshoe" shape of weld pool front, advanced on plates and pulled-back and tucking-under in middle? Is that forming a gross tunnel under your weld deposit? Is what you see when getting "corner tunnel" in oxy-acet. Would be in stick. Don't think ever seen it clearly in stick. Kind-of see it when definitely getting "tunnel". Generally though, "stick" weld pool sort of oval, elongated in run-length direction. Must always run fast eneough to not let weld-pool be overrun by slag. Have rod at "trailing" (not "pushing") angle so arc tends to blow back slag off front/leading edge of weld pool.

Never got full fillet-corner-fusion when using xx13's (rutiles). Believe commercial practice small minimal designed-for and bigger fillet specified to compensate.

My page quoted previously,

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where the pass criterion stated full fillet corner fusion required, so tried (successfully - achieved objective) using cellulosic rods, which are penetrative and gave me guaranteed corner fusion.

Richard Smith

Reply to
Richard Smith

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