Can I Stick Weld Razor Blades? | Thin Steel Stick Welding Tips 

You can learn to weld. I'll show you exactly what to do in my affordable online welding courses at courses.timwelds.com.

The guy that taught me (early 60's) could weld a beer can to 1/2" plate with a stick welder. Nice clean weld. I was never that good. In later years I had a guy working for me that would bend a 7018 1/8' rod backwards and do vertical ups in a mirror. I did master that one.

I’m blowing thru on all my square tubing I was wondering if 16 gauge was to thin but you just proved to me that it’s me, not metal, rod or welder. I’ll keep trying. Thanks for the videos.

I've successfully welded car fenders and other car body parts with a stick welder and it is challenging.

Tim! I'm just on the very beginning of my stick welding (or just welding) journey and I've run through a lot of your videos recently. All of them are brilliant and loaded up with useful informations, but this one is just insane. :) I would never believe that it's possible to weld such thin materials with stick, until I saw your vid today! :) It seems that you not only have a gift of being a talented welder, but also a great teacher! Thank you so much!

Dude, has anyone ever told you, you are an amazing teacher..?? Well you are an amazing teacher

THAT changes Everything !!! Very cool. Please more of thin material. Absolutly amazing. Great job !!

Beautiful explained, I did alot welding on 1mm stainless but that polarity tip is awesome for sure, I never used that trick. Thanks for letting us know.

Went to the weld school back in the nineties , stopped welding to work as equipment op. /CDLA driver, these vids are perfect for refresher and even learning new stuff. Thanks man!

This is amazing! Most all of the thin stiff I have worked on was where we were trying to avoid buying a 1300.00 muffler for a piece of heavy equipment. I used oxy/acetylene torch, filler rod and sometimes I needed thin metal to patch with. I was able to get many many years out of mufflers most would throw away.😃

Thank you for translating to mm! ;D

I watched this because I can't afford a tig or mig but I do want to weld thin tube. An amazing video and very educational. Thank you for going to the effort of producing this video. I'll be watching more.

It works, the bought a $99 inverter ark welder. 1.6mm rods, 20amps, electrode reversed and the frame wall thickness is 1.5mm or less. Thanks TimWelds.

I love stick welding, but it is so challenging on thin stuff..... thanks for the info!!!!

Well I for one am impressed!!! Dang!!! There’s a lot of tig welders that have a hard time pulling the “razor blade” trick. Good job and good vid. Thanks!!!

Thank You! For the awesome video. It all makes sense. You have improved my technique immensely.

One of the biggest misconceptions I see is thinking amperage/voltage is equivalent to heat. TIME=heat. When I was learning I burnt up more parts by running too low and having to travel way slower which gives the heat more time to build and spread, making the metal softer and increasing the chance that you will blow through or have your puddle collapse. Control of your weld relies on being able to melt the material as locally as possible and have it freeze quickly. It's really a Goldilocks situation. Too much current and you can overwhelm the material, too little and you end up slowly making soup.

Thanks a lot for including metric measurements! Great video!

Great info. I am not a great welder but 80% of what I weld is 1.6 or 2mm, often gal. I mostly use electrode negative as it avoids blowthroughs but might switch back and give it another go

Great video buddy!! Another way to weld thin material is to raise your amps to the recommended (6013) range and make really fast dots, it works fine mainly when you are welding galvanized material and need to burn through. This method works when you are welding out of position too, like that impossible angles and weird positions. You have to set your amps high and work fast. Anyway, this is just the way I do it when need to. I wish the best luck to you, your business and family, keep up the good work

I’m fairly new in the stick welding environment. I learn a lot with your video and your explanation. Thanks for your help and good video.

Been waiting for this video for ages!! What a great video and tips, thanks a lot!!

That was awesome! There is a great video on RU-vid showing an expert that did rocker panel rust repair using a stick welder. There are horses for courses, but when you only have one old nag, you ride it!

I’ve never seen a stick welded razor blade. That’s a riot Tim.

You have given the advice of running 6013s hot. Good advice. Solved all my fusion problems. Level up. 100 to go.

I love this channel. Your instructions and explanations are so helpful. I'm just starting out myself and have already burned holes in some square tubing. I appreciate all that you're doing here. Thank you for your willingness to share such valuable information.

Great job, i knew most of the techniques, but i did not know about the heat sink great job cheers!👍

I did my first exhaust with a stick welder when I was a young man. I felt pretty ba it's all I had and I made it work it sounded great no leaks had to have them loud mufflers 🤣

Great intro. Never seen that before. And thanks for all the info you give us regularly in your videos!

I think the real value of the razor blade challenge is pushing your skills to that level. It makes other stuff much easier. I have not attempted it stick, but I have put a lot of beads in and attempts at beads. It has greatly improved my tig skills. I may have to take my 1/16 6013 rods to school and try it.

