first ever stick welds

[owas]

So finally decided to go ahead and start stick welding, comming from mig.

Welder is a parweld 160 inverter with 2.5mm 6013 rods

Amps were set between 70 and 90
3mm thick mild steel

I started off not really knowing how big the puddle really should be as I was used mig, hence the thin welds, getting there.

Any advice ?

 

[owas]

Just did this one that I think looks abit better

 

[owas]

Tie in attempt

 

[wheresmejumper]

The tie in was going fairly mint till you lost it a little at the end.
Keep at it,eventually your arm will learn to feed the rod naturally, without you having to constantly adjust it

 

[BrokenBiker]

i have the same welder, its very forgiving lol

grab yourself some 3-4mm steel, 3 inch wide and about 8 inch long. Start in the top edge (3 inch wide) and weld from corner to corner, then clean and lay another just below, overlapping like a second pass, and keep going till its full, then turn and do the same going the other way, so the 8 inch wide bit.

after a while you will have the muscle memory for speed and how quick the rod burns.

as for puddle size i was taught to let the puddle grow to the same width as the total dia af the rod including the flux. Has always worked for me

 

[owas]

Thanks!
Welder is deffintly forgiving, I was suprised I managed to put a decent bead down at all, always thought stick would feel really uncomfortable but Its not too bad, I think once I do the constant welding thing on the steel strip I should have the speed ect down

 

[BrokenBiker]

the built in hot start and anti stick make them much easier to use than a transformer machine.

it all comes down to practice. I started off with a stick welder, then when i moved to mig i gained a few bad habits and going back to stick was tricky, but now i do them both fairly regularly and its second nature now

 

[rich r]

Definitely do the laying down of rows of runs, that taught me how to move the rod smoothly and in a straight line. Initially you can slightly rest against the previous run, but after a while your hand moves naturally keeping the distance right. Once you've laid down a few full rods, you'll find you should be able to strike up and weld a nice consistent run without thinking about it too much. Arc welding is all about repeating over and over again until it just happens naturally. Then when you need to do something more difficult (eg verticals, or dissimilar thicknesses) you don't have to worry about maintaining the arc length and moving smoothly at the correct speed, you're more free to concentrate on angles and timing to get a good weld.