In this episode we tackle the intro to introduction to 7018 rods. We compare the different rods, specifications, if you need a rod oven, and do some test welds. 0:0:00 Intro 0:0:54 All about rods 0:12:55 Hands on welding
Thanks for the kind words and I am glad to help. I will be doing some random stick welding videos as I see fit soon. I use it a ton for repair work so it’s bound to be in future videos 😀
You can vacuum pack small amounts of 7018 rods to keep them from going soft, but I usually just short them on the weld table for a few seconds to heat them up good before I start welding. You don't want them shorted so long that they start glowing red, though. This technique is just for low hydrogen rods that have accumulated moisture.
If its a sunny day I just put my box of rods on the das of my 4x4 and let the sun heat them up really works rods get to hot to touch without welding gloves on.
i don’t do structural but what i do with my rods is i keep my excalibur 7018s in the plastic holder with the rubber gasket, they usually come with 4 slot separators so i modify them by drilling 3/4 holes all along the dividers and on one side i fill it with silica packets, the other sides just have 7018 rods. i e never had a rod go rusty or bad with this set up.
You’re welcome 😀. I am still a pretty new channel and I am thankful for where I am at. I wanted to be at 1k subs at this point so I am far ahead of what I thought was possible. I am most concerned with helping people build skills so they too can build cool stuff 👨🏻🏭
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Yeah it's unbelievably good. This channel gave me the confidence to give stick welding a try. The only time before a couple weeks ago that I ever held a stinger was when I was maybe 11-12 years old and my Dad let me try out a 6013 on some old rusty green buzzbox. I think after sticking the rod 10 times I got some kind of arc going and then long arc'd it and it went out. That was back in the early 1980's. And now I have a big piece of 3/8" thick scrap covered with stacks of beads on both sides, and they're looking better all the time.
This channel is one of the hidden gem welding channels of RU-vid! Excellent instruction and information! I'm building an offset smoker and chose 7018 because I haven't really stick welded and heard they were they were the easiest to learn with, but I wish I had watched this video before I used them; you nailed every problem I had right on the nose with good tips and tricks
Thanks for the kind words, I am glad I could help you out 😀. 7018 definitely does run some smooth beads that are easy to clean the slag off, but as you found out they are rough to learn with. Fortunately you did the right thing and likely tried looking up some tips on how to use them. You surely can learn with them at first, but your tolerance for frustration and ability to keep going will be tested lol. Once you get used to them they aren’t hard at all to work with. For your application and experience level you would probably find 7014 or 6013 to work pretty good. They both start very easy, produce decent looking welds, and will run on any welder. I prefer 7014 to 6013 because it’s less likely to have flux get ahead of the rod, but for most people 7014 is harder to see the molten puddle therefore they tend to find 6013 easier.
I totally agree. I'm glad the algorithm suggested this channel. I watched like 2-3 and hit the subscribe button pretty quick! 7018 might not be the easiest to learn with, but I'd rather have the challenge
You’re welcome 😀. In my video titled “7018 and high strength steel” I really go down the rabbit hole dealing with hydrogen/water and 7018. There is so much confusing (and wrong) info out there I spent a bunch of time to research things In order to provide clear and helpful info.
If the rod sticks a lot it could be somewhat your welder, some welders are harder to start 7018 with. Some rods are also harder to start as well. The key is to practice a bunch and try to master the simple rod start. It no fun, tedious, and can seem pointless. However once you master the start everything will become easier. Even I have rough starts from time to time, that’s the nature of stick welding 😀
So a properly stored 7018 has the ability to safely weld materials that are susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement (think higher strength steels) where is 6013,6011,7014, etc don’t. Welding with an improperly stored 7018 won’t make a weld on something fail over say using a 7014. Most people would be better off using improperly stored 7018s over say 7014 because 7018 has proven to be significantly stronger in my testing (despite both rods being “70k” rods). So basically if you want to stick weld higher strength steel you must use a low hydrogen rod properly stored. For common mild steel it’s not the end of the world if it’s not stored in a rod oven.