Videos are excellent!!! Just bought a stick welder and going to try my hand in it. Only ever done wire feed flux core.

I'm 100% gonna have a go at that razorblade challenge! Love it ❤

I never knew about the aluminum trick! That's pretty cool and very useful!

Excellent breakdown and very educational! Good stuff!

Great tips. Helped me realise some mistakes ive made. Ready to try again!

Thank you! Great video! Nice tips, I am going to get my stick welder out and run it tomorrow! It has been inactive now for way to long! Subscribed!

Really enjoyed the Video, thanks for posting!

Using al for heat sink, brilliant! Great video, man!

Thanks for making this. I'm about to stick weld some exhaust and I feel a little mors confident after watching this.

Awesome! Great technics applied here. Congratulations.

thank you for your video sir, now i can practice welding my thin sheet metal in the storage room hope to make something good out of it

Thank you I have been having trouble with this tiny Campbell 70 amp I got free and fixed it welds but I'm trying to make a flat top grill with it and I have super old rods from my grand father's he used to weld back in the 70s and 80s the rods where stored in aluminum tubes but the seal was popped on them and they got full of water and oil I'm super excited to start on my grill in the morning.

I've just started to learn how to weld (7 days) and I was actually struggling with understanding why i wasn't able to achieve anything other than blow torch fury (burn through). No only did this point out my exact errors but also clarified many of my further questions related to the subject matter.... my issue was mainly my rod size and amp's, 2.6mm rods nailing a thin tube on 90amps was probably destined to fail 😆.

I’m going to try doing some exhaust welds using these methods, hopefully it goes well. Thanks Tim! 💪

Great welding.The thinnest Iv gone was 1.6mm.Great presentation.Keep them ciming.

Excellent communication skills, you come across very professional and caring!!!!

Hey i did like this video and i´m now lettin you know by hittin the thumbs up. Love your stick welding videos. A lot.

I really appreciate your instructions. Thanks very much!!

Bean cans have the thinnest steel you'll ever try to weld. Personally, if the metal is that thin, then I would rather pop rivet it instead. Thanks for sharing even though I prefer riveting to welding on sheet.

With your wealth of knowledge and great skill you are just amazing. It proves it's not just the fancy machines or tools make a real craftsman. It's the man himself. 👍👍

Hi Tim, thank you for this cool exposé, you explain it very well. Cool that this can be done, I learned a lot. Just one tip maybe if I may, it might be a good idea to do a quick recap of the 4 tips at the end of the vid, since repetition is a key to learning. Thanks for showing mm's thats great! Good luck with your channel

From one Tim to another... Thanks!

I really appreciate your instructions and I will certainly be practising your technique. Could you please try stick welding aluminium ( I'm an Aussie) at various thicknesses down to 2mm. You have one of the best, if not the best, detail on instruction for welding on RU-vid - keep it up! When I teach some friends to weld iI will be using your channel.

Very well detailed and explained. Thank you.

Very nice work! There are a lot of hobby welder videos showing a 6013 dab-dab method. This method can be effective to patch up rusted out lawn mower decks, wheel- barrow tubs, etc. Some makers test by cutting open these welds todemonstrate pretty good quality. You drag the rod to push the slag away from the leading edge and let the puddle cool, but not go dark, so the arc immediately restarts. I can see why this would make a commercial welder (who charges a professional rate, has rivals and a reputation) uncomfortable. But it has its place in a world where lots of little things just need to get done. It's sad that this is becoming unusual, it used to be very common. I'm going to explore 6011 sheet metal welding this year. I found, and lost track of, a video where a young man welded up a beautiful steel box with 18ga (1.2mm) steel using 3/32 6011 at 35A. He had some sort of modern inverter welder, but did not mention if he used Electrode Negative (very good idea). This is below the recommended low end of the range, but the aggressive arc of the 6011 seems to make it possible to keep the arc going. He did a continuous bead at a moderate speed, and it had the coarse ripple of 6011, but it was narrow and he didn't burn through even once. He also welded one side with 5/64 6013 at 38A. This time he did burn through, at the end of the run, but couldn't tell untill he chipped the slag. 6011 is a fast-freeze electrode, and welders have run miles of root-pass beads without burning through. Also you will hear old-timers talk about only having this for exhaust/muffler and auto/body work. Also, you can buy this size anywhere. I remember from the narration and comments that machines vary widely in their success with this method, so you just have to give it a try. So I'm going to drag out the old buzz-box, and the new Amazon $100 feather-weight and see what happens. If anyone who actually knows about this stuff wants to weigh in, at least some of us would be very grateful. Maybe we could get Tim to make us a video.

Thanks. I learned something to help with my age old problem.

