Low Hydrogen Mig Wire

[cozza84]

Could somebody please shed some light on a question i have,

Is mig wire that conforms to standard ES 70 - 6 a low hydrogen mig wire????????



Please help as there is no information on the net


Cheers

[ASKANDY]

cozza,

Low Hydrogen usually refers to Stick electrodes. These electrodes (ie. Exx18,Exx24,Exx28) are designed with a special low moisture cover, usually less than .15%. Hydrogen diffusion into the weld area usually comes from moisture either from the parent material or filler. Because a MIG wire has no coating and therefore doesn't hold moisture like a stick electrode does, it is by nature a low hydrogen electrode. If you are worried about hydrogen cracking, preheat your basemetal slightly to remove any parent metal moisture before welding.

Hope this helps.

Andy

[cozza84]

Cheers Andy

Thanks for the information andy, great help, now i can stop wondering. Have a great day.

[paulrbrown]

Andy, your busted now, xx24 & xx14 are Rutile based with iron powder coatings, similar to xx12,xx13 which has no iron powder, but they are not low hydrogen. Besides xx18, xx15 and xx16 are also low hydrogen, but something I only recently learned was the -15 and -16 on stainless electrodes also means low hydrogen, so they need the same care in storage. See what happens when you graduate to TIG & MIG, all that old timey stick stuff just gets fogged up. Thought this info might enlighten somebody out there, thanks for the great forum, Your faithful admirer, Paul [I Luv Stick] Brown

[ASKANDY]

Paul,

You are also right. I didn't list all the low hyd rod numbers. According to the AWS, there are low hyd 24, and 28 iron powder rods besides the 15 and 16s. The care in storage is the same.

At least we agree on the 18

Andy