The most informative and scientific channel i just found.. really help me that just get into the welding as a hobby.. this guy deserved a million subscriber..
Thanks for the kind words and welcome 😀. Glad you started welding. With a bit of practice and some knowledge you’ll be building stuff in no time at all 🐌👍
I remember my mothers cousins shop had a rod cabinet with a 100w incandescent bulb that he kept on to keep moisture out of open rod boxes. It was a high humidity area
On 7018 if the flux breaks off more than about 3/4 inch ill toss it but if its about 5/8s inch or under ill use it. With experience its not too hard to re-strike the arc. What I do is strike it ahead and long arc it and drag it back untill the rod is down to good flux and run from there. Also pretty much every strike I do is long arced ahead of my weld to warm up the rod. Long arcing and bringing it to your start also will help eliminate the porosity.
Awesome commentary. Very good learning lesson for me at the ripe old age and going from AC welding to DC welding machine. I was very frustrated with DC running 6013 and 7018 on a vertical up or down. My hands are still steady but, I certainly need practice.👍🙏🏽🇺🇸✌🏻😎
Ac is definitely a different animal. It tends to be more predictable in some respects (no arc wander) but dcep generally runs rods like 7018 far better. Practice makes perfect, glad you learned some stuff and welcome to the channel 😀
nice, i did a very similar video just running them, not getting into really the technical's of each brand. but did most of the same ones. awesome video.
Hi, Greg. After watching a lot of your videos I decided to give stick welding a try, you made it look easy enough to do so I wasn't as intimidated. So far so good, I picked up some Lincoln 1/8" 7018 from Lowes today, after watching another video where you said 3/32" is harder to use. I was using a 5lb box of Hobart 7018 3/32" that was a good price from Rural King. Those are a little trickier to start than 6011 I found, but not too bad. I still stick a rod here and there, and that tip about keep the rod in tight so you just barely feel it touch the metal really helps. My Miller doesn't have hot start or dig, but it seems to run stick really nice. The Hobart rods slag seems to be harder and glassier, kind of like a brown beer bottle, and a little harder to remove, but I bought that same Milwaukee angle grinder with a wire wheel, that thing is a game changer, I can grab it and knock that flux off quick! My question is, the 1/8" Lincoln does make a nicer weld bead for me, and I actually got a flux peel from one today for the first time, fun! But I noticed that with the Lincoln 1/8 7018, I"m getting some starting porosity, as well as sometimes a little ending porosity at the edge of the 3/8" steel plate I've been stacking practice beads on. I've found the Hobart 3/32 seems to run good on from like 80-95 amps, 70 works but is a little cold on a 1/8" coupon, and the 1/8" I was running it on 120 amps. Mind you, I've only used 3 rods of the Lincoln out of the box, so I'm sure I need more practice and hood time, but what might I be doing wrong, and getting some porosity with the Lincoln rods, but not the Hobart ones? Maybe it needs a bit of time for the flux to be burned to make some shielding gas? The porosity I'm getting looks a LOT like MiG when I forgot to turn on the 75/25, or trying to weld when it got really windy out etc. Once I get a puddle going and start moving and if I manage to hold a tight arc, and move along in a straight line, the weld bead looks good and I'm happy with it.
