First 8 hours of stick

[Pigeon No9]

Today bought a pack of Esab 7014 rods in 3.2mm to have something larger at hand. From what I've red these make more pretty finish but do not penetrate as deep as 6013's. I stopped the weaving altogether and for the first time did some inside corner joints. It went south.
Got some fairly big bug holes (pictures attached). when welding two separate side plates, strangely I got the holes at the begining of the weld and only on first pass, in the top side. Don't really know what I did wrong.
Tried to keep everything really steady and a tight arc. Not to drag the flux across the metal.

 

[Pigeon No9]

But the 7014's do make pretier welds. + I did not weave this time around, so I changed two things at once.

 

[Brad93]

7014's are not something we get over here. Have they got a really heavy flux on them? I think our equivalent would be a 7024 perhaps.

 

[Pigeon No9]

7014's are not something we get over here. Have they got a really heavy flux on them? I think our equivalent would be a 7024 perhaps.

Esab calls them OK 46.16 and I've found that they are fairly similar to 7018's but not low hidrogen, thus do not require the owen part. And are iron powder and titania rod. Not a direct replacement of 7018 but has similar characteristics. It's said, that they are a good fit for non-critical projects.

 

[Brad93]

Esab calls them OK 46.16 and I've found that they are fairly similar to 7018's but not low hidrogen, thus do not require the owen part. And are iron powder and titania rod. Not a direct replacement of 7018 but has similar characteristics. It's said, that they are a good fit for non-critical projects.

Completely different flux, so they shouldn't be running anything like 7018 except for the deposition rate.

The first half of the AWS 5.1 designation is the electrode yield strength, in this case 70ksi. The third digit is the position the rod will run. 1 is all positions and 2 is flat flat/horizontal.
The fourth digit is the flux type, so looking in my book, 4 = Rutile, Titania based, with iron powder.

 

[Pigeon No9]

Completely different flux, so they shouldn't be running anything like 7018 except for the deposition rate.

The first half of the AWS 5.1 designation is the electrode yield strength, in this case 70ksi. The third digit is the position the rod will run. 1 is all positions and 2 is flat flat/horizontal.
The fourth digit is the flux type, so looking in my book, 4 = Rutile, Titania based, with iron powder.

Cannot really comment on that as I did not find 7018s here. That is what I was looking for before buying 7014s. But in fact, these do run nicer than the 6013s. Now I have to figure why I got bug holes in two different welds and both had the holes only at the beginning of weld. I'll try to strike an arc away from the weld start, back up to the actual start, and then run over the place where I struck the arc. Dunno.

 

[Pigeon No9]

Remember ,,, non of us could weld when we started.

I understand that fully, yes. I'll have an oportunity to take some courses in autumn and I've been struggling to decide - stick or tig. Knowing myself, I would much prefer to take tig as it's my end goal, but stick I think would be more sensible from academic stand point. I hope I don't offend anyone, but from the three processes (arguably) I think stick is the hardest to master, no? Tig should come more easy when you can stick properly.
I might be completely wrong and I'm about to hear why..

 

[8ob]

I have just noticed you are running a 2.5mm rod @75amps on 6mm plate, I think you would get on a lot better upping the amps and running 3.25 rods.

Bob

 

[Pigeon No9]

I have just noticed you are running a 2.5mm rod @75amps on 6mm plate, I think you would get on a lot better upping the amps and running 3.25 rods.

Bob

The last few pictures which I posted were 3.2mm 7014's at 140 amps.

 

[Brad93]

Cannot really comment on that as I did not find 7018s here. That is what I was looking for before buying 7014s. But in fact, these do run nicer than the 6013s. Now I have to figure why I got bug holes in two different welds and both had the holes only at the beginning of weld. I'll try to strike an arc away from the weld start, back up to the actual start, and then run over the place where I struck the arc. Dunno.

With rutile rods you're better long arcing them till they are hot then shortening the arc up.

 

[Brad93]

Slag traps can occur with any rods, no matter how good.

It can be down to many factors, not just the welder.

Damp rods = sometimes you stick the rods in a 100° quiver and it's like night and day.

Amps too high = too much current can cause a wandering arc from arc blow or just general instability due to the rod not being able to handle that current.

Arc blow = Always present in some degree, you've really just got to work with it. You'll often find if you're welding towards the edge of a plate or in to a corner the arc will be all over the place. Moving the position of the earth can help, wrapping the earth lead round the job a few times, using AC current.
Arc blow will definitely cause a slag trap as the arc only wants to track on one of the plates being joined usually.

 

[Pigeon No9]

With rutile rods you're better long arcing them till they are hot then shortening the arc up.

This might not be answearable because it likely depends on lot of things, but how long do I long arc it? With the 6013's I held it for 1-1.5 secods and then went in. These 7014's are still new to me.

 

[Brad93]

This might not be answearable because it likely depends on lot of things, but how long do I long arc it? With the 6013's I held it for 1-1.5 secods and then went in. These 7014's are still new to me.

I would drop your amps to 125. See if it improves.