General stick welding question

[its_34]

Thanks for the link, I just watched to whole thing. If the electrode can weld by itself, maybe I can too.
I'll see what's available locally but 7014 looks like a good start.

[youngnstudly]

If you can get some (and you don't plan to use it for out of position welding), 7024 welds beautifully with little effort. If nothing else, see if you can get a pound of it to keep around. I second the 7014 choice for all purpose rod. I think 6011 would be my next choice, but see what you can get locally. As Mark mentioned, good rod is a pleasure to weld with!

[its_34]

Looks like my 1lb options are 6011 and 6013 locally so I'm going to pick up some 6011 and give it a shot this weekend. I guess if I was more patient or not so cheap, I'd buy 5lbs in several flavors and experiment a little more.

[youngnstudly]

That works! I started out with 6011 when first learning to stick weld, and you can't go wrong with it once you get the hang of things. After you try different rod, you can buy from an online store in a larger amount for better prices (sometimes). Of course you may find that you hate stick welding altogether and you'll never do it again after this experiment!

[DaveO]

Looks like my 1lb options are 6011 and 6013 locally

Where is "locally", if you don't mind me asking? You may be close by another member. I gave away all my duplicate rods when I gave a welder away but I'd still be willing to share. Rods are available at Home Depot and Lowe's, too (as well as Harbor Freight, but you may want to stay with a name brand because HF quality seems to vary).

BTW I saw your review over at weld.com- nicely done.

[joshuab]

In my experience, 7018 and 7014 both weld beautifully. I like to start total beginners on these rods because it is so easy to get a good looking weld, and it is relatively easy to show them where they went wrong (faster, slower, arc length) from the finished bead. 7018 is a bit of a hassle because of having to knock the slag off the rod for each re-start, which for beginners there are a lot of. If I could only weld with one rod forever, though, it would be 6011, no question, and the reason is that (at least in my hands), 7018 absolutely stinks for poor fitup and/or filling gaps, especially on thinner material. With 6011, I can pretty easily whip the rod to freeze the puddle and fill a gap, but 7018 just burns through in a second if it's concentrated on the edge of a piece. 6011 takes more practice to get a good weld out of, and it'll never look as smooth and pretty as 7018, but it stands up in places where 7018/14 fall down.

[its_34]

Where is "locally", if you don't mind me asking? You may be close by another member. I gave away all my duplicate rods when I gave a welder away but I'd still be willing to share. Rods are available at Home Depot and Lowe's, too (as well as Harbor Freight, but you may want to stay with a name brand because HF quality seems to vary).

I probably made that sound pretty remote! I'm in SoCal and have a LWS, HF, Lowes & HD all within a few miles. By locally, I guess I meant something I can go to outside of normal working hours. HD carries Lincoln and I can get there over the weekend. This is more of a "because I haven't" experiment, so I don't want more than 1lb in the event it goes in the "never again" category!

[Rambozo]

For a first timer between 6011 and 6013, I would go for the 6013. Much more tolerant of poor technique. 6011 is a great rod, but it requires skill to get the most out of it. Inverters also make the standard techniques for 6011 work a little differently.

[its_34]

OK, I picked up a 1lb box of 1/8" 6013 Lincoln Fleetweld 57 at Home Depot on my way home tonight. I'm going to give this a shot this weekend. Looking at the box, I see AC/DC+/-. So what do I try first?