Glad to hear your praticing 😀. To answer your question with the porosity, the 7018 porosity is due to 2 reasons: 1: the rod isn’t hot enough to produce shielding gas, therefore the weld metal reacts with oxygen. 2: the start of the weld is cold and the weld metal solidifies too fast. Hot start turned up helps with porosity, the amperage boost will help reduce it. That’s not absolutely needed though, you can (with proper technique) eliminate it. Try starting the arc 1/4inch in from the actual start, strike the arc, and in a fast motion slightly long arc it and bring it back to the actual starting point (and weld through your arc start). It takes some getting used too. Storing the rods in a rod oven will also help, but not that much I have found. As far as why some rods are better than others, it could be due to a number of things. At my work I have Lincoln 7018 Excalibur rods and they give me starting porosity all of the time. The way they bevel the edge with a cone makes it easier to start the rod on fillet welds but it likely contributes towards the starting porosity. I bet the two rods you have different tip bevels to the flux, and that could be why. I personally use Esabs 7018 prime rods, they have a graphite tip that makes starting easy, and they never deposit porosity for me. I have ran probably 200lbs of those rods and not once have I seen starting porosity. I have to run Lincoln’s at work and unless I long arc the start, 1 out of every 10 will have a pinch of porosity.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg Thanks for the tips, and yeah after using some more I found out that's what was happening. I was long arc'ing too much at the beginning and the end of a pass. I re-watched another video where you said to actually carefully touch the rod to the work, like dragging a crayon on a hot skillet. That tip was so helpful, I figured out pretty quick how to do that without sticking and got some nice looking welds now. I'm super happy because I've like burned up maybe 2-3 pounds of 3/32 and 1/8" 7018 (the 1/8 are easier to use because the rod doesn't get burned up so fast). and you've run hundreds of pounds of rods. I thought it would take months of work, but after watching the whole playlist of 'how to stick weld' I'm finding it a lot of fun. The two biggest things that helped were: Getting a good helmet (I decided to get a Lincoln 3350 because was a bit cheaper than the Miller Digital infinity), and watching your videos. Being able to see the puddle clearly, and sort of see where I'm going makes a lot of difference. The helmet and watching the videos didn't make me a better welder. What they did was 2 things though: I could see clearly what I was or am doing wrong, and watching the videos helped immensely with looking at the results and knowing how to correct the mistakes.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg I tried some of those 'rustbuster' from Menards too, they do smell like burning paper. They're very easy for me to start, but they burn so fast, it's hard for me to keep up with it from long arc'ing and then going out. After I weld about 1/2 to 2/3 of the rod for some reason I end up sticking the rod from trying to shove more rod in to keep up with how fast they burn up. Also just for fun, I ran a bead across a piece of 3/16" x 2" flat bar and I ran it really slow like a 7018 at max recommended amps and it cut the bar right off! A 3/32 rod definitely burns thru 3/16" plate real fast haha. About the only way I can make a somewhat decent looking bead with those is a whip and pause technique, and try to hold a tight arc. But I'm finding 7018 a lot easier and looks nicer. I have not tried any 6013 yet.
Cheers very well explained, I keep my rods in the boiler house on top of the double insulated flue, temp gets up to around 40°c twice a day, rods always run great as I don't use them that often, my uncle keeps his in an airing cupboard with a hot water storage tank, same again rods always run great. Keeping them dry is the key, just started using 7018 and there a great rod once you get used to them.
Making mistakes with Greg.. New subscriber here. I just bought a box of the Hobart 3/32 7018 rods and I agree they are harder to start than of the others. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Welcome and thanks for hanging out in the shop with me 😀. I am not sure why the rods are so sticky but they definitely are. I bet heating them up in a rod oven would help a lot. Starting porosity seems to be minimal though, so that’s good 😀
Thanks for the heads-up on these. Seems one wishes a higher-end welder (hot-start, arc-force) to reduce frustration??? Esab Rogue 180i??? Oh, and a small rod-oven? (Need ALL the help I can get.)
I also have a box of 3/32 Hobart 7018 rods. They are a little tricky to start, but I'm getting better at them. I found the trick is to run them about like 90-95 amps, they don't run very well at 80 amps or below, they like to run at the upper end of the recommended range (70-100 on the box). I have had luck doing like a very small quick short scratch and lift up just a tiny bit.
