Stick Welding - Which Electrodes?

SHINTON

SHINTON

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2005
Location
Triad area of NC
We just picked up a Miller AC/DC stick welder this weekend (220v) and will be picking up some electrodes to keep handy.

I remember taking a "Weld & Greet" session several years ago, put on by Bill Carver and there was some electrodes he recommended always keeping on hand. That they were the ones you would use the most often.

I want to say they were the 60xx series, maybe 6018, but wanted to see what others thought, etc. (Bill if you see this, would love 2-3 paragraphs of summary from that day if you don't mind)

Seems like I remember these also being good rods to keep in the Jeep in case you have to do battery welding on the trail!!??

I have a chart in my Miller, showing various rods/voltage/amps, but it is always nice to get the collective opinion here.


Specifically: Is there anything "light" enough to do sheet metal type stuff? We normally do bronzing with our gas setup, but....

The rest of what we will be doing will be the standard 3/16-1/4" range for 4x4 projects, stuff on the tractor, etc.

I believe I can get a "Tig" attachment for this...which is good for aluminum welding, but I was thinking that you could do aluminum with stick as well with the right rods? [Or the right wire in the ReadyWelder?]

Thx as always...
Sam
 
6010 (dc only) 6011 ac or dc 7018 for all cages & bumpers you can tig with this machine but to do aluminum you need a high frequency box or stick weld aluminum
 
E6011 or E6013 will be the 2 most used general purpose electrodes. If you have a thunderbolt ac/dc dc output will be 150 amps, and limit you to 1/8". Weld as much as you can in dc.
6011,6013, 7014 will all run ac or dc 7018 is usually a dc rod but you can buy 7018 ac.
If it is a thunderbolt forget about tig. There is no way to remote
control your amperage. adding hf for aluminum cost more than the machine. aluminum stick rods are available. generally not a very pretty weld, but can be done
 
i have the same welder. i pretty much weld with 7018 on all my stuff. 6013 and 6011 are great rods to have. make sure you can keep them dry and out of the humidity. this is really important on the 7018. I would weld everything in DC-. Very easy to weld.
 
Back
Top