So, if it was YOU welding this, what would you do?

[hooda]

OK Folks, please take a look at the pictures below:







This is a trailer hitch receiver tube that I am going to weld onto the front of my car trailer, facing backward, in the area between the hitch and the bed (near where the jack is). It will be used to mount my 4,000 lb winch when needed, allowing me to dismount the winch when not needed by simply pulling a pin and unplugging the power cable. All of the material is 1/4" mild steel, and I have cleaned off the mill scale and other crud. So, if it was YOU welding these joints, what would your setup be? I can lay the piece flat, so puddle control will not be an issue. My plan is to use 1/8" thoriated, 7lpm, #6 or 7 cup, and 1/8" er70s6 filler. Max pedal amps set at 220, and a little preflow.

This will need to have the strength to hold while pulling with the 4,000 lb winch and probably a pulley setup, which doubles pulling power. If I find that the winch lacks the power that I need, I already have a line on a 9,000 lb winch that I will use in the same setup, preferably without any modification. Once I have these welds finished,I will use 2" x 1/4" flat stock to put endcaps on the plates for added rigidity, and, because I can't fit the trailer in the shop, I will have to stick weld the finished assembly to the trailer outside. For that, I plan on using 1/8" 7018, based on the little bit of stick welding that I've done with my 250EX, I have no doubt that it will be up to the task.

So the question remains, if it was YOU, how would you approach this?

[GWD]

I'd stick weld everything. 6011 on the first pass and 7018 for the cover passes.

Oh, and I'd use 3" x 6" thick wall tubular steel for the base (or whatever dimensions are necessary).

I did something like this for a car hauling trailer for use with a portable winch. The winch mount was put on AFTER this water tank monstrosity was hand winched on with a come-along. Ugh.



Here is how it looks on a metal bed. Underneath is a piece of tubular steel welded in for reinforcement.

[jerky]

id stick everything as well, just id use 1/8" 6010 root, and 3/32 7018 fill/cap.

[geezer]

I wouldn't worry about how you weld it, TIG, MIG, or STICK makes no difference. the final result should be a weld that is stronger than twice the thickness of the cable in strength,,,if something breaks it should be the cable not the mount,,,you have enough weld surface to easily acomplish that.

[GUNNER]

I TIG weld everything.. So ER70S6 would be my choice... Haven't picked up a stinger and stick welded anything since the construction days of pipe welding..and don't plan on ever doing that again... Why give up the control TIG offers over stick? Who wants to deal with slag and flux BS?

[Ultraman]

Why would anybody burn rods or run fluxcore when it's in a shop and material is only 1/4" thick. Just bevel the edges and try to get full pen weld using tig or mig. And ffs weld flat whenever possible.

[CGCINC]

Isn't 6010/6011 like a potato or patato? Just asking.... I don't stick weld but I'm thinking the instructor said that at one time while I was stick welding in class!?!?

[performance]

No, not exactly.

I hate to use the analogy, but it seems to fit best.
6010 is like hardcore porn.
6011 is like going to the beach and watching girls walk by...

6010 is harsh, and not everyone can handle it. It gets extreme penetration, but the arc goes out with the blink of an eye, and the rod will get stuck. It's straight DC+.
6011 is smooth, and enhanced. It is stable and anyone, even a kid in school, can do it. It is packed with arc stabilizers to keep an arc going, and penetration, while good, isn't quite the same as 6010.
6011 goes both ways, AC and DC.

[sportbike]

For those that are suggesting a multi pass, multi filler smaw weld....why???

If you are going to stick weld it, why would you use a multipass weld, and why would you change fillers if you did? this isn't a spec weld that has a welding procedure that must be followed.

I'm not trying to be blunt, but is there a reason for a multi pass, multi filler weld? A simple farmer weld would be fine, 1/8" 6011, single pass. No worry with moisture, no issues with melted flux insulating the tip of the electrode, no issues with anything really. 7018 is a hassle to deal with and is of very limited benefit to 90% of the welds that are made and is still equal or over-matched to most of the base metals that will be used.

[CGCINC]

Ok.. First my lame joke...

6011 goes both ways

So 6011 is like a high school cheerleader after her first drink of Peach snopps?! Ba dump, bump!

Ok, now my real question:

SPORTBIKE - 7018 is a hassle to deal with and is of very limited benefit to 90% of the welds that are made and is still equal or over-matched to most of the base metals that will be used.

What do you mean by a hassle?
And what do you mean by limited benefit?