Thanks for the video - well done as always! I have several different brands of 7018 and have the hardest time getting any of them to start, even brand new. I'm using 3/32 or 1/8 for DCEP and have tried different (including HIGH) amperages and find this to be really hard to get going. In fact, the hardest rod to start I have ever tried. Once finally started, it does fine. Maybe my machine has an issue (Yeswelder 250P ACDC). YW ads say it has a "hot start" setting, but not that I can find (arc force - Yes, but hot start - No). Sure wish 7018 wasn't so dang hard to use, as it is supposed to be the best for really strong reliable welds.
I hear your frustration, there are some things you can do to help. You can’t change your welder (without buying a new one lol) but you can change your rod. If you haven’t tried Esabs 7018 prime rods they may help your situation. The 7018 prime has a graphite tip that makes it very easy to start without issues of sticking or starting porosity. Believe it or not harbor freights 7018 rod also has the graphite tip which functions the same way. If you haven’t used either of those I highly recommend it because it will help. If you run 7018 on a welder that has a good hot start you will find that 7018 starts far easier. A great example of this is my 99$ “hone” brand stick welder rough starts 7018 (even for me). When I switch over to my miller dynasty it makes it very easy. Luckily you don’t need a 6k welder like the dynasty to get solid stick performance. The simple 275$ (or less with coupon) harbor freight titanium 225 is probably the best affordable stick welder I have ever used. It has a built in hot start and has little issue start 7018s, especially ones with graphite tips. With that said the more skilled you are the better you will be with starting 7018, but some welders simply make it far easier. 7018 is a great rod and I always suggest people good at it for a number of reasons: 1) when run decent the slag peels right off and cleaning is minimal. 6010/11 requires a wire wheel on a grinder to clean properly. 2) it’s far less prone to have slag inclusions like 6013. 6013 can easily have the flux run in front of the rod causing the weld to flow around it. 3) it’s very easy to stack beads on a multi pass weld. 4) it produces strong welds with predictable penetration. 7014 doesn’t have as good of penetration in my testing as 7018. When it comes down to it try rods with graphite tips, and if that still isn’t cutting it (after a bunch of practice) switching to even a harbor freight titanium 225 will likely drastically change the starts for you 😀
I have that welder also and have not been happy with it stick welding.....have had much better luck lately but tried every 7018 rod i could find locally to practice with ...1/8 rods much better result on thick metal than 3/32...only use this YW 250pro for mig now....think the HF 225 stick machine will run rings around it all day.
@omas2308Thanks for the reply. I finally got the 7018 to work, but only if the parts were super clean. I believe the problem with the YW 250P is that stick does NOT have "hot start." That seems crazy, since other less capable machine have hot start, which would make this machine much better. Weird. QUESTION: Have you noticed that YW has abandoned the 250P, and started to offer a much less capable "200P"? I did not verify this, but heard the 200P does not have postflow. What?! Wonder what's up with that.
Yeah they seem to be rough starting for sure. Not a good thing when they are commonly available and many people buy them. I think frustration will be common lol.
Yes some 7018s are harder than others. The welder used and if it has hot start does make a difference. 6011 and 7014 are fine rods and will do a ton of work. If you have to weld higher strength steel you should look at 7018 because a brand new one out of a sealed pack can weld high strength steel without risk of hydrogen embrittlement. It’s good to always have options with welding 😀
This doesn’t matter unless you are welding high strength or hardened steel alloys. A36 steel is immune from hydrogen embrittlement. I ran a shipyard for many years and we didn’t have or use a rod oven. We used 7018 that got left out in the rain, sat submerged in water, we used it underwater, we used it in the rain, snow, you name it. We never had a single issue with a weld cracking or failing. Everything we built from ether A36 or ABS grade C or E steel (ABS grade A-E steel is basically just overpriced A36 required for vessels that have to have an ABS load line classification, grade A is the highest temperature impact testing and grade E is the coldest). Our vessels operated primarily in the North Atlantic, primarily in the winter. They got the living hell beat out of them breaking ice, getting bashed up in storms, running aground. You name it. I’ve seen 3-1/2 in thick hull plating bent and torn apart in ways that you can’t imagine, however the welds held and didn’t crack. The hydrogen embrittlement problem is serious and definitely needs to be taken seriously when welding high strength and hardened steel alloys.
