General stick welding question

[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?

[DaveO]

I found a Lincoln pdf here
http://www.lincolnelectric.com/asset...d37/c21019.pdf

...that says "preferred polarity is listed first". The pdf also offers current ranges, if that helps. Let us know how it goes!

[its_34]

I found a Lincoln pdf here
http://www.lincolnelectric.com/asset...d37/c21019.pdf

...that says "preferred polarity is listed first". The pdf also offers current ranges, if that helps. Let us know how it goes!

Thanks, that is helpful. I'll follow that guide and try both AC & DC for comparison and post some pics of the results (please be kind!). Should polarity make a difference if both DC + & - are listed?

[its_34]

Well, I gave it a try today and it was actually kind of fun. I'm not proud of these, but I said I would post...


First 3 were at 110a AC, next were 110a DC-, on 1/8" scrap plate. I quickly realized that welding toward myself was making it very tough to control the arc height, let alone see it well, so I changed to a left-to-right drag and the bead consistency improved. I switched back to AC for the last 3.



Technique must be key to quality since (other than amps) all setting adjustments are made with the hand. This is a learned skill, I hope!