Best welding rod for my use case?
>Using a 40 year old AC transformer welder
>No idea what I'm doing
>Want to weld steel bicycle frames together
>Don't care what it looks like
>Don't want to bother with any preparation work
>Too stupid to learn about weld pools
>Can't be bothered baking rods or storing them correctly
Is the 6013 rod for me?
6011
its easy to weld with 6013 as long as its flat. vertical is much harder with 6013 because the slag starts acting up and getting caught in the weld.
If you dont want to actually learn how to weld and just stick something together then tack weld with 6011 rods. 6010 wont work with a transformer.
Also shitty welds and bicycle frames is a horrible combination. Please rethink your idea.
Thanks for your help. What do you think about learning using bicycle spokes wrapped in newspaper? I'd rather not spend money on rods which are only being used for practice.
That stuff on the outside of the rods is flux. It’s important.
Don’t try to weld, you will just hurt yourself.
The burning newspaper is the shielding gas, this is how old timers used to weld.
Flux is only important in an oxygen atmosphere. Underwater welders don't need flux. You can weld in a bathtub without any flux
Rods are dirt cheap compared to the value of knowing how to weld. You'll never learn how to weld without using real rods.
'weldingtipsandtricks' and 'weld.com' have great videos on youtube for learning to weld. 'TimWelds' is ok and explains some of the very basics.
a 40 year old AC transformer welder
>>Don't want to bother with any preparation work
7018
7018s dont work on transformer welders and they like clean metal.
Why bother reply when you dont know what youre talking about.
7017s work fine on transformer machines with high OCV and rectifiers to produce DC. They also do lift-arc TIG. Dialarc and Idealarc are commonly known examples. They also do AC TIG with the original Heliarc machines and the usual Miller and Lincolns being examples like my 340A/BP.
7018AC works on plain transformer machines (there's an electrode for most everything) but high OCV like the Hobart T-400 I bought for the cables and kept for the arc.
Some early rods were wrapped in paper soaked in sodium silicate (commonly called water glass at the time) and were terrible compared to celluosic fillers properly applied.
The results suck:
https://makezine.com/projects/diy-welding-rod-2/
Bare wire was also used but suits oxy-acetylene welding perfectly making arc welding with it silly for the sake of being silly. There are two kinds of welding, useful and stupid. Choose wisely.
>7018s dont work on transformer welders and they like clean metal.
Works fine on my Lincoln tombstone and is happy to go through rust and scale.
I just keep them in a sealed container.
Stick some in an oven or toaster oven in some foil and get them hot and dry. You'll enjoy the difference.
3/32 (2.5mm) or smaller 6011.
Or 6013, but you'd be fighting with slag constantly.
>Too stupid to learn about weld pools
You have to learn about it, so you see what you're doing and not blow through, yet melt shit together.
>no prep
Bad. Metal has to be shiny no matter the rod, especially when dealing with thin stuff. No rust, no paint, no mill scale too (for thin stuff). Why? Because you need to burn crap off, and you need more heat for this... problem is that you're already blowing holes through.
Not all 7018 run on AC, and they are horrible choice for thin tubes, because you can't tack-weld with them like pajeets do on youtube. And with thin metal you'd have to do this anyway, because bicycle tube is like 1-1.5 mm thick? Stick welding this with a continuous bead would be tricky.
At welding arc temperature water decomposes into oxygen and hydrogen. Hence you have to bake your rods.
IIRC under water they use 6013s.
Come fricking on, rods are dirt cheap.
Get a kilo, 2 lbs whatever of each variety and see what works best. 6011, 6013 and 7018(make sure it can run on AC)
Also, other thing, if you're from eurostan, they don't have 6011(cellulose), they have different flavours of 6013 (rutile or titania), 7016 (basic) and maybe 7018 (basic too, but more iron filler i think).
Just get a cheap mig welder with a bottle
Troll rod made of the same material as your post.
Go ne a bigger somewhere else.
>What do you think about learning using bicycle spokes wrapped in newspaper? I'd rather not spend money on rods which are only being used for practice.
oh great, this shit thread again
Personally I would just 6010 whip it, 6010 will weld through paint, oil, rust whatever the frick have you
Doesn’t look as beautiful but you can grind that shit down and do canondale does and call it a smooth weld aero feature set
You might burn through the thin ass tube though so little trial and error
6010 is DC
6011 is AC/DC
Imagine trying to weld bike frames with a buzz box
Dont get me wrong I can do it. You, not so much.
Sell the setup and buy a cheap fluxcore welder and then youll melt smaller holes in the frame…hahahahhahaha thank me later