The only real benefit to the rod oven on non critical welds I have found is it lowers the risk of starting porosity. Beyond that on mild steel there definitely won’t be much benefit other than keeping rust off the rods.
Glad you liked it 😃. You can put the packets in the containers, they will help lower the moisture in the can but they won’t remove any existing moisture in the rods. Just as a new silica packet won’t pull moisture out of one that has absorbed it already. For the most part it’s not a issue though. I did a recent in depth video talking about moisture/hydrogen embrittlement that covers a ton of valuable info on the whole issue. A cliffnotes of the video is that using a different rod than 7018 to avoid the rod storage issue doesn’t solve the issue as to why you keep the rods dry, aka preventing hydrogen embrittlement. Using 7014 or 7024 will impart more hydrogen into a weld than a 7018 that was kept in a box.
What brand rod was that 3rd line ( 2nd long line) that you knocked the bulb off of at the end? The nice weld that cleaned up with minimal work!? I need to get some of that brand!!! Great videos! Thanks.
Just bought a 80amp arc from harbor fraight and E7018 my question is it's not enough power to burn the rod or is there a trick I'm forgetting about. Great videos by the way 👍😎
So the 80 amp machine will run a 3/32 7018 on thinner material (think 1/8th and 3/16th steel). You will be able to weld with 6013 3/32 no issue. You could also grab some 5/64th rods in 7018 or 7014 on Amazon too, which will run great on that machine. I am not 100% sure but that machine may run a 6011 3/32 (I know it won’t weld with 6010). Buy a small amount of 6011 to try it. If the arc keeps cutting out while welding it won’t run it, if it stays lit you should be good 👍.
Just wondering, are the airtight rod containers that are available good for very long term storage of 7018 , 6013 , and 6011? These are what I use the most .
So the 6013 and 6011 are good to use in those, both of those have a fair amount of moisture from the factory. 7018s can be put in them and they are better than many factory containers (such as the cardboard ones). The key is to keep them in there as much as possible and open it as little as possible. If you’re welding on higher strength steel bake the rods anyway. I will be doing a follow up video the the rod oven/ storage to provide a lot more insight to the whole storage/oven situation. It’s such a convoluted issue it’s really hard to understand the whole situation lol.
I'm still going through your videos, and you may have mentioned it in one of them, but how do you get your arc shots? Thanks again for all the info you are giving us!
Some of them were done with a iPhone and a welding lens, newer ones were done with a mirrorless camera and a filter on the lens. I actually have a new camera and lens setup to help get better shots, but I have yet to use it lol.
With 7018 if you’re running an amperage that’s close to correct the flux will actually prevent you from melting the rod off excessively fast. I generally rest the flux edge on the plate and melt the rod like a crayon on a hot pan. So I feel a bit of pressure on the rod. Doing that with a rod like 6011 or 6010 will tend to gouge out the material. If you are hovering the rod end above the plate the arc gap will get too big, you want it just touching or super small amount above the plate.
Greg, thank you for another informative video. I have two questions; are there the same variations of other electrode designations as the 7018 that was discussed here? For those of us without rod ovens, do you have any suggestions as for the best way to preserve rods at home?
The differences with other rods are far less significant. The primary reason is most other rods are not “low hydrogen” rods. Low hydrogen rods like 7018,8018,9018, etc are all code compliant and specified for structural work. Those rods in particular are chosen for structural work because of their deposited weld testing results, and how they run (they are far easier to run out of position than 7014 and similar higher tensile strength rods. With 6010 there are rod differences as well, I will cover that in a video soon 😀. As far as the rod oven, if you keep the rods in the factory packaging and keep that package in a dry place (with desiccant) you will likely be ok. Only remove rods you’re going to use quickly (used in a few hours) and shut the package. The rods will never have time to pickup moisture. A small 40$ toaster oven from the store can bake them out if needed. I do have a rod oven but I rarely use it. By buying the 4lb esab prime 7018 packages I can do a decent sized job with no need for using a rod oven. When used directly out of the packaging the rods are good for 6-8 hours with no risk of moisture affecting them. Prior to the esab packaging it in 4lb packs it was only common to find 10lb boxes of sealed 7018s which is a lot of rods for a average person to go through in a short time.
