Thread: Problems with 1.6mm Gemini rods

Interesting you also had problems today Rusty. In my case the fillets have all been a tight fit but I I get what you mean about bridging the gap. For my fillets I want to direct the arc right into the very intersection of the surfaces but I guess the arc finds its way to either side instead. Can you not push the 2.5mm rod into the gap under the bend? I had good results in a similar situation joining a sheet folded into a channel to a flat sheet (with the flat wider than the base of the channel, so I had the same curved corner issue) using 2.5mm 16TCs.

Originally Posted by Legion

Can you not push the 2.5mm rod into the gap under the bend?.

From memory, on the low amps the weld and slag tends to harden up quite quickly - if I try and get deeper the arc often extinguishes, forcing me to draw back and establish a longer arc. That said, there are patches where the weld looks decent, so obviously it's just a matter of more consitent technique.

I have an uncle who builds tugboats and steel ships. Last year when he visited I asked him for some tips on welding. He just said to practice more

Originally Posted by Legion

One other thing - I said downhand earlier and it appears some of you thought I meant vertical down. I meant welding horizontally across in the flat position. .

I thought you were talking about vertical welds. If you're welding horizontally then what I was suggesting about holding rod horizontally etc. doesn't apply. So in that case I'd bump up the amps from what I'd suggested before.

Sometimes you can get rods that will arc out the side, its usually because the flux isnt even all the way around and must try to go out the shortest way. It seems to happen more with smaller electrodes than the bigger ones as well

Alot of good advice here. I'll add my opinion from almost 2 1/2 years of welding experience.

First, you have a GREAT welder. I have the same welder and have convinced 3 others to buy it
and they are all very happy with it. Second is the Gemini 1.6mm rods sweet spot is 50-55 Amps DCEPwith this machine. These rods run very well but are not the easiest to control because of the 'Flicking' action the do until the rod has burnt down some. I suggest guiding the first half of the rod with your free hand until the flicking is controllable. Third, I suggest welding your fillets in the true 'flat' position (that is to say, have your fillet joint laying on the ground or table in a V shape and not an L shape). Welding in the L position is actually a horizontal fillet or 2F joint and that can be rather tricky with these thin rods or any rod for that matter for a novice because gravity is against you and it is letting the slag fall over the puddle leaving the voids or worm holes and these thin 6012 rods dont have the arc force to push the slag away but it gets easier with each increment in rod diameter.
It WILL get easier. Go burn some rods and have fun.

Just a few pointers for all, With any DC arc 2/3 heat is present on the +'ve side of the arc and 1/3 on the -'ve. With a very few exceptions DCEP is used for all welding with stick electrodes. As to the choice of vertical up or down, look at your electrode classification numbers, they should be along the lines of E4112, E4113 or in the case of LOw Hydrogen electrodes such as WIA16TC's E4816, (numbers starting with 60 or 70 are classified under the American system and can largely be substituted ffor 41 or 48 respectively) if it ends in 12 or 14 it is a VERTICAL DOWN electrode 13, 16 and 18 are VERTICAL UP and 24 is DOWNHAND ONLY.
For sheet 1.6mm and up I would suggest 2.5mm electrodes E4112 clasification, (MUREX SPEEDEX 12 is quite good for such applications), 1.6 and 2mm electrodes are buggers to use in comparison, achieving results only in the hands of the experienced. A point to remember is that most chinese sourced electrodes are VERY slaggy and prone to slag inclusions particularly with dirty or galvanised material.
You will weld far quicker and further per electrode using 2.5mm electrodes than with smaller sizes.
It concerns me that many feel that migs are better or strronger than stick welders for migs have one very nasty habit that few seem to be aware of, this being the ability if not set up and operated correctly, to produce a weld that appears sound but in fact does not penetrate adequately, (mixed gas, such as argoshield or migshield is noticeably worse than CO2 in this respect). If a stick weld looks good, generally it is good, the same cannot always be said for mig welds. Don't get me wrong migs are good, but please if you are going to use them in a structural sense, ie trailers etc learn to use them properly and enrol in a tafe course or similar. I am a WTIA certified boilermaker with 20 odd years experience and it chills my blood to see the results from some weekend warriors at times.
Happy welding to all and I hope I have shed some light.

Originally Posted by Karl Robbers

With a very few exceptions DCEP is used for all welding with stick electrodes.

Heh. I'm not doubting your expertise, but the exact opposite has been argued here previously.

Try it this way. I have info on my website.
Arc welding a fillet

Peter

Apples
I offer this as a constructive criticism.
The information you are promoting about fillet welding on your how to weld site, is just plain incorrect, mate. You are telling us that the drag angle on this fillet weld is 45 degrees. Certainly when looked at in profile or end view the angle is 45 degrees , but not in plan view.

That is plain wrong. While various practitioners of welding don't all agree on the same angles exactly, it is generally held that the angle is not more than about 30 degrees off perpendicular to the face.

