Craftmans-Sears stick welder?

[the_sandy_creek_forge]

Not that I favor Lincoln welders or anything but this is a handy couple of sites to bookmark:

Lincoln Electric
specifically:
Welding Safety | Lincoln Electric

Lincoln also used to have a free pdf with basic welding info in it. seems I saved it somewhere but it mighta been on the old computer. If I can get the thing to fire up and run I'll pull it and send it to ya.

-Aaron @ the SCF

[Hillbillysmith]

Here is some more info that I thought of to post for those that are new:

Replacement leads aren't any different than factory leads, it's just that you can't have too small of lead for the length and/or the amperage.

REPLACEMENT (COPPER) LEAD LENGTH SPECIFICATIONS:

--------100A-150A-200A-250A-300A-350A-400A-450A-500A
-50FT----2----2-----2----2-----1----1/0--1/0---2/0--2/0
-75FT----2----2-----1---1/0---2/0---2/0--3/0---3/0--4/0
100FT----2----1----1/0--2/0---3/0---4/0--4/0
125FT----2---1/0---2/0--3/0---4/0
150FT----1---2/0---3/0--4/0
175FT---1/0--3/0---4/0
200FT---1/0--3/0---4/0
250FT---2/0--4/0
300FT---3/0
350FT---3/0
400FT---4/0

REPLACEMENT (ALUMINUM) LEAD LENGTH SPECIFICATIONS:

--------100A-150A-200A-250A-300A-350A-400A-450A-500A
-50FT----2----2----1/0---2/0--2/0---3/0--4/0
-75FT----2---1/0---2/0---3/0--4/0
100FT---1/0--2/0---4/0
125FT---2/0--3/0
150FT---2/0--3/0
175FT---3/0
200FT---4/0
225FT---4/0

This is more for safety purposes than anything. If you use too small of lead size for the length you want or for the amperage that you are running, it WILL melt the lead and potentially causing extreme injury or loss of garage, tools, cars, house, etc. in a fire. Another thing, if a lead gets hot, don't dip it in water. I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but you have no idea how many times I have heard of incidents where someone gets electrocuted from doing this. ELECTRICITY AND WATER DON'T MIX!!!! Play it smart people. use your common sense. But bigger than what you need is perfectly ok. It's just cumbersome to work with.

HARDFACING/HARD SURFACING:

Hardfacing is a surfacing process in which hard materials are applied to the surface of a part to reduce wear or loss of material by impact, abrasion, or both impact/abrasion. Hardfacing a part also results in fewer repairs due to wear. These beads may be laid in a basket weave or a dot pattern. These patterns are used when sticky material such as dirt or mud comes in contact with the part. The sticky material accumulates in the depressed areas of the basket weave pattern. The build-up of dirt or mud helps to protect the metal from further abrasion.

In the BUTTERING process, one or more layers of easily welded materials are applied to the surface of a part that has poor welding characteristics. This process is used to form a transition layer when welding dissimilar metals.

The CLADDING process is used to apply surfacing materials that will improve the corrosion or heat resistance of a part. When a part is worn, the surface may be returned to it's original dimensions by using the BUILDUP PROCESS.

Things to consider when choosing a surfacing electrode:
*Hardness
*Hot hardness
*Impact strength
*Oxidation resistance
*Corrosion resistance
*Abrasion resistance
*Metal-to-metal wear resistance
*Machinability

One thing to remember when using surfacing electrodes, THEY ARE GOING TO BE HARD AND FOR GOOD REASON! If you are going to hardface something, make sure that it is to the proper size or shape BEFORE you surface it. It will take you forever and a day to grind this stuff down and it will never be as square, straight, true, level, smooth, etc. as you want it to be. Always remember to build up the surface first and grind to the rough shape and THEN surface the object. Take it from me, I failed to do this once and I spent literally FOUR DAYS grinding the piece to the shape I needed it to be. And when I say I did that once, I mean ONCE. You'll learn after the first time!!

Lincoln Electric makes some excellent surfacing electrodes. They even give a Rockwell C hardness rating for alot of the impact and abrasion/impact electrodes.

Another thing to remember when wanting to hardface something; it's probably going to be an alloy material/ high-strength steel already and will need to be preheated and, depending on the material and how much surfacing you put on at one time, post heat-treatment. And if you need to grind the surfacing down any, try to keep the heat input to a minimum so it doesn't take any of the hardness or "surfacing" properties away from the freshly laid material or else you would have done all that work and invested all that time for NOTHING.

Hope this helps as well. If more info is needed, just ask and I will keep posting. Feel free to ask specific questions so they can be explained with more in-depth explanations.

-Hillbilly

[irnsrgn]

putting the lower tensile rod in as the root pass is a sure way to make a weld that will fail. The rule of thumb is, put the higher tensile rod in first then you can fill with the lower tensil rod.

A good example of using lower tensile rod 6010/6011 first is in large municipal water tower construction. The downhill capable fast freeze rod (60/7010/11) is used to fill the gap then 70/10018 is used to finish fill the joint. Then the inside is gouged out to remove the lower tensile fast fill deposit and then finish filled with 70/10018.

In my 55+ years of doing repair work espicially on Heavy Construction Equipment I was called upon to repair the failed repair welds of my competitors and others for one of several reasons.

1. They did not gouge out the cracks at all, just put a superficial bandaid weld over the crack.

2. They used a grinder and just ground deep enough to put in a decent looking bead.

3. They ground out the crack completely before welding, This method did not impart any preheat into the parent metal, and all it did was guarantee them more money as it took forever wasting time grinding.