Keep them in your house somewhere warm and dry also near a window that gets the morning sun works great then when you need to use them put the box in your car window on the das facing the sun, that really heats them up. No joke I do it for real no cost rod heating sounds like a bit of mucking about but it isn't. Just remember if you try it make sure you wear welding gloves when you get them out of the box they get really hot.
Tried to build a rod oven once. Went too cheap, and it didn’t work very well. Goal was to “make the cheap Home Depot rods work better.” Will be trying to visit a Tractor Supply this AM, in Ridgefield Washington.
The interesting thing with rod ovens is many people are confused as to what you really need. Per the American welding society the rods need to be kept at 250-300 degrees for storage. Many people use a light bulb in a fridge, and although it will work, unless it hits that temp it won’t be within AWS or Manufacture guidelines. I do have a full on rod oven, however I just buy smaller 4lb esab rod packs and weld with them out of the pack. For most things the rod oven won’t make much of a difference, having low hydrogen in the flux mostly helps on higher strength steels.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg That was one reason why it didn’t work well, even if I used a built-up “tube” to hold the rods, with insulation surrounding it. If I attempt to make another, I’ll want thermostatic control and a means of both adjusting the temp and reading it out. More, this isn’t intended to hold more than a five pound package. Home Depot rods are *NOT* sealed. They come thoroughly “moist” when purchased. I now suspect it was also the welder I was using (in addition to the obvious lack of skill and experience on my part.)
Are you maintaining an arc gap with your 7018 welds? It’s hard to tell. Are you physically touching the plate and dragging the rod? Or are you holding one electrode diameter?
When I stick weld the flux of the rod is barely touching the plate as I drag it. If you were to hold a 1/8th gap between the plate and the flux your arc gap would get too long. When you drag 7018 at a angle with the flux barely touching you still have a arc gap of around 1/8th in because the rod is melted off up inside the flux.
Im thinking the hobart rods are a tiny bit harder to start than the other brands. I was having quite a bit of trouble starting rods, I was using hobart rods. Then I see this video, and you were also having a bit of trouble with the hobarts.
They are sticky for sure. It does help if you have a welder with a real high open circuit voltage, but they are one of my least favorite rods. I am a big fan of the esab 7018 prime, it has much easier initial starts and tends to restart really easy as well (once you knock the flux off the end). 7018 tends to be a tough rod when learning but that gets easier with practice.
Hello could you compare Esab 7018 vs CHEM WELD 7018? Please if don't have time for video, write me your opinion. In our country Czech Republic, is this elektrod accepted as competitive.
So I can tell you that most 7018s run the same. The esab prime is a bit different simply because it has the graphite tip which aids starts. The esab prime may be easier to start than the chem weld you’re used to, but the finished weld should be equally as strong 😀
Oh, and the fumes? (Respirator? I tend to get sick immediately if I don’t wear one - #2069, I think.) Wrong - #2097 filters. Had to look it up. Want to buy more in the near future.
So if the rod is sticking you’re probably not running enough amperage or you’re pushing too much rod in. With most rods you want to feel the flux lightly touch the plate. If you keep a drag angle there will be an arc gap and the rod won’t stick (again if you’re running enough amperage). If your rod tip is floating above the surface by more than a minuscule amount the arc will wander, you will get a lot of spatter, and it will be hard to control. So if you can’t run a tight arc up the amperage more and try again.