I'm learning stuff is why I'm asking.... I've welded with 6010,6011,6013 and 7018 and the 7018 was the easiest to use for me as far just arc characteristics and ease of laying a bead.
I spent a few days in class with 3/8" plate ground to an angle and doing root passes with the 6010, then fill with 7018. What a pain.

[geezer]

Ok.. First my lame joke...
So 6011 is like a high school cheerleader after her first drink of Peach snopps?! Ba dump, bump!

Ok, now my real question:


What do you mean by a hassle?
And what do you mean by limited benefit?

I'm learning stuff is why I'm asking.... I've welded with 6010,6011,6013 and 7018 and the 7018 was the easiest to use for me as far just arc characteristics and ease of laying a bead.
I spent a few days in class with 3/8" plate ground to an angle and doing root passes with the 6010, then fill with 7018. What a pain.

I have to agree with Sportbike, 7018 is a bit over rated and misunderstood, most of the users don't understand it's pupose and just repeat what others have said a bout it, 7018 is a hassle for storage because it must be properly stored to get the benefits out of it...the main reason for 7018 is for welding machinable steels or hardend steels ...there is an old saying.....steels that are hard to weld are easy to machine and visa versa...machinable steels have high sulphur contents or other additives that make them hard to weld...that's when 7018 shines.........7018 is a drag rod and it's pretty hard to screw up if you drag it,,,6010/6011 are harder to maintain an arc cause the have a longer arc gap.....if you want nice looking welds with a drag rod use 7014 it's easier to store than 7018 and it gives very nice weld appearance.

[jakeru]

You've already got it prepped for TIG, so why on earth would you want to blow stick welding slag all over it, and suck in nasty fumes?

I'd set a #7 or #8 gas lens, 3/32" tungsten, amps set to "kill" (250 amps) on the footpedal, and have at it with E70S2 or S6.

Weld in stitches to keep cool, and try to make it look like a perfectly welded, oxide-free stainless steel weld, for fun. Visually observe back side of weld to verify complete penetration.

[jerky]

For those that are suggesting a multi pass, multi filler smaw weld....why???

as performance said with 6010, it gets penetration, more then 7018.. then 7018 on top of that for strength and looks. since there is no welding procedure like you said, it really boils down to personal preference, what materials you have avaiable, and your skill level in each area of weld. if you can mig a better weld then tig, then do it.

[sportbike]

Agreed Geezer

What I was getting at CG, is that 90% or more of the items that most people weld are not engineered products. They are put together with what seems to be "about right". 7018 rods have a higher tensile strength than 6011....but a 6011 is still a matched strength for most of the steel that people will be using (A36 or low carbon 1018 cold rolled product). You could probably pull 6011 rods out of a 50 year old dirt floor basement, and weld with them like the day they were new.

If you can't start and maintain an arc with 6011, you probably should have a buddy do your welding for ya :-) The bead may not look quite as smooth as other rods if the welder is not very good at keeping a steady hand, but it'll stick to anything...rust, dirt, greasy, etc (obviously within reason...)

[fdcmiami]

7018 is the go to rod on just about any site where steel is being welded. if they aren't running rod, hardwire and flux core are 70's also. so's your tig rod. if it's your call then use what your best at.

[DaveO]

This will need to have the strength to hold while pulling with the 4,000 lb winch and probably a pulley setup, which doubles pulling power.

A separate but related question, while you're still in the planning phase. A system of two pulleys "doubles pulling power" by halving the weight "experienced" by the winch, but it also doubles the length of cable you need to pull to do it. So you can pull something that's twice the weight rated on the winch, but only half as far... is that going to work for you?

[fdcmiami]

well if you have to tig weld it so be it. it's way to hot, you are moving way to slow; because of the 1/16 th rod. you don't need 200 amps. your feeding of the rod is erratic but that is to be expected given the fact you must be feeding it like crazy. look at that HAZ; the one that hasn't been brushed out, it tells the story. the only reason you would be tig welding this things is either for practice as in your case or you did not have another type of welder besides tig. good luck. ps you only need a 3/32 tungsten and rod to do this job.

[hooda]

well if you have to tig weld it so be it. it's way to hot, you are moving way to slow; because of the 1/16 th rod. you don't need 200 amps. your feeding of the rod is erratic but that is to be expected given the fact you must be feeding it like crazy. look at that HAZ; the one that hasn't been brushed out, it tells the story. the only reason you would be tig welding this things is either for practice as in your case or you did not have another type of welder besides tig. good luck. ps you only need a 3/32 tungsten and rod to do this job.

