Welding Tips and Tricks

I am having some trouble figuring out what is going on with this rod. I am using a lincoln ranger 5 gas welder at about 95-110 amps. I purchased this rod from Weldcote metals (E7018) and it will not let me hold a tight arc with out it sticking. I was welding on Mild steel H beam. The rod was fresh out of the package. I noticed that the flux was really dark. I am used to seeing a white flux from other 7018 I've used in the past. I decided to say screw this rod and was able to find some blue demon 7018 rod which had the white flux and it welded just fine at 95 amps. Why would that rod from weld cote metals have to be long arced to keep an arc at all? Why is the flux so much darker on the Weld cote metals rod than the blue demon or lincoln? Thank you.

What diameter rod? 3/32 1/8 5/32. Depending on cleanliness of your base metal that may not be enough amps for anything bigger than 1/8. Also after you strike an arc how long before your engine ramps up. If you have a switch to keep it in high speed idle try that if your arc starts fine then you might have an issue with the welder.

Im sorry i left that out. It is 3/32. I did have the machine set to high idle. I was doing vertical up. I made sure to grind the metal clean of any galvanize on the H beam. When i used the blue demon rod it was 1/8 rod it did perfectly fine (ran at around 125 amps).

That should be plenty hot for 3/32. Did you try cleaning up the end of the rod with a file. Sometimes I have trouble getting a good start if the end of the rod is fluxed over. I find some batches of rod have this and then the next can you open of the same rod will be just fine.

I can get it to start easy i just can't hold a tight arc. I tried the same rod from another unopened can and it does the same thing. I will upload a video of what it is doing it is really weird.

Turn it up 10.

I think Bill is right I would turn it up 10. Maybe your welder is starting to run cooler. It may need serviced.