favorite brand of welding rods.

Anyone here have a favorite or least favorite brand of welding rods or wire?

I compared 3 brands of 3/32 7018 rods: Blue Demon (McMaster), Hobart, and Esab.

The Blue Demon brand is so far my least favorite. They splatter a lot more, are more willing to stick, and the slag looks ugly and do not peal off very good. They also smell funny.

The Hobart brand in my opinion welds pretty darn good They aren't too expensive, weld with little splatter and makes a nice pretty bead. The flux chips off with ease and covers the bead uniformly.

The Esab rods are close to the Hobart rods, but weld even nicer. They are a bit more expensive than the Hobart rods, but are worth it for important projects.

I use a lot of hobart, everyone seems to carry them and price is good, as far as a brand goes I think rod condition plays a larger part in that. A damp good rod will not run right. Keep all of mine in those yellow saf tubes with the "O" ring sealed screw on tops. Preheat the ones that require it and even the ones that don't like 6010, 6011, 6013, they just start better warmed up. Big advantage with the Power Arc 200 over my buzz box is you can dial in so easily compared to cranking the transformer slug back and forth. That really helps in making the rod work regardless of brand.

Hobart here, mainly because they are readily available where I shop. They seem to work fine for farm and ranch equipment repairs.

Thurmond

I have some 7018's and have been in the box they came in since I ordered my 250es back in February. They are lincoln's should I cook them before use and if so at what temp and for how long?

I've been using Lincoln, no complaints, but nothing to compare them to either.

Geezer makes a good point about uniformity of comparison: a true test would have the same type of rod in the same condition (low hy rods require storage and prep), the same guy on the same machine, machine at the same point in the duty cycle for different brands, same base metal to weld on. Not to detract from Welderdude's idea, I think it's a great one. I'll fess up to buying Harbor Freight electrodes, and will even contribute a sample to the test if Welderdude wants to take it there.

The HF electrodes were on deep discount, 7018s or 7014s for maybe $2 per pound. Soon after I saw some kind of "don't buy Chinese electrodes" advice on a website that showed a railcar full of rusting scrap metal, saying you don't know what's in the electrode.

DGarnier, there was a recent post
http://www.everlastgenerators.com/fo...light=hydrogen
...that talked about low hy rods and storage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dgarnier

I have some 7018's and have been in the box they came in since I ordered my 250es back in February. They are lincoln's should I cook them before use and if so at what temp and for how long?

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If they are new in an unopend box you can use them as is, most preheaters use 275 degrees, why I don't know I suspect it is because of the heater element, you have to ask yourself why not 250 or 300, good question yes, normally one hour @ 400 will revive them, to recondition them you need higher temps. Keen has an oven that goes to 500 degrees costs about 800 bucks, I use an electric fry pan only goes to 450 degrees and costs about 2 dollars at the flea market/garage sale.

they are still in the box, so I guess they should be ok - hopefully my new 250ex show up and made the trip ok and I will get to burn some of these 7018's

I too would agree that rod condition plays a big roll in how they burn. I dont preheat my rods, but I do keep them in a sealed container with a rubber seal.

Here's one for Esab rod customers:
http://www.esabna.com/7018/evaluation.cfm#surveyArea

If you're using an Esab 7018, fill out the form and get free safety glasses. Sure seems like Esab has a lot of promos going- are they trying to buy their way into the market? They sure have a lot of information available on their website, that whole Esab University deal.

There was also a link higher up on the page for sample 7018 electrodes:

http://www.esabna.com/7018/sample.cfm

Thurmond

A good catch- that one gave returns on the "freebie" radar, but I decided against pursuing it myself since it says an Esab sales rep will call. I'm sure Esab is hoping to hear from commercial welding shops and welding foremen, not me and my dinky AC crackerbox plugged into the dryer outlet.

Here are some pictures of the 3 rods I reviewed plus a hobart 7018AC rod. The beads I ran aren't the best I have ever ran, but they get the point across.

http://i1090.photobucket.com/albums/...e/CIMG2582.jpg
From bottom to top is the Hobart 7018, the Esab 7018, the Blue Demon 7018, the Hobart 7018AC, and a regular hobart 7018 on AC.
I used 80 amps DCEP for the first 3, the hobart AC rod got 90 amps, and that ugly blob is the regular hobart on 110 amps AC.

http://i1090.photobucket.com/albums/...e/CIMG2586.jpg

http://i1090.photobucket.com/albums/...e/CIMG2594.jpg

The order is the same as above, but right to left.

When I was doing structural steel, my favorite 7018 was the ESAB in 5/32. right outta the oven they had a smooth start, seemed like you could dig them right into the end of your weld and keep going. I never failed a full pen. weld, but the ones I ran with ESAB I never even worried about. plus if you guys check out their website they have a STACK of free infomational CD's and pamphlets they send you FREE! when I got mine they even came in a nice little CD case. They ARE sort of a sales pitch, but VERY good info, and did I mention the price? FREE!

I can't remember the website, but there is a thread on here with the info.