Super 6 Rods

[440dodgechargerrt]

Hello.

For a while I have welded with ESAB OK 46.00 3.2 6013 electrodes and these were pretty good, I ran out and bought a small supply of some white box Machine Mart rods which surprisingly were even better.

I ran out so purchased some Super 6 electrodes 3.2 6013E, they strike pretty easily but unless dragged across the surface tend to result in slag inclusions, something that was rare on ESAB and Machine Mart rods.

Are they regarded as decent rods?

Thanks

 

[Bill Edwards]

I think they're regarded in the 'variable' category...

Like other suppliers they probably buy in a load and put their name on. Some batches will be good, others not.

When buying a brand such as ESAB you can be quite confident that you'll always get good rods, and the consistency between batches will be the same. With something like Super 6, Machine Mart etc, you can't guarantee the next ones to be the same.

 

[PTvor]

No, and if you look on here Machine Mart rods don't attract much of a following either.

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/clarke-welding-rods.54862/

These people aren't telling lies although their experience may be different to yours.

Super 6 I've never used as I'd been through my cheap rod experience when they came on the scene and 5kg of rubbish which isn't much cop but is not so bad that you can throw it away is not fun.

I did buy 5kg of 2mm rods from Toolstation which put Fincord M 2mm rods to shame. Slag just drops leaving what looks like frozen mercury. I'm dreading getting to the end of them but I wouldn't advise anyone else to go and buy a load because they might well not be the same.

Consistency is above all but taste comes into it and I don't rate the much vaunted Fincord M myself. The best less than £20 per 5 kg rods IMHO are Phoenix/UTP/Bohler 6013 cheapies. Murex white box which I
think are the same as ESAB OK 46.30s, are pretty damned good and not much dearer than Super 6.

If you look on ebay there are sometimes little spells when the premium rod of your choice is being sold as NOS.

Stick to the budget priced rods from a major name, ESAB/Murex/Lincoln/Bohler/Aire Liquide and you won't go far wrong.

 

[440dodgechargerrt]

Thanks guys.

Just I'm on the IoW and not familar with the welding suppliers here so just got what I could quickly.

The Machine Mart rods were an emergency purchase when on the Mainland, I had used their 2.5mm rods before and thought they were ****e. So I was suprised when the 3.2mm I bought worked really well, but who know what the next lot would be like, different factory/manufacturer etc.

I'll see if I can get some more ESAB rods.

 

[Kent]

I couldn't rate anything as much better than ESAB but your plant might not like them. Just a note mant welding equipment suppliers emptying their shelves of no EN 1090 marked 7018 low hy rods. Picked up some cheap Murex fortex yesterday and bought quite a batch of cigweld under the same circumstances a couple of months back. Downside is EN1090 marked have risen quite substantially for having that printed on the side

 

[PTvor]

Places like the IoW can surprise you sometimes with places that don't look up to much and you might go past without noticing, but they do have a range of things you are interested in at good prices. However, I suspect it's a bit limited and rather dear for welding supplies.

You can mail order rods. Some people on here have used these and been happy with them.

http://www.hisltd.co.uk/Mild-Steel-Welding-Rods.html

They stock some good stuff and their prices very low so even when you add in the shipping, it's £20 or less for a packet of rods. £20 delivered against having to drive to get them and probably paying the same price per packet.

It seems a bit strange having welding rods sent from the North of Scotland to the IoW.

 

[Kent]

those 46-30 are super cheap

 

[Bill Edwards]

When I saw the link to that site I thought 'I'll post a link to Rapid Welding who I've used'.
But looking on the HIS site some of the prices are unbelievably cheap!

OK, some are sky high too so things need checking rather than assuming everything to be cheap, but it looks a great site to buy most welding rods from.
I've already got a large list in the shopping cart...

 

[PTvor]

The only potential snag with HIS for 440dodgechargerrt, is that the IoW may not be considered part of the mainland for the purposes of couriers, so the delivery charges are bumped up. Something to be looked into before ordering.

 

[Bill Edwards]

Very good point.

'Non mainland deliveries £12.95' rather than £5.95.

If buying a couple of packets of rods at a time they'd probably still work out cheap though.

 

[PTvor]

People who live off the mainland or some parts of the North of Scotland seem tuned in the fact that they are likely to be stung on delivery charges and it's a bit variable from supplier to supplier. I don't know about the IOW, it isn't far offshore.

 

[RonHopeful]

Two bits of advice I've received consistently here are "get a decent machine and use decent rods". I've done the first and certainly noticed a difference. I've been using Super6 rods until now but I've just ordered some ESAB from HIS (they must be wondering why so popular all of a sudden). It will be interesting to see if I notice a difference.

 

[RonHopeful]

The 2.5mm ESAB rods arrived today. They are noticeably slimmer than the Super6 rods. i.e. there's a thicker coat of flux on them. Each Super6 rod is each about 2grams heavier than the ESAB. I don't know if that's significant though. I've tried a few welds and can't really sense a big difference, except that the ESAB rods seem a bit cleaner.

 

[Wendelspanswick]

I find cheap rods tend to struggle with acute fillets, the arc tends to wander from one side to the other.
Do you get 'peelers' with the Super6 rod?

 

[Bill Edwards]

Fillets I find are more demanding. One reason I have switched to 7018 is that I'm fed up of rods favoring one side of a join, and I do often suspect this is due to poor rods.
I'm not keen on poor quality 6013 rods at all.

As to the rods having a thinner coating and different weight, this isn't of any importance as to how they weld. Different brands have different compositions of flux which give different appearances. The (usually) small advantage of thinner rods is that sometimes it's useful when trying to get into a tight place.

 

[PTvor]

Cheap rods tend to have a far less stable arc and it can be hard to maintain the arc with a buzz box, although they are better with inverters. They are much less forgiving, and can play nasty tricks like the arc suddenly coming out the side of the rod and producing an effect like arc blow. They tend to favour one side of the weld rather than the other even on butt joints, but fillets are worse and you don't have to make much of a mistake to get a slag inclusion. Very often the slag has to be chipped off rather then just tapped and brushed away.

Having struggled through most of 10kg of Screwfix and Nexus rods and thinking the faults were all down to me, someone gave me several lots of old rods, Weldro WRX30 (calling TechicAl), Elga, some blue ones maybe INE, Vodex and another lot that weld exactly like the Elga, I thought the difference was staggering. I've used several sorts of branded rods since then and they all have their own characters but they are consistent, and I can't say I'd want to go back to cheapies.

However, cheapies can throw up surprises, like the Machine Mart rods the O/P bought and the 2mm ToolStation rods I bought.

Using different rods and finding something you like is part of your arc welding learning experience.

 

[440dodgechargerrt]

Thank you for the replies guys!

Just learnt I'll be leaving the IoW for a new role, so that solves one problem haha.

Yeah the problem with them is they only weld one side of a fillet unless you drag the rod along the surface, I can make the work OKish (after a bit of trial and error) BUT I could be careless with the ESAB and surprisingly my last batch of MM rods and get good slag free fillets weld after weld after weld. It's a simillar problem to my first batch of MM rods which was funnily enough the first post I made here years ago.

Thought I had become a half decent hobby welder, just suddenly felt I had lost a few years of hobby welding experience.

But I wasn't sure if Super 6 were suppose to be decent or not and you've confirmed it their ****e hehe.