6010 on PU205?

[Ray]

Well I don’t claim to be an expert on much of anything, but I have welded (and not welded) many frames.
With heat treated or low alloy high strength steel, It’s not recommended to weld on it at all, I have out of necessity and it’s broken close to the weld every time, even with a fish plate. Best bet is bolt on a plate. Keep in mind, most of what I’ve done was crack repair, flex any metal enough and it will stress crack, so if it cracked the rest of the material has been flexed plenty and it broke where the forces are compounded.
Reading the first post it looks like your boxing in the frame to make it stronger or more ridged, (correct me if I’m wrong) and in 53 I doubt the frame is anything other than mild steel, but it would be worth researching.
If it is Mild steel, I’d probably Mig weld it if it were me, less heat.
Just my 2¢.

Also a note on rods, thinking back the first 2 numbers after the E for electric denote the tensile strength of the rod compound in like thousands of pounds per square inch, mega Pascal’s, nuton pounds or something like that, but E70XX would be stronger than E60XX, the last 2 numbers are to do with the flux type or whether it’s AC or DC, it’s been a long time, perhaps someone with some fresh schoolin can help more with this.
Generally 60(11) works better on dirty metal and will penetrate better but is not as strong (or pretty) as E70(18). Sbeen my esperence.

[ralphhood3]

Thanks Ray. Definitely on the 53 it's not heat treated. The boxing I'm doing is to stiffen the frame for an independant suspsension install. They're pretty common (almost a dime a dozen) on these trucks. The boxing material is 1/4" plate, and the factory frame looks like it's 1/8 at best.

Hadn't really considered MIG welding, but that's primarily because my MIG is the low and SP125 Lincoln and it wouldn't penetrate the 1/4" boxing plate if my life dependend on it. I got it on clearance at Lowes for $200 new so I can't complain, but that ruled it out for frame work on my truck. We decided to use Stick since that was as good for penetration but not as slow as TIG and Stick / TIG were the options we had based on current equipment my friend had or my PU205.

My friend is coming over tomorrow after work to see what he can do with the 6010 at a higher amperage on the PU205, if that doesn't work any better than it did initially (when we had the leads reversed) then we'll either use his tombstone with 6011 or 7018.

If all else fails, I'll call Oleg and order a PowerArc. Not really justified other than a new toy though. :-)

[performance]

Ahh... A Thought, the Power ARCS can be used as a tig on non aluminum applications with a gas valve torch.

[ralphhood3]

Ahh... A Thought, the Power ARCS can be used as a tig on non aluminum applications with a gas valve torch.

I appreciate the support in trying to help me justify a new toy, but I have a PowerUltra205 (which is what started this thread wanting to know if it could weld 6010) and it's got the TIG setup covered. TIG's just a bit slow for the amount of welding I'm doing on my frame compared to Stick.