So here is my opinion on that. Moisture packets will only absorb moisture in the air. Moisture in the rod itself will not really be pulled out of the rod. It won’t hurt to have a packet in the package, because it surely will lower the time any moisture has to be absorbed by the rods. I highly recommend you watch this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wB6NJVGD5Y0.htmlsi=ke8G0DCQn3vcQH_K to learn more about the low hydrogen issue with welding. If you knowingly weld on high strength steel you want rods out of a rod oven or a sealed pack. For mild steel and most of what you might repair without liability, there isn’t much of a risk with using rods out of the Hobart can. Hope that helps 😀
Great question. It won’t hurt anything, but if the rods contain moisture it won’t pull any of it out. If you get a new box of rods keep the cover on them as much as possible and put a silica packet in it and you’ll be fine.
If you’re talking about an auto darkening, yes they are safe to use while welding. The setting is dependent on process. Shade 10 to shade 12 is normal for welding.
So I personally like esab 7018 prime rods. I also like Lincoln’s 7018 Excalibur. Hobarts rods are hard to start but ok after that. Some other options you might have near you is the esab atom arc, Washington alloy, and blue demon.
my hot start on my welder is call 175 amps then after burning it to a silcon ball drop back to 75 amps ac becose i cant keep an arc more that 2 minets in 10 minet period couse of 20% recycle
Yeah some rods are stickier than others, and some welders are harder than others to start. The worst I have ever used was aluminum rods. If you ever want to experience rod stick try those 😵.
I'm sure there is a reason, but for my education if I can get a response, why go through all this trouble instead of using a mig weld as far as clean up and dry rods and all that, that's been mentioned in this video, why not just mig weld it, or is there a reason that a good mig weld isn't as good for whatever reason which id love to know what that is, thank you for you time
That’s actually a great question, and honestly it’s not the easiest to answer. I will do a video on this in the future but for right now I will give you the simple version: Stick welding can produce stronger welds on poorer material than Mig. This primarily comes from the fluxes ability to float out contaminants. Stick welding is also generally prequalified for welding unlimited thickness material, short arc mig is not. It is true that you can use spray arc and dual shield wire with more powerful mig welders, but those are big (and tend to be very expensive). All wire process with the exception of Gasless flux core can’t easily be done outside in the elements. Gasless flux core tends to produce far more brittle welds and has significant issues producing defect free welds on steel thicker than 1/4inch thick with a 200amp or less machine. Inside of a shop, if someone has dual shield wire, (or setup for spray arc) and a big enough wire welder, they can fabricate most anything. There is also the cost perspective. With a 280$ stick welder I can safely weld say 3/4inch thick steel with 7018 rods. I can also weld castings with nickel rod, or hardface to prevent wear. Inside or Outside in the elements doesn’t really matter. It’s far easier to weld thicker steel with stick because it uses less current to weld thick steel. I can weld 1/2in thick steel on 120v with my rogue welder, it’s impossible to do that with Mig. Where stick majorly falls apart is super thin material, and it’s far harder to learn all positions. Someone who fixes stuff a lot needs to know stick more than mig. For someone that does say automotive work mig is far more useful. My main beef with wire welding is to be able to weld stainless, aluminum, and steel of any thickness, you need a 230-270 amp machine, a spool gun, and atleast 3 gas cylinders. That could easily be over 3k, and honestly take a ton of skill/practice. Tig could do that for under 1k and less practice in the long run. Stick could do most of that (aluminum Less so) for sub 300 machine provided you’re not welding thin sheet metal. So I guess the way I see it is it all depends on what a person wants to do with the welder that determines what’s best. I went 7 years without owning a single wire welder and tig welded or stick welded everything. Once I started doing exhaust work and a bit more auto work MiG was a requirement. Now I recently went to a 250a capable wire welder I have the capability to get excellent performance on thicker plate. I still can’t bring it into the field with me though lol.
No, I wish lol. I am from Wisconsin in the USA. My accent is a combination of Canadian (the country Canada) Minnesota (a US state), and a bit of chicago Illinois (USA) mixed together. Wisconsin is known for beer and cheese production, and being the drunkest state in the USA lol.