4. Using 6010/11 to make the weld because they couldn't run low hydrogen or any other rod uphill. (Note) a down hill fast freeze rod leaves a brittle deposit especially in flat surfaces like plate, its used mainly on pipe for speed and ability to run down hill in odd postions, but has integrety when used around a round surface as the stresses are not all in one plane. my definition.
Fast freeze rod welds were almost the end of me once when putting coned caps on oil field storage tanks when some tack welds failed.
6011 is the rod of choice for most farmers as they think chipping flux is a waste of time and you can weld over a previous bead without cleaning it with some success.

5. They used air arc to gouge out the crack and did not grind out the 1/16 plus of carbon precipition that resulted from the air arc use and thus guaranteed failure from the weld being too brittle because of too much carbon being included in the zone where the weld and parent metal meet.

6. Too lazy to clean the weld after every pass, it will run out on its own going uphill theory. LOL

7. Lack of knowledge that plate used for const equip, is not ordinary plate, but a higher grade.

8. They used a large rod with a lot of amps/heat to get it done quicker and faster and ended up weakening the parent metal an weld with too much heat.
Rule of Thumb - 400 degree preheat and keep interpass temp 800 degrees or below.
Also don't chip low hydrogen flux till it has no red left in it. (cleaning flux too soon lets the weld be contaminated by moisture and makes the use of low hydrogen rod moot.


To my knowledge I never had a weld fail due to any thing on my part, I always gouged with a gouging tip and oxy/acet torch or used a straight tip and cut a V out using the crack as a center line with at least a sixteenth or a bit more wide opening on the back side of the cut, (Most Const Equip repairs you cannot access the back side) and doing the first 3 passes with 1/8 E-10018 and then filling with E-7018.

Thru the years I developed the reputation of doing it right the first time and making it hold. Took many years and lots of hard work to gain that rep and when I first started my own business in 1965 after getting out of the SeaBees, there were 9 or 10 portable welding rigs in this small town.

FWIW
jr.

[maddog]

Learning stick:

There are posts in this thread from some very experienced, very skilled welders. My knowledge isnt even a pimple on the behind of theirs. But, I taught myself to weld stick a few years ago and I still remember what it took to learn. This might be something the professionals have forgotten.

Stick welders are simply made, cheap and tough. They are very versatile and extremely useful in a blacksmith shop. Theres a lot of different rods available. Its easy to swap them out. They can handle a wide range of thicknesses. The drawbacks are that the welds are somewhat messy compared to say MIG or TIG, they dont do thin material and , this is the biggy IMO, of all the welding processes stick is the hardest to learn.

Getting basic competence with stick requires a serious investment of time and practice. You just cant get around that. They say you have to burn about 50# of rod to learn stick and that was my experience. At first everything is tricky. Striking the arc, seeing what you are doing (the auto dark is absolutely worth it ) , the noise, the sparks, the smoke, the fact that you have to coordinate several different hand motions at the same time while keeping fine control of the end of thin 14" electrode. Then there's current settings, rod type, joint type, weld position and material thickness to consider.

So I'm not telling anyone how to weld. I am no welding instructor. But if I had a chance to go back and talk to myself when I was just starting this is the advice I would give myself

Practice every day. 20 mins a day or whatever regime works for you.

Start out just running beads on pieces of scrap plate until you get a feel for what it takes to lay down 6" of decent looking, sound weld bead. If you can do that reliably, the rest is not that hard.

Make sure you can see, that you are comfortable and that you can do the traverse without having to shift your body or snagging cables. Pay attention to staying relaxed. This can be hard when you have to control so many things at once.

Stay with DC at first, its easier to control the arc. That means using 6010 and the DC version of 7018

Start with 1/8" rod or larger. The heavier rods are easier. The bigger current makes the arc much more stable. After a while you dont notice this but at first it makes a real difference.

6010/7018 are the most useful rods. Stay with these for a while. Practice with one for a while till you get the hang of it then switch to the other. They run rather differently

Watch the puddle not the arc. The arc is very distracting but what you need to pay attention to is the freezing shoreline of the puddle on the side furthest from the arc. The shape of that edge is going to be the shape of the weld at that point.

6010/6011 has very little slag and its easy to judge the puddle. For this reason some instructors recommend starting with this rod. The downside is that its hard to get a pretty bead. 7018 has a heavy slag covering and its harder to judge whats happening with the puddle but it will make a very nice bead. Also, its a bit of a nuisance to restart as people have mentioned.

I dont mean to imply that you need to do all this practice before you ever use the welder. I got big improvements in my technique after just 10# & 20# but this is such a useful tool and if you invest the time it will pay off big

[NateDJ]

I find that the $50 HF / NT auto darkening helmet is great for the garage welding I do. I am sure if I was welding all day every day than I would want a better helmet but so-far so-good.

Restarting the 7018 rod is as simple as pinching the end of the rod with a welding glove on before attempting to restart a weld. You only need to do this when your first attempt to start the weld doesn't generate a spark. This is caused when the rod burns back up into the flux and is kept too far from the material you are welding, the flux is very brittle at the tip and can be pinched off with GLOVED fingers.

[irnsrgn]

It's called reverse penciling, or burn back.

[canuk]

as far as anything auto dark helmet under 200 bad, i bought my dad a auto darking helment at a surplus store when they first came out really, for $60 and its lasted up until now and is still going strong, and sitting around a farm its abused abit in getting left screen down.