rod storage

[heavy-metal-man]

I have a box of 7018 that a bought a while age and now they wont strick an arc for nothing and i just for out on this site that they need to be in an oven. I'm only a hobby weldor so a dont want to spend $300 on an oven. So my ? is can i bake them in a kitchen oven to get out any moisture an the put them in to an air tight bag ? (the ones that U see on T.V. where it suckes the air out.) Tanks 4 any advice

[Ed Heimbach]

Sounds like it may work, I'd give it a shot.
After all, what do you have to loose?
A few hours at 450 , then let cool to touch
(150 or so),while still in oven is what I use to dehydrate old rod, maybe someone has the AWS procedure for you, and can be more specific, good luck.

[Mike Sherman]

450 is not high enough. Two hours at 500 to 800 deg. F for AWS 5.1 or one hour at 700 to 800 for AWS 5.5 electrodes. All electrodes shall be placed in the oven at a temp. not exceeding one half the final baking temp. for a minimum of one half hour prior to increasing the oven temp. to the final baking temp. Final baking time shall start after the oven reaches final baking temp. My advice to all hobby welders is to stop buying the low hydrogen electrodes. If you are not welding steel over 1/2" thick or steel that is considered hard to weld, you do not need them. If you are not storing them properly you are not only wasting your money, you are creating more problems than you are solving buy using them. Electrodes can be redried only once.

[Ed Heimbach]

Hi Mike, I knew you had the specific, I didn't call you out by name because I hadn't seen any thing from you on this board lately.
As this is the busy time of year, I didn't have time enough to look up the info for re-proofing low-hy. Glad you could help the fellow with the rod oven question.

[bjdenommee]

We keep ours on top of the shops boiler, all winter they stay nice and warm and dry. When we take them out I have pieces of 2" pvc pipe that has a cap on one end and a adapter with a plug in it . We take the rods we want and seal them in the tubes, keeps them dry and neet.
That way I dont have open boxes of rods all over the place, they take what they need and return whats left.


Thanks Bernie

[heavy-metal-man]

Thank for the replys guys that was what i wanted to know

[Blacksmith]

Rod Storage

I am a hobbyist welder and the only reason I have some 7018 is because I bought a nice rod holder that came with a pound of it. I agree, if the job needs something other than 6011 or 6013, it also needs someone besides me to weld it. For my ornamental ironwork, its hard to beat 6013.

Blacksmith

[Mike Sherman]

Hello Ed, your right I have been kind of busy. Bernie, if you are ever on a code job and I am the inspector, you will fail immediately because of the way you are storing your electrodes. All welds made with improperly stored electrodes will be removed and redone. Also, you are adding hydrogen to your welds and the odds of hydrogen cracking are greatly increased with old improperly stored electrodes. It only takes 4 hours after you open the can before they have absorbed enough hydrogen (potentially) to need to be put back in the oven. This is an old arguement that has been going on forever. Remember, just because your shop does it that way and they have never had a failure, still doesn't make it right.

[BillC]

I would think that if a welding company does any code work then ALL of their jobs should be code quality. How do you tell your weldors to do to it right one place but don't worry about it on the next job?

[Guest]

Originally posted by Mike Sherman
Hello Ed, your right I have been kind of busy. Bernie, if you are ever on a code job and I am the inspector, you will fail immediately because of the way you are storing your electrodes. All welds made with improperly stored electrodes will be removed and redone. Also, you are adding hydrogen to your welds and the odds of hydrogen cracking are greatly increased with old improperly stored electrodes. It only takes 4 hours after you open the can before they have absorbed enough hydrogen (potentially) to need to be put back in the oven. This is an old arguement that has been going on forever. Remember, just because your shop does it that way and they have never had a failure, still doesn't make it right.

There was a situation a few years back after the SF earthquake where we in San Diego were bringing up our bridges and overpasses on all California freeways to the new earthquake code. It involved forming new humongous cast concrete support pillars which were over twice the original size. Anyway. after they got well into the project, they discovered they had to reweld the rebar that was already inside the cast support columns. I don't know exactly why, if it had cracked or they had used bad rod, but I remember seeing then cut into the columns to do the repairs. It took forever! The old motto: "Do it right the FIRST time" applied there.

[Guest]

Mike, ya can't fool us...you been out ridin' that new scooter!

[Mike Sherman]

Hi Rocky, actually I have not been riding very much. For one thing we are having a very cold spring out here in Ohio/Pa area. I have only put 800 miles on my bike all year. This thing about low hydrogen storage has been something I have talked about for years. I am so surprised that it still comes up so often.