Drill Stem

[Emrlddvr]

Brand new here and need some adult supervision! Working with 3 1/2 drill stem, not pipe. We have a brand new Evolution cold saw. Works great except it will only make about 4 cuts before blade is dull. At $150 each I can't take anymore. Is drill stem hardened? Advice please. Next any friendly advice on welding this magnetic stuff. Will be running a mig .045

[walker]

The drill stem I used was hard as a rock. I wouldn't let my cold saw near it, I used an abrasive saw to cut it. I had to use A/C 7018 on my stick machine to weld it. I don't know if flux core wire will weld it but MIG sure didn't like it.

[tacmig]

That sucks on a good day!

Walker is right, better bust out the diamonds for that stem! Remember, any time that your work has been magnetized DC is worthless and it's time to go A/C.

Good Luck,

TacMig

[arc]

band saw or abrasive saw is the only way. iv built lots of stuff out of drill stem, if you want to mig it when it does all funky move ur ground. it works most of the time. the pipe gets hardened from all the heat of drilling.

[Harvuskong]

Just what are you building with 3 1/2 drill stem??

I know that there is a way de-magnetize small items, how it is done, I do not know at the moment. I suppose that de-magnetizion could be done with a DC welder if you understood the process.

As for the cutting, using a cutting torch or a plasma cutter could be the cheaper and faster way to cut drill stem.

[GLUE STICK]

Me and few buddies made a roll bar in our stock car out of drill stem, Used a chopsaw with a abrasive wheel for staight cuts & a torch for all the rest, saw would not touch it. Glued it together with a stick welder as we were outside, use 7018 for the whole job, rolled the car three diferent times never broke the bar but raized **** with car.

[Anti-GMAW]

Try wraping your ground cable around the pipe near the infected area a few times. If it doesn't work then wrap it in the other direction. It doesn't always work but ussualy I get pretty good results with this method. By wraping the ground cable around the workpiece you create an induction feild that is able to nutrilize many magnetic feilds. Get it as close to the weld zones as you can with out damaging the cable from heat and sparks. At least this way you might be able to keep using DC (god I hate AC!).

[Emrlddvr]

Boy do I luv this place... Thanks for all the input. Finished up last night with the old abrasive. What about reversing the polarity of the MIG. I run a miller suitcase that I can reverse it on. btw Building oilfield pipe racks. saw a blip somewhere (prob here) ablout a blade called Freud Diablo Steel Demon sold on eBay for about $100 package of 4. Any coments?

[Sberry]

Are you just assuming there is a magnetic problem or have you actually had one?

[Anti-GMAW]

The only time you should reverse the polarity with wire is with certain flux core wires. Solid wire is always reverse polarity. Even then changing polarity will have little or no effect unless switching to AC on a CC power source.

[Emrlddvr]

I assumed that it would be difficult. Just pulled an alll nighter to