Welding Tips and Tricks

I'm wondering if stick welding electrodes go off with age if they are still in their sealed packets. I have an opportunity to purchase nearly 100 kg of sticks for a very cheap price. Mostly new old stock (NOS) in sealed packets. Cigweld Weldcraft mainly and a few other boxes of different stuff.

I've got some very old sticks here that aren't in packets and they still work OK.

Weldcraft are 6013 rods. They won't go off but do you really want 100 kg (220#) of 6013?

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I go off if someone says or does something real stupid.

"Go Off" must be a down under term?

Some rods don't keep well depending on the storage conditions - 6013 is not sold in sealed packets ( at least in the UK ) so while they may have some sot of plastic outer on the carton it's not like vac pac foil sealed rods - that said if the rods were OK to begin with I would say they just need baking once - I have Esab rods that are donkeys years old & they still weld fine - would'nt use them on critical stuff but for farm repairs etc no worries - try scraping some flux off the rods - if there is even slight rust under it you bought scrap / coat hangers - if not get them in a rod oven then store them someplace warm with low humidity.

noddybrian wrote:Some rods don't keep well depending on the storage conditions - 6013 is not sold in sealed packets ( at least in the UK ) so while they may have some sot of plastic outer on the carton it's not like vac pac foil sealed rods - that said if the rods were OK to begin with I would say they just need baking once - I have Esab rods that are donkeys years old & they still weld fine - would'nt use them on critical stuff but for farm repairs etc no worries - try scraping some flux off the rods - if there is even slight rust under it you bought scrap / coat hangers - if not get them in a rod oven then store them someplace warm with low humidity.

Yup!

Thanks.

"Going off" is a term used to describe several things down here. If the surf is pumping it is "going off". Sometimes the fishing will be "going off". "Going off like a bucket of prawns in the sun" means something is turning bad very rapidly. Meat can "go off" in the fridge and sometimes a particular lady, well, I wont explain.

In this case however, it simply means to become unusable.

Coldman, no I don't need and will never need 100 kg of rods. I was looking at these as a re-sale item. In total there are 21 x 5 kg packets of rods and I am able to get them all for about AUS $1 / kg. The majority of the packs are unopened and still in the plastic. 12 packets of the Weldcraft, a couple of Ferrocraft 22, 5 packs of Austarc 13S and a couple of Sandvik GP. I think they are mostly all 3.2 mm rods. The guy selling them is doing so for his uncle and it's a but hard to get info out of him as he doesn't know what he's looking at.

A bit academic now. I was in Sydney yesterday and didn't go get them. It's a bit of a trip to just go back for them alone.