[TheForge] disintegrating welding rod

[Justin Fellenz]

Thanks for the reply.

The mig works ok if it's a good weld. Havent' tried stick, too much of 
pain to switch the tig over. I just tried tig this once because I had
it in my hand. Ill try different rod...there's something different
about the gas and tig rods of the same alloy that is supposed to make
the gas rod flow better. Maybe it's the copper coating on the steel rod
that was the problem.

Speaking of mystery metals I heated up a drill bit to see if I could
work it flat for a knife blade and it literally turned into cheese,
just went splt on the ground outside the forge. Gritty cheese. I'm not
enough of a metallurgist to know why but maybe there's some
commonality. 

J
--- xlch58 at swbell.net wrote:

> I arc weld stuff that I later hammer out all the time. In fact I just
> 
> finished doing that ten minutes ago.   I arc welded an extra handle
> on 
> an old ford wrench for a bar twister.  The
> arc weld was a good weld, but just looked offensive on the tool, so I
> 
> stuck it in the forge and hammered it out until the new and old
> handle 
> flowed better together.  Some trace of the edges of the weld, but
> that 
> is it.  Given that I was smacking it pretty hard, it held up well.  
> Don't know what the problem is you are encountering.  I would look at
> 
> the rod.  I tend to use a 6011.    I have had problems with mystery 
> metals that disintegrate under the hammer.  The lycoming lifters I
> was 
> working on day before yesterday were like that.  I have tried
> re-forging 
> hammer heads and had that problem.  
> 
> Charles
> 
> Justin Fellenz wrote:
> 
> >All,
> >
> >I've been finding that electric welds, especially tig, disintegrate
> in
> >the forge. Last session I cheated and tigged a couple of pieces of
> bar
> >together rather than forge-weldng them. I used a general purpose
> mild
> >steel gas welding rod (probably RG-45, copper coated) and 2 1/2"
> round
> >bars of 1018 or 1020, or, my supplier said, maybe a38. I cleaned the
> >rods up with a flap wheel, beveled the edges, and burnt em together.
> >Looked like good penetration,a little sparking from junk on the
> metal
> >but not too bad. But when I heated it up and beat on it with a
> hammer,
> >the filler just sort of diappeared leaving gaps between the bar
> ends. 
> >
> >Maybe I didnt get it all the way clean and carbon or scale deposits
> or
> >whatever heated up and blew the filler or the HAZ metal out. My best
> >guess. Anyone else experience this? I find that mig welds hold up ok
> as
> >long as the penetration's really good, but where it's not it looks
> like
> >the HAZ again just kind of powders and the bead pulls away from the
> >bar.
> >
> >Thoughts?
> >
> >Cheers,
> >
> >JRF 
> >  
> >
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