AWS quality mark?

[Ara]

Hi there,

I recently bought some bog standard mild steel electrodes from a machine mart near me and they have a different colour flux and no AWS on the rod itself compared to what I bought a couple of years ago..does this suggest it is a cheaper version of the previous one as it does not run nearly as well or strike as easily.

AWS stands for 'American Welding Society' as far as I can tell, is this a mark of a good quality rod or just something of little consequence?

Help much appreciated as I have used up my previous supply of rods and don't like these nearly as much!

Cheers,

Ara

 

[PTvor]

The AWS produced a set of categories for welding rods, which became widely used. They don't police a standard in any way. E6103 rods should have a rutile-cellulose composition coating, but they can be well made or badly made and still be E6103.

There's also a European standard which is a more detailed categorisation than AWS, and a Far Eastern standard, JIS. Rods made to either standard could be low or high quality. There used to be a British Standard.

Some of the cheap imported mild steel rods are often JIS J422s, which are not an exact equivalent to E6103s, being a titania-lime rod. Some of them appear to be very badly made with uneven coatings, anyway. If you enter J422 into Google, you can find dozens of Chinese companies offering them by the ton.

Cheap rods sold by the sheds are probably bought by the batch as they find them on the market, so sometimes they probably have a good batch and other times they don't.

So, in short, seeing AWS on a rod is not necessarily a mark of quality. The maker, Lincoln, Oerlikon etc is a better guide.

 

[Ara]

Thanks for the comprehensive answer PTvor,

Ok so I could just be unlucky and it may be worth waiting a month or so and trying the same retail place? I phoned clarke and asked them to find out if they changed supplier, they said they could tell me if they had or not, but not from whom..fat lot of good that is!

I have persuavered with the new rods and decided they really are inferior to the old ones..the arc is so stuttery.

Any recommendations to a brand or type I should try? Lincoln seems to be popular, is it worth getting them in from the US?


I'm just after a good all rounder electrode E6013, which has a smooth arc and easy striking.

Cheers all,

 

[brightspark]

Thanks for the comprehensive answer PTvor,

Ok so I could just be unlucky and it may be worth waiting a month or so and trying the same retail place? I phoned clarke and asked them to find out if they changed supplier, they said they could tell me if they had or not, but not from whom..fat lot of good that is!

I have persuavered with the new rods and decided they really are inferior to the old ones..the arc is so stuttery.

Any recommendations to a brand or type I should try? Lincoln seems to be popular, is it worth getting them in from the US?


I'm just after a good all rounder electrode E6013, which has a smooth arc and easy striking.

Cheers all,

oerlicon fincord m are real nice but might be pricey

 

[Ragnarok]

better to just get rods from a good maker, i like the lincoln E6013s they work very well, make good looking welds and are consistently good.

 

[Ara]

yeh I don't mind if they are a bit more pricey, the ones I've got now were dirt cheap so I guess I shouldn't be surprised..mind you they were dirt cheap before too and worked great. Why do they have to mess with something that works??

nuff moaning, thanks for the recommendations I'll try both

 

[shenion]

Why not get the SIF 6013's from weldequip's shop?

Others have said they are decent rods.

Lincolns are nice ane available everywhere here. I have used WeldAbility that were decent and cheap.

Cheap rods are probably why many fail and give up learning arc welding. They are really hard to use.

 

[Ara]

Hi shenion,

Indeed they are! I'm using my expensive 316 ss rods til I find a decent replacement, they are so smooth and lovely...
checked weldequip shop, no 2mm that I can see..shall keep looking

Cheers

 

[PTvor]

mind you they were dirt cheap before too and worked great. Why do they have to mess with something that works??

It's more or less true that if you want to make a consistent, high quality product, it's got to be paid for; testing raw materials and buying the better ones, arguing with suppliers over quality, keeping the machinery maintained to a high standard, accepting that scrap has to be dealt with either by destroying it or selling it off so that it's not identifiable with your name, R&D effort and so on.


If you buy batches of rods to sell on, either rebranded or whitebox, it's not a major part of your business, but your customers expect you to sell rods and they want cheap, then without wanting to sell rubbish, it's going to be hit and miss. Maybe the company they dealt with before isn't in existence now, or changed hands, or was like a lot of restaurants, when they start the prices are low and the food's good, after they've been going for a time, the prices go up and the quality of the food goes down.

 

[dai]

better to just get rods from a good maker, i like the lincoln E6013s they work very well, make good looking welds and are consistently good.

seconded
i like them too

 

[3Rs]

I have worked the Lincoln 6013, In my view they are slighty harder to weld with. And comparing the rod with murex 6013 and esab 6013 both very much a good burning rod,

The thing about welding no one welder is the same, welding machines are no different either, But in my ideal world I would work a murex 6013 quicker than an Esab or Lincoln rod.

 

[TechnicAl]

There has been a lot of accquisitions and rationalisation over the past few years. Many of the big producers had plants all over Europe (and the world) and they have pulled back to try to get the economy of scale by producing in one location. This has resulted in some types disappearing and some types being multi-branded (one rod sold under various names).

 

[Drains]

Ara, look in the phonebook for your nearest welding supplier and ask for some whitebox ESAB/murex, or some Oerlikon Fincords, or Hilka Reds, or Lincoln, or if there's a local BOC Tradequip shop, some "BOC Everyday" electrodes. Or whatever cheapish 6013's they have. Just never buy electrodes from Machine Mart or Screwfix or Aldi or Lidl etc, as they are just scrap covered in something that looks like flux.

 

[Ara]

yeh I know that lidl, aldi etc are rubbish (though I got a great pair of bolt cutters from lidl for 3 quid!) but I figured machine mart would be better cos they are a bit more of a DIY brand..anyone know what BnQ sell? Be useful to pick up some tomorow when I pop in.

Shall try all the brands suggested, thank you and yep yellow pages to go direct to the source is a good idea too..just always a bit worried about being 'sold' to as I don't really know what I'm buying.

Many thanks for the advice,

 

[Drains]

B & Q...... shudder.....

 

[PTvor]

If you buy 5Kg of ESAB, Murex etc, 6013s you know you are getting quality rods. If you get rods from Screwfix, Toolstation, MachineMart, Aldi or similar, they may or may not be any good. If you are not an experienced welder, you can't really tell what's good and what's not, that is what's down to bad technique and what's down to rubbish rods.

So, counting your pennies, it will work out cheaper to buy a load of known good rods from one of your local specialist welding suppliers (but ring two or three) and also eliminate a variable you don't want. The premium brands cost twice the cheap stuff, but having a load of rods you don't have a lot of confidence in, but feel obliged to use up, isn't much fun.

I haven't seen welding rods in B&Q, and looking on their website, I get the impression that they've stopped selling welding equipment. Personally, I'd go to MachineMart before B&Q for most things.