I finally actually did it, stick welded box cutter blades, mostly using your tips. The cheap Harbor Freight 1/16th 6013 were a challenge to keep lit without long arcing at 15 amps. I used aluminum blocks as heat sinks. I have 5 little blocks, roughly the same size as 123 blocks. So I rotated when one would warm up. It only took me an hour or so to get it mostly dead on and part of that was I hadn't watched this in awhile so I had to play with the amps. 30 was brutal to the blades. I hadn't stick welded in over 3 months. I still need to play around a bit more to get it dialed in. I believe I could probably do actual razor blade with a bit of practice and maybe better rods.

Another great show, thanks for sharing!

One of you most insightful videos. Thank you so much, sir

Thanks I like the heat sink trick. Will remember that one. Will try on Mig too.

Excellent information!

Always good advice. This is what I'm practicing, super thin steel. Gotta repair all those cheap Amazon chairs.

Thanks you for sharing your talent God bless you

I had to watch this after reading the title, reminded me of when I was an apprentice it was like a claim to fame if you could tig weld 2 coke cans together at the base, although I never attempted it myself. (I've just now decided I'm gonna give it a crack on Monday). I figured I'd watch the intro then skip to the end to see you attempt to or successfully weld the razor blades, but to my surprise it was informative and engaging through the whole video, well done mate, subscribed! I'm a sheety with 14 years experience but never done learning. Looking forward to seeing what knowledge I might be able to gain from the rest of your channel! Keep it up

Very good video , you make it easy to listen to , well done

Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. Regards 🇦🇺

Brilliant. Learned something here!!

Spot on from England 🇬🇧 noob cub welder but your videos have really helped learning

EXCELLENT VIDEO , THANK YOU !

Very helpful advice! Thanks

I work making safes with sheet metal and galvanized, and what a welder there showed me is if you do it a bit hotter and faster it will warp less and you will burn through less then if you ran cold.

First thing we did in school when welding stick was welding a T-fillet weld in 2mm cold rolled A36 with 3/32" Esab Atom Arc 7018s, no problem for the whole class. Took maybe 1-2 hours for most of us to get a reliable result, compared to the probably 15 hours it took on average for us to lay the perfect butt weld without root support and a 1/8 gap on 1/2" hot rolled A36 with 1/8" 7018s.

Thank you for this video. I'm about to attempt replacing rusty floor pans in my truck but all I have is the same DekoPro stick unit. I think with some practice I can make it work for the ~18ga sheets

Wow, I did not think that was possible with stick. You are quite the welder. Looks like I need to improve my skills a lot. Great video!

I was taught to weld using 16ga sheet and a 3/32". 6013 rod. We weren't allowed to use thicker material until we passed all of our welds on thin sheet.

If you believe strong enough you can weld anything even a broken heart

Good advice. More amps initially ends up putting less heat into the work overall. I’ve had good luck using 6013 dcen and using a 7018 with the flux knocked off as filler material dipped in the puddle like tig.

That was really informative...thanks...

Your a great teacher! Thank you.

Thanks for the detailed video man. I just broke my mig in the middle of a body project on my jeep and was wondering if i could stick weld something this thin with my tig. Its to dirty to try tig so thats out of the question. Very helpful video. Thank you.

LOL... KEEP ON LEARNING TIM , THANK YOU. ✌️

Nice work!

Thank you for the tip

thanks a lot. TIM Me here in Honduras I bought my stilck welder at AMAZON SPAIN is an inverter GREEN CUT MM200 and I just love machine. it really the only option I have right now

You’ve got skills man!

Fine educatin. You are the wizard of thin material. My welding machine with 1/16" rod at 50 amps sparks like a Roman candle, either burning though the 1.5mm material or will not strike an arc.

wow thank you bro, your video really really helpful. Am using stick weld most of the time most involving thin metal unfortunately most of the time burn out n hole everywhere 😅 I was so suprised razor blade can be weld. Awesome bro thank you so much for the knowledge n the tips bro God blessed you.

Great advice. Thank you!!!!

Thanks for the tips brother

Great video brother, keep up the good work

Thanks. It helped.

Thanks for the videos. Helped me allot.

I've always had a lot of troubke weldig thin with stick. This guy has a lot of talent. The most difficult part for me is striking an arc with such low current. On my crappy welder it either sticks or arcs and immediately goes out with such low current.

That was really cool. Greetings from Ukraine!

2 words. THANK YOU!! X 1000

flat on a bench is one thing. Now, find some old lawn mowers with cracks and chunks missing at the wheel mountings. This is the thin metal welding that commonly needs doing.

Hey Tim I remember a 1/16 in rod called a quick strike but haven't seen them in years

I love the intro shot. I was imagining "timwelds" pop up in red then cooling down.

amazing, once again

Very helpful!