Welding Tips and Tricks

I had heard of people using baby oil to show hydrogen diffusing out of a weld bead.
Being cursed with a curious mind I had to see this for myself so I set out to try to replicate their experiment.
I took a 7018 out of the rod oven one Friday evening after everyone had left the shop and laid it up on top of the welding machine. Monday morning, I went back and snagged that rod that had several hours of atmospheric exposure and took it to my office. I had two small pieces of A36 scrap plate and found a guy who was standing around to be my welder. I had him weld a short bead (2.5-3" long on the scrap plate with each 7018(one properly stored in the oven and the one that I had out "exposed" all weekend), and after they cooled off enough to handle them without gloves, I dropped each into separate jars filled with baby oil. Within minutes bubbles begin to form on the center of the bead of weld that was produced with the improperly stored 7018, the other...not a single bubble. After 3 to 4 minutes the bubbles on the improperly stored test sample was streaming off the center of the cap of that weld bead and pouring towards the top of the fluid(baby oil).
These pics were taken within less than a minute of submersion:

Properly stored sample:


Improperly stored sample:


Here's a pic of Al Moore's test:(post on AWS forum that got my attention and curiosity up)
http://www.aws.org/mwf/attachments//50/ ... Aug-08.jpg

John,
I am glad you posted your test. We were actually talking about this at the shop the other day. Well maybe I was talking and others might have been listening. Anyway, from what I have studied all welds will give off Hydrogen. I was watching a YouTube video from back in the day where they were showing the same thing. Will have to look it up and post it soon.
-Jonathan

We had this demonstration performed with 6010 and 7018 at the factory of Boehler welding when I was working for them.
You would not believe at the amount of hydrogen coming out of the cellulosic electrode.
A very good video showing the exact same this is this.

http://youtu.be/bv9ApdzalHM

Tax,
That was the video I was referring to. Thanks for posting it.
-Jonathan

WOW, I never knew all that was going on just by using a contaminated Lo-Hy. Thanks for sharing

Here is another video of hydrogen out gassing. They show a properly stored low hydrogen rod, an improperly stored rod and a regular cellulose rod. The improperly stored rod is as bad as the cellulose rode

Hydrogen Diffusion Demonstration: http://youtu.be/Wjz8eh3uxkU

I'm trying to pick a fight here, so please take this personally........Here it goes

If a guy is welding mild steel, and is using 6010, he's gonna have lots of hydrogen.

If he is using cold 7018, on his mild steel, he will have lots of hydrogen in his weld. Same as above.

But will it hurt his weld?
I hear hacks say all the time, "I don't use low hydrogen rods, cause I don't have an oven.
I just use 6011 and 7014.

But they have hydrogen just as bad as the 7018!

So why should we worry about our cold 7018 welds, when other rods will put just as much hydrogen in the weld?

Enlighten me.

That's a great video. I've had exposure to "degassing" of welds but not really know what the heck was happening.

John,
Your question was answered in the above YouTube video. Did you watch it?
-Jonathan

I thought this link should be included with this also, it is by Miller does a good job of describing why to use fresh rods. The article explains why you should never put cellulose rods in an oven, due to the moisture content of rod is built into the design of the rod to create certain desirable arc characteristics. Kind of goes along with a thread on WW where they talk about old rods. It was mentioned to dip old cellulose rods in water to revive them. Sounds like a bad idea considering you have now introduced a source of hydrogen into the weld and have no true way knowing how you changed the rods performance. There is a lot in the article worth a read explains different ways hydrogen is introduced into the weld and correct ways to help reduce hydrogen.
http://www.millerwelds.com/resources/ar ... en-problem

On a side note I find the studies of this fascinating on any welding subject. However me personally I hate stick welding and haven't done any for prolly 10 yrs. I am not proficient in away what so ever in doing it. I just read some of the theories and stuff on the processes of it. I just find the process to dirty and raw TIG snob all the way for me I know stick has it purposes and can understand that I just don't like it. I don't even like MIG anymore. Give me TIGGY or give me death

Soaking 6010 is very good for the rods!!

