Hello again, I hope this article finds you without burnt eyes or some other welding trauma. You can avoid this by staying behind the welder’s lens. Today we are going to begin our discussion of the anatomy of stick or arc welding with flux-coated sticks (electrodes).
Of course, there are many types of stick sticks, but the best place to start is with a quick freeze stick. Quick freeze rods are in a category that has been the foundation for stick welding. They are still an industry standard in many places. I have worked for companies that do not use these rods in their process as root metal, but most do. When we talk about root metals we mean those metals that are always the first metals to be applied to a welded joint, be it pipe welding, plate welding, tube welding, structural welding, etc.
When we talk about these types of rods we are almost always talking about basic carbon steel (also known as black iron or mild steel). Quick Freeze Rods have the ability to cool rapidly even while the welding process is underway. Imagine stacking dimes on top of each other with a slight overlap from one dime to the next. Like a row of fallen dominoes. Now this, of course, would be a continuous flat weld. Whenever welding with a quick freeze rod, the rod moves forward slightly, then back to the original puddle. As soon as you move forward with the rod, the metal that has been deposited behind the rod is already solidifying, which is why the term quick freeze applies. There is some ability to drag the rod without much movement, but due to the nature of the rod and its design it wants to solidify quickly to avoid a lot of buildup when depositing the metal, it will naturally move the puddle more than some other rods.
The tighter the placement of one dime on the next means good weld continuity. One thing to watch for with this application is the tendency to chip away at existing weld joint areas with the new metal being placed on top. When you pull the rod out of the puddle, the area you are moving through is being excavated by the action of this rod. That’s why rod was re-rodded to the last penny of weld filler in the areas gouged out by the rod as it went.
This type of rod has a great digging effort. A piece of advice about this type of process is this: “Don’t be afraid to leave enough metal in the existing weld path before moving on. Beginning welders, especially, have a tendency to go too fast before depositing enough metal to avoid undercut the parent metal (existing metal) Undercut is a term that simply means that the weld metal that has been deposited was not sufficient to flush the weld with the surrounding surface Normally the weld deposited from the rod is sufficient to make that the new weld is taller or thicker than the original material.
When the metal deposited during the welding process is thin or insufficient, the newly deposited metal leaves a jagged edge next to the new metal instead of a nice rounded effect. 6010 electrodes, 7010 electrodes, 8010 electrodes, 85 shield arc, 6011, 6013 are all quick freeze rods, just as a few examples. These rods are designed to dig into the parent metal and provide good penetration. It is good on rusty metals and metals that are not very clean. Old material that has corroded over time, etc.
One trick you can apply with this type of rod is this: the polarity can be changed when welding this rod, allowing for less penetration or digging as it is welded. Sometimes on thin metal or metal that can’t take a lot of scrubbing by the norm of these wands, you can get over it with this little trick. Make the ground connection positive and the live conductor negative (reverse polarity). You will find that the sound is a little different while welding than it normally would be. You will also find that the welding rod does not have the tendency to dig or penetrate as much.
This is a handy trick, especially when working on thin metal. I have found for myself that these rods work more smoothly at slightly higher heat than you may be comfortable with. Running a hot puddle is better and becomes easier to handle the more you practice with it. These bars can be run uphill from the bottom up in a vertical plane or from the top down in a vertical plane. Usually there is more moving uphill and more dragging or driving downhill. Actually they are all the position bars. Flat, top, vertical, horizontal, Arkansas bell or 6g incorporating all positions within the weld path. Normally any pipe test you do will be in the 6g position. There are some exceptions. One of the tests I never liked doing was a fixed template test. This test simulates an actual field weld that will need to be performed on the job. They can be a nightmare.
Heat, travel speed and stick angle are the 3 most important factors when welding with stick. I said heat, travel speed and rod. One thing that doesn’t usually hurt the club rod category is wind. It really has to be blowing to damage the quick freeze welding rod series. Some of the rods I mentioned above are AC rods and some of them are DC rods. Keep this in mind when choosing your rod. I have another article on that. Well, that’s all the time in this article. Thanks from the author.