Preheating to help Stick Welding

[undercut]

Hi. I'm wondering if anyone in these forums has used preheating to help with their stick welding. Will it help me weld relatively larger pieces with a slightly smaller rod? I suspect it will help reduce warpage and probably with striking an arc. Anything else?

[bobwills]

Instead of like preheating larger pieces most just bevel the pieces and run multiple passes on the thick stuff.

[undercut]

Would it help with reducing warping? Need to weld up some thinner gauge square tubing where they need to be butted up to each other. I will tack on opposite sides so that the welds won't pull them away from straight but I'm a bit concerned about warping the metal when I put in the welds along the seams.

[geezer]

Preheating will help,,problem is a stick welder had only so many small rods,,,so that means you will be putting in 50 to 60 amps to get the rod to burn properly,,best to use a small .023 wire mig or a Tig welder, where you can lower the heat input ,,,preheating aluminum for a mig is a good idea as it helps the small welder do it's job,,,you can use a propane torch or electric blow dyer that body shops use for decal removal to do that....preheating is a good idea except it is limited in application or situation due to practicality...convienience etc...

[SeanMurphy265]

From the pre-heating I have done in the past (I have not had to pre-heat anything in a long time!) with stick welding; was mostly heavy equipment repair (3 point hitches, tractor/farm stuff). We did this to keep the metal/weld from getting too hard; which will not let the part flex without breaking. We still bevelled the parts, but we heated them up to 800 degrees (used the handy little heat sticks), and then welded them up.

We did an A-frame dozer blade for the forestry department that had some t-1 plates on both sides of the frame. The plates were cut with some jagged edges so they could cut small trees down. We ended up bolting the plates because of time. Something like that you would have to pre-heat, weld, heat, weld, heat, and then slowly let the metal cool.

I do think with thicker steel pre-heating helps some with warping. Instead of having a small concentration of heat in one area; the part is completely heated, and then cools down as a whole. I have seen people stick weld a part and then heat the non welded area, but I'm not sure how much that helps.

[undercut]

From the pre-heating I have done in the past (I have not had to pre-heat anything in a long time!) with stick welding; was mostly heavy equipment repair (3 point hitches, tractor/farm stuff). We did this to keep the metal/weld from getting too hard; which will not let the part flex without breaking. We still bevelled the parts, but we heated them up to 800 degrees (used the handy little heat sticks), and then welded them up.

We did an A-frame dozer blade for the forestry department that had some t-1 plates on both sides of the frame. The plates were cut with some jagged edges so they could cut small trees down. We ended up bolting the plates because of time. Something like that you would have to pre-heat, weld, heat, weld, heat, and then slowly let the metal cool.

I do think with thicker steel pre-heating helps some with warping. Instead of having a small concentration of heat in one area; the part is completely heated, and then cools down as a whole. I have seen people stick weld a part and then heat the non welded area, but I'm not sure how much that helps.

Thanks SeanMurphy265. Learning a lot living vicariously through all of you. Hope to start getting some experience so that I can start helping people even a fraction the amount all of you have been helping me. Many thanks.