Took from Miller site

" If a cellulosic stick electrode used in pipeline applications becomes wet it should be discarded, and should not be reconditioned by drying it in a rod oven. Likewise, if a cellulosic stick electrode becomes overly dry, either from inadvertent drying in an electrode oven, or from exposure to hot, dry weather, it should also be discarded."

I would throw all those rods you have away

AKweldshop wrote:I'm trying to pick a fight here, so please take this personally........Here it goes

If a guy is welding mild steel, and is using 6010, he's gonna have lots of hydrogen.

If he is using cold 7018, on his mild steel, he will have lots of hydrogen in his weld. Same as above.

But will it hurt his weld?
I hear hacks say all the time, "I don't use low hydrogen rods, cause I don't have an oven.
I just use 6011 and 7014.

But they have hydrogen just as bad as the 7018!

So why should we worry about our cold 7018 welds, when other rods will put just as much hydrogen in the weld?

Enlighten me.

The reason you choose lo-hy rods is to prevent cold cracking.
For cold cracking to happen you must have the following 3 things simultaneously
1. Presence of hydrogen
2. Stress ( no, not you, the metal)
3. High hardness

The reason you can get away with using cellulosic rods or improperly stored basic rods is that most of the time all three rarely occur at the same time in most cases a garage hack will weld.

Well the way the question was asked was good.
What I took from the video, with 6010, the hydrogen gets taken care of by pre/post heating. But is that always done?

Sent from my SM-T537R4 using Tapatalk

Yes it was a valid question and in case my answer was not clear I will rephrase it as such:

"Improperly stored basic rods are no worse than cellulosic rods as far as hydrogen content is concerned and a hobbyist should have no worries in using basic rods even without an oven in most of his applications"

Most people misuse the electrode oven anyway and even if you need to do some serious welding a simple solution would be to buy electrodes in small vacuum packages and simply discard the ones not used or use them in non critical applications.

Pre heating helps but I have never seen post heating performed on any application where a xx10 rod would have been selected.

There is a reason cellulosic rods are rarely used outside of pipelines in any serious application and have been replaced by other methods/consumables. Manufacturers have even produced lo-hy rods that will weld downhill to replace cellulosic rods in pipelining.

dirtmidget33 wrote:Took from Miller site

" If a cellulosic stick electrode used in pipeline applications becomes wet it should be discarded, and should not be reconditioned by drying it in a rod oven. Likewise, if a cellulosic stick electrode becomes overly dry, either from inadvertent drying in an electrode oven, or from exposure to hot, dry weather, it should also be discarded."

I would throw all those rods you have away

The key words here are: "used in pipeline applications".
If he is using these electrodes to build a fence etc I see no problem in using them.
Pipelines are a serious application and should not be tackled with welding consumables that have been compromised and Miller correctly makes that point. I doubt however that most things a hobbyist welds would suffer from poorly maintained welding consumables as most of the time it is the skill of the welder that causes the problems in this type of applications.

Very interesting about the baby oil test, I have never heard of that before.
Living in the Seattle area for the last 38-years, and working heavy civil, and water front construction all my life. You guys may have heard it rains a little bit here. I can't tell you how many times I had to pour the water out of a can of 7018 because some carpenter type left the lid to the gang box open.
For bridges and over pass work there is a lot of steel falsework that is built. Hey something has to hold the concrete forms, and concrete until it drys. Welp we build it in the pouring down rain, with no tents! Now sure this is all mild steel. I posted these pictures on Welding Web as well. You wouldn't want to do this for code work for sure, but then again we always worked to AWS D1.1 code.

I'm really starting to dislike all you Hydrogen haters. I make about 1.2 million SCF of it a day and don't have hardly any problems with welds failing.

