machine mart rods

[naughtyboy]

been offered 6pks of rods from m/mart by guy who is cleaning out his dads shed for a tenner.
5 are unopened are they worth having?
or are their rods rubbish?
shed is heated and dry.
cheers

 

[madkayaker]

the rods aren't the greatest but for a tenner all right for stirring paint, using as cable ties etc

 

[PTvor]

Ask him for a few to try before you make your mind up.

One way of looking at it is that it's a tenner you could put towards a packet of decent rods that will work and do what it says on the packet consistently.

 

[the artfull-codger]

could someone with more knowledge give a valid reason why cheap rods are no good & not just 'cos they're ''cheap/not decent/only good for stirring paint'' etc,I for one would be interested to know cheers

slan go fol

 

[brightspark]

the rods aren't the greatest but for a tenner all right for stirring paint, using as cable ties etc

stirring paint
bet the flux coating makes a mess unless its sandtex paint. cable ties are plastic arent they

 

[naughtyboy]

dont need cable ties.
bought job lot approx 5000 of them for £25.
place had gone bust went to auction.

 

[PTvor]

could someone with more knowledge give a valid reason why cheap rods are no good & not just 'cos they're ''cheap/not decent/only good for stirring paint'' etc,I for one would be interested to know cheers

slan go fol

Because they often come in a plain box with no information on; positions, current range, OCV, anything apart from "3.2mm welding rods" and you have no guarantee of consistency or performance. So one rod may be good and another cause problems, or one box might be good and another cause problems. They may be bought from totally different makers from batch to batch.

For about what you pay for Machine Mart, etc, you can get white box rods from Murex etc which come in proper packaging, and have a data sheet, implying that they live up to what it says on the data sheet. If you buy main brand rods from ESAB, Murex, Oerlikon etc, they come with a specific list of approvals requiring tight quality control.

There's also the fact that if you want to make a quality anything, say a piece of furniture, the materials you can use are not all the same and good quality wood tends to be expensive. You could make the furniture with cheaper grades of wood, but you'd notice the difference.

If you are going to make a welding rod with particular performance and properties consistently, you have to monitor batches of materials, you have to keep the machinery in trim, you have to reject batches of materials and rods which fail QC for some reason. It all costs. However, if you simply sell something which you describe as 'mild steel welding rod" and make no other claims for you haven't got to be so fussy, or you may see selling it under such a description as a good way to get rid of your rubbish.

 

[the artfull-codger]

Because they often come in a plain box with no information on; positions, current range, OCV, anything apart from "3.2mm welding rods" and you have no guarantee of consistency or performance. So one rod may be good and another cause problems, or one box might be good and another cause problems. They may be bought from totally different makers from batch to batch.

For about what you pay for Machine Mart, etc, you can get white box rods from Murex etc which come in proper packaging, and have a data sheet, implying that they live up to what it says on the data sheet. If you buy main brand rods from ESAB, Murex, Oerlikon etc, they come with a specific list of approvals requiring tight quality control.

There's also the fact that if you want to make a quality anything, say a piece of furniture, the materials you can use are not all the same and good quality wood tends to be expensive. You could make the furniture with cheaper grades of wood, but you'd notice the difference.

If you are going to make a welding rod with particular performance and properties consistently, you have to monitor batches of materials, you have to keep the machinery in trim, you have to reject batches of materials and rods which fail QC for some reason. It all costs. However, if you simply sell something which you describe as 'mild steel welding rod" and make no other claims for you haven't got to be so fussy, or you may see selling it under such a description as a good way to get rid of your rubbish.

Thanks for that PT, a sensible answer to my question kind regards

slan go fol

 

[sardine]

Chinese electrodes

Those no name Chinese electrodes generally do work well enough for farmyard jobs, being sarky though they are fencing wire covered in concrete !

The flux likes to get damp and flake off.

get a box of top brand 7018's then you know 100% that any fault is you and not the electrode.

The clue is no one is admitting to manufacturing them on the box !

 

[naughtyboy]

boxes are marked clarke weld.
got em to try and they worked reasonably well.

 

[Tigman]

Depends on what you are welding , if your making garden gates they will be fine , if your welding something structural or something thats under pressure , dont use them , for that price and providing they havent got damp I would go for it !

 

[Wave Skimmer]

The biggest problem I have found with second hand rods is not the make or country of manufacture but where they were stored.
Your mate's dad may have been a semi professional welder or a "once a year try to fix it type"
The semi professional knows how to take care of his rods the other thinks under the leaky sink with the packet sitting on a damp sack is fine.

 

[dannyp]

the rods you buy and use depend on what your doing tbh.

if your doing anything of structural inportance / highly stressed ect get a fresh box of rods for the job.

if our just messing about as long as the flux coating is still intact give them a bake in the oven and they'll do