Thanks for the tips! I'm going out to finish welding the endcaps on this. I will switch to 3/32" for tungsten and filler and see how it goes. Below is a pic of them just tacked, before welding.



By the way, YEAH! I get to put my gas lens back on. I've grown fond of it in the little time that I've had it.

[CGCINC]

Hooda - I will be looking for a way that the cooler automatically powers up with the welder to prevent this from happening again in the future.

I also was wanting my cooler to come on when the welder is powered on.
I took my 250EX apart and was told that all I needed to do was switch the blue wires that come from from the cooler outlet to the welder master switch, move them from one side of the switch to the other (See Red arrows) . I haven't done it yet but there ya go..





Back of outlet for cooler...


YIKES!!!

[jakeru]

Chris, check this chart out:
http://www.ckworldwide.com/tech-3.pdf
(Note that the listing for "thoriated", generally applies to lanthanated/ceriated as well.)

It says, 3/32" tungsten, DCSP, thoriated = good to 250 amps. Although, 1/8" with a pretty long taper grind would I would think would work well also. Using the right diameter tungsten can help with better control of the direction of the arc. It's more an issue with AC I think than DC, but if you did notice the arc was ever wandering off one of the tip of the tungsten versus the other (especially if it was going a direction you didn't want it to go), then smaller tungsten would help with that and keeping the arc going straight forward off the tip of the tungsten. I'm guessing that wasn't really an issue, but, worth keeping in the back of your head when it happens, you can know what may be causing it.

And yeah, it's definitely good to set more than you need at the footpedal, so you have some "throttle in reserve." You really don't need to be too precise with setting the footpedal max current, as long as you don't get too little, your foot can always compensate. But your foot can't press down more if you don't have enough.

I would have set the amps to the max, and, if you had more than you needed, I would have dialed in a little pulsing. (Low-frequency pulsing, for reducing heat input. Maybe something like a 50-70% background and 50-70% pulse duty, and 1 pulse per second.) If it were my Super200P, I'd definitely have had pulse turned off though. It can help reduce heat input though.

It's hard to say what the voids were caused by. I'm guessing it is some kind of contamination. Was the surface of the puddle kind of "boiling" as you were welding? It is important to clean the back side, if you are fully penetrating. And in this scenario, shielding the back side (like back purging) might have helped, but I certainly wouldn't have bothered with something like that for a project like this. If it were stainless though, you'd have wanted to do it. I'll bet that weld is strong... Steel penetrates like crazy. It is not hard, any welding process to get it done. Any oxides, melt at a lower temp than the base metal, and just float to the surface. Much more forgiving than welding stainless, or aluminum.

Anyhow, I'd say it's pretty decent. It's actually good not to overpenetrate into the receiver part, you don't want that to warp so that the receiver still fits. I'll bet you got great penetration though. Actually what you did looks great. It looks like you prepped it well enough (for what it is.)

"boxing" the joint will add a great deal of strength and rigidity.

Torch angle I am sure is something that you should be thinking about... too far "leaned over" to the side = can draft atmosphere in. Pointed totally straight down, doesn't really pre-heat the metal for adequate travel speed. There is a happy medium of "just a little bit" of torch angle (just a little bit off totally vertical.) There is another problem with angled too far, too much heat gets pushed over to your filler rod, and can make it melt before you get it into the puddle, causing an erratic amount of filler being deposited along the length of the weld bead.

Also, be aware that argon is much heavier than air, so visualize it as "wanting to fall." It doesn't work quite that great with the torch pointed sideways with a ton of tungsten stickout, but you can run a ton of tungsten stickout if you have the torch pointed straight down (Horizontal joints = really good shielding with argon.)

If you mix is a touch of Helium, I find that you can weld more sideways, or really in any direction, with lots of tungsten stick-out. I haven't tried running Helium on some thick steel, but I want to sometime. It does allow a smaller tungsten, more intense heat. Helium has a property of conducting away heat better than Argon, so it cools the tungsten and collet body, etc and lets you run smaller diameter tungsten. Only downside is a bit extra cost for the gas.

Usually, the way to reduce heat input is to weld "hotter and faster". But you want to maintain control and to that end, I'd say best thing for you to think about is to try to be more conscious of your torch angle next time. You don't want to go so fast you lose control. If you can get your filler rod feeding hand working to pump the filler out as it is needed, that can be fun, on longer joints. Before you learn that, you will find you are needing to stop the arc to reposition your filler rod on the rod, then, start the arc again.