Electrode Care & Maintenance for Arc Welding Machine

Video Transcript

" Hello! My name is Mac. On behalf of expertvillage.com, I am here to continue our discussion about arc welding. We have been discussing shielded metal arc welding or stick welding. And now I would like to give you an overview of the welding electrodes themselves. They come in different diameters. The wire inside the electrode is usually a steel wire one eighth of an inch in diameter is very common, 330 seconds of an inch, 530 seconds of an inch, 316, up to a quarter of an inch. They are all relatively common and easy to combine. The numbering system used on electrodes for instance we will use the American Welding Society’s numbering system, so this electrode is a 6010. I have another one here that a 7018. These are very common electrodes. The numbering system is a code. The first two numbers indicate the tensile strength of the electrode metal in thousands of pounds. 60,000 pound tensile strength, 70,000 pound tensile strength. The third number here indicates that this is an all position electrode, it can weld, flat, horizontal, vertical and upside down. The last number indicates the different types of flexes and their properties. Most of these electrodes can be just simply kept in a box that they come in, they don’t require any special care. They need to be kept dry of course. Water will make the flex melt and fall off. It is best to use them up before they get too old. Exposed rods after a while they kind of turn white and they grow a crystal covering called efflorescence. It indicates that their life span is approaching the end. The one electrode that is very commonly used in construction in North America and makes a super strong weld is electrode E7018. This requires some special care. What I have over here is an electric stabilizing oven. We set this at 250 degrees Fahrenheit and we store open boxes of electrode in it. The heat of the oven keeps atmospheric moisture from contaminating the flex on the electrode. Now the problem with moisture in the flex on this electrode is simple when this rod melts the moisture in the flex can cause porosity pinholes in the weld. So keeping it dry and warm is critical."