This may sound silly (and maybe there is a good reason not to do this) but why don't welders when opening up a pack of sticks don't throw the rest in a cardboard or plastic mailing tube with 20 grams of silica bids and an air tight lid and call it a day...? the whole thing with the oven sounds complicated and costly and I believe that PREVENTING the moister from getting into the rod is easier than EXTRACTING it.
So there is an answer to this. I do keep my rods in an ammo tin with silica gel, mainly to prevent them from getting rusty. However that would not fly per code. To be considered low hydrogen the rod must be used right out of a sealed pack within a specified time limit (different rods can have different times they can be held out of an oven) or pulled out of a rod oven. Storing them with silica won’t really pull moisture out of the flux much like storing multiple silica packs in a box won’t pull moisture from eachother. The reason code and procedures are so strict with 7018 is to eliminate as many variables as possible and provide reliable performance. Significant amounts of testing has been done and everything from oven temp, time in the oven, how long rods can be exposed to air, etc have all been determined. The line was drawn on the side of caution, aka likely higher temps than needed and overly cautious procedures. The reality is most of the low hydrogen issue doesn’t matter for what the common person welds on. Normal mild steel doesn’t see the risk of hydrogen embrittlement that higher strength steel has. Many people even use 7014 thinking the storage requirement of 7018 is for the rod, not realizing the storage requirement is to give 7018 the ability to weld higher strength steel safely, it’s a requirement of the material not the rod. Where most people go wrong is trying to cut corners on the storage requirements. The known/tested/code approved methods are very specific to what temps are needed. Using a lightbulb in a fridge (which even my neighbor did working at a crane company 30 years ago) is not compliant. Something is better than nothing but something is not the right way to go. Luckily in today’s world you can buy 4lb packs of esab 7018 prime rods, which meet low hydrogen spec right out of the pack. They aren’t that big of a pack so you can burn through half on a project and store the rest for non critical work. It saves buying and running a rod oven. I personally have a rod oven but I mainly use Esabs rods because it’s cheaper to use them than run my big oven all the time.
@@makingmistakeswithgreg so it's a little bit like expiration date on food or drugs, they are way premature to be on the super safe side but the fact is most of us eat and use drugs after the expiration day just like I am sure rods that haven't been stored according to safety standards are used to weld bridges and ships.
I like their fab shield 21b flux core, but most of their other stuff I am with you on that thought. So many good options out there I virtually never buy Hobart.
Man my 1/8 7018 looks like complete dogshit compared to my 6013, especially vertical up fillets.. i even went back to 6013 to check if I was really that bad 🤣
7018 is a really easy rod to run once you get the rod started. It can be hard to start. Make sure you’re running 120-130 amps with the 7018. It needs more amperage than 6013. Start the rod and watch for the eye shape red molten puddle. Slowly drag it along and you will make a decent weld. 😀
@@makingmistakeswithgreg I think my rods are bad because honestly the bead is like Stevie wonder has done it but my 6013 are sweet, I point where I want it to go and it goes whereas the 7018 are all over, it's like I'm fighting the arc to stay but it's moving left to right up and down
Majority of caterpillar equipment is now made in china!! I watch a heavy haul show on UTube called The Yellow Banana out of Canada and he's always picking up stuff in the port of Baltimore!!!☹️☹️
Cat bought out a local company to me (bucyrus) for multiple billion and then one year later told caterpillars retired people their pensions were getting cut from what they promised because they didn’t have money. I knew a few retired people that got screwed in that deal. Definitely not high on my list of companies to support.
Absolutely not all 7018s are created equal look at the lab reports u will notice a huge difference in tensile and elongation impact results and hydrogen levels
You are correct. Even further spec rods like h4r rods have varying results depending on manufacture. All rods are not created equal, which is exactly why you probably won’t be finding a harbor freight 7018 on a bridge repair lol.