See below for an illustration pinched from an old Australian Welding Institute Welding Manual.

Even then I personally do not come back further than15 degrees as I found in years of fillet breaking that closer to 90 degrees gives a better root penetration.
The severe drag angle used invites slag to roll back over the arc and flux inclusions are more likely to occur as you did correctly mention.

In addition an angle so severe will cause undercutting of the bead edges.

Secondly the amount of spatter shown in the other fillet photos is excessive indicating that there are arc length or amperage problems there.
While the visual of the weld appears ok the information posted does not equate to best practice.

If you are going to promote your how to weld site surely its in your own best interests to double check the information before you post it on your site. The site itself is well laid out but you are damaging your credibility if you offer poor advice.

There are places to do this such as the Miller , Hobart and Lincoln welding and a few others welding information sights.

Cheers
Grahame

Legion ,

My apologies for hijacking your post there. It was necessary to straighten that out.
anyway back on the problem.

You have set yourself a most difficult task in using gal plate or section as a practice unit.

Welding section thickness as small as 1.6mm is difficult enough but extremely so when gal coated.

First the safety aspect.
No BS here , welding gal coated steel has been the cause of the death of welders with asthma or other bronchial problems.

Good safety practice if it has to be welded at all is to grind the stuff off and welding with a fan behind you. I say again ,its a last resort and the stuff is best avoided.

Ok safety out of the way, the 1.6mm rods aren't ideal.the short of a long story is they work but not as well as electrodes of other daimeters. Its is to do with the skinny section and the lack of current density of on the cross section. Its not the best choice process for a thin section.

I have 40 odd years of welding behind me and I have difficulty in producing a first class job on 1.6 gal tick section with 1.6mm rods, so its no surprise that beginners are going to find it difficult.

However if you are in a position where you have nothing else and you need to weld 1.6 THICK section 2mm or 2.6mm diameter are a lot better proposition.

Its about physics in some ways, people routinely misunderstand the MMA welding process.The deal is about the controlled melting of the electrode INTO the base metal.

They practice on a little scrap of metal that is unable to dissipate the heat input because of a low volume.The scrap of metal is unable to throw off the welding heat input and a burn through occurs . With the gal on it the steel erupts as the bead is struck on it and the gas ( yep its the nasty stuff) and heat add to the arc and cause a hole.

Trying to run the bead in the radiused shoulders of the box section will only add to your welding woes.They are other places and weld techniques for this-tack a plate across it and weld.

I take it that you have a specific purpose in mind involving the gal coated box section.

If you give us an idea on what you want to achieve I will post the technique on how to best obtain a solution.

Cheers
Grahame

I wouldnt be welding at 45 to 70 degrees try to go as close to straight in as possible with a slight drag angle so the slag doesnt beat you

I am not deliberately trying to be a PITA or pick a fight, but this sort of thing is beginning to happen on a regular basis.

Folks come here and ask questions hoping for answers .If they didn't want to do that they could just google.

I don't believe that it is the right thing to do to reply to a post and instead of taking the time to offer a possible solution or explain why, or why not the process is not working, just hyperlink to a site that contains specific factual errors about the type of weld in question.

When this happens too often it denigrates the value of our own site which is in turn just used as a referral link.

The photo is lifted from Apples own linked site " How to weld site."

I put the photo there to compare it against the diagram which is from the old Welding Institute now WTIA - Welding Institute of Australia.Its an Aussie Institution and people could can rightly assume what these guys put in a welding manual can be correct.

The photo information shows an inconsistency that old fella, obviously an experienced welder detected immediately. Sorry old fella I could have explained the photo, I put it in as a last minute thing with no explanation.



cheers

Grahame

Grahame,

I have not said that this is the correct way to do that fillet weld. I have only just suggested the person try the weld like I did in that photo. I too have had trouble in the past with exactly what he was saying. Maybe it might work for him too.

Have you tried it this way RustyArc?

Originally Posted by Apples

Have you tried it this way RustyArc?

No I haven't - I was taught pretty much as Grahame and others have mentioned to weld with only a slight lean away from perpendicular to the join, but I am willing to give it a go on scrap steel. I'm also inclined to experiment a bit more with DCEP given the highly conflicting opions on whether EN or EP is the "norm".

That said, I have no problem with fillet welds where the pieces meet to form a clean, sharp "L" angle. The problem comes with welding to the sides of cold-formed sections, such as RHS, where there's a significant radius on the formed corners, such that the join is deep. In that case, getting the pool to form and connect both edges without the arc preferring one side to the other has proved a real challenge.

I've tried weaves and patterns, but with such close distances involved, it's very hard to ensure the arc is moving to the desired edge.

On the other hand, with the MIG it's no problem - the thin wire gets right in deep to the join, forming a decent, if thin, weld right in the root of the join. It may require another pass to get a decent fillet, but the welds are reliably consitent without inclusions or wormholes.