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Arc weld isnt joining two metals

by Connor Woodman
(Ryde IOW)

I am learning to weld and i can run a bead of weld on one piece of metal fine and have no problem keeping an arc. but when i try to weld two pieces of metal together the weld fuses to both metals but there is a gap in the middle which is filled with salg so when you knock the slag off the metals are not joined at all.

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Connor,
I will bet money you are using 6013 rods.

if you are, you need to tighten up your arc length. if the rod sticks, increase amperage to where it wont stick even with a tight arc.

or better yet, do the same with 6011 rods and your problem will probably go away,

thanks for the post,

jody

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May 26, 2010
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starstarstarstarstar 		I wish I had read this before...
by: Mikel

It happened to me everytime when I started welding and it happens to me once every once in a while even now. The smaller the electrode, the worse it gets.

I started welding with a borrowed "el-cheapo" brand welder that tripped my breaker everytime so I was forced to use 2mm electrodes even with 5mm thick plates. And of course 6013 electrodes, which is about the only thing most stores carry arround here (they only seem to have electrodes for mild steel and for stainless... that's about it).

Like a year ago or so I bought a Solter Inverter that puts out about 160Amps (Cott S I think) which, according to the charts, seems to be fine up to 3,25mm 7018 electrodes. Seems like these electrodes need to be burnt hotter than 6013.

Anyway, I also got some welding DVD's and manuals and I found out about 7018 electrodes. Oh boy! I never had the problem explanied by the original poster again! The welds are much flatter and laying stringers is plain easy, just drag them slow.

Problem is that 7018 in 2,5mm doesn't go along well with sheetmetal (1,5 - 2mm) and removing the flux is panifull (doesn't chip that easy). You just can't have it all.

Now it is time to go fetch some 6011 electrodes and see if splatter is on par with 6013 or 7018.

Thanks for that tip on the 6011 and sorry for such a long rant!

Mikel

BTW, great info you have here Jody... seriously!

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