I just welded up a steam drain yesterday with a box of 7018 rod that was left outside since Monday laying in a ditch that was full of hot water and the line was full of steam, I don't think a rod oven would of helped.

I too fall into the stick welding haters club and if it went the way of the record alblum I wouldn't be upset.

Len

the rainy shot, ten days of that. I was running 21B, the other four guys were running.... you guessed it 7018
it was an army corps job so you can be sure they knew what was going on. it's not a perfect world.
that's my shirt...who needed a shirt.

these rods I found in an open can under a shelf, age unknown.

wanted to try new welder so I ran some, dirty rods, dirty material, worked for me. I sure wouldn't throw them away.

I've posted this pic here before but, new topic and people. 7018, open packet, will not weld even after a bit of a cook in the oven and burning half the rod. (Force full drying)

@AKweldshop if you dont mind out of curiosity who, why and what for taught you to soak 60XX. I have read a few post where guys said it gave them better arcs by doing it but like I already stated it screws with the intended chemistry of the designers intentions and me being a purist would never consider it. To me if the arc isnt running right then I would look at settings or a different type of rod if i was to bother in the dirty messy stick welding process LOL nothing personal as I already mentioned my thoughts on stick

taz wrote:

AKweldshop wrote:I'm trying to pick a fight here, so please take this personally........Here it goes

If a guy is welding mild steel, and is using 6010, he's gonna have lots of hydrogen.

If he is using cold 7018, on his mild steel, he will have lots of hydrogen in his weld. Same as above.

But will it hurt his weld?
I hear hacks say all the time, "I don't use low hydrogen rods, cause I don't have an oven.
I just use 6011 and 7014.

But they have hydrogen just as bad as the 7018!

So why should we worry about our cold 7018 welds, when other rods will put just as much hydrogen in the weld?

Enlighten me.

The reason you choose lo-hy rods is to prevent cold cracking.
For cold cracking to happen you must have the following 3 things simultaneously
1. Presence of hydrogen
2. Stress ( no, not you, the metal)
3. High hardness

The reason you can get away with using cellulosic rods or improperly stored basic rods is that most of the time all three rarely occur at the same time in most cases a garage hack will weld.

Another reason, one that the welding codes seem to deem very important is hydrogen induced cracking, and hydrogen embrittlement. Using Lo-Hy rods reduces the chances of either of these happening at the atomic level. This also includes using the proper preheat to help drive away moisture and slow down the cooling a bit to help diffuse the hydrogen(while the puddle is still at an elevated temperature and the hydrogen is free and able to escape).

AWS D1.1 allows the use of rods other than Lo-Hy, but if you notice it also requires additional preheat. But then this is restricted to lower tensile/yield strength steels....low alloy, high strength steels require "all Lo-Hy rods or welding processes" to be employed. AWS D1.5 is for bridge welding and it uses a lot of this high strength material. When you get into seismic welding code(AWS D1.8) for earthquake prone localities you will see even stricter requirements for welding electrodes and the control of hydrogen. ie. limits on atmospheric exposure using fluxcore welding wire and the use of storage ovens for this wire.

links to hydrogen induced cracking and hydrogen embrittlement:
http://www.corrosionpedia.com/definitio ... acking-hic

http://www.corrosionpedia.com/2/1555/pr ... e-measures

dirtmidget33 wrote:@AKweldshop if you dont mind out of curiosity who, why and what for taught you to soak 60XX. I have read a few post where guys said it gave them better arcs by doing it but like I already stated it screws with the intended chemistry of the designers intentions and me being a purist would never consider it. To me if the arc isnt running right then I would look at settings or a different type of rod if i was to bother in the dirty messy stick welding process LOL nothing personal as I already mentioned my thoughts on stick

I've seen people dunk the stinger, rod and all in a bucket of water to cool them off when the stinger gets too hot to hold.

Article in this month's AWS Welding Journal about Lo-Hy rods..

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/aws/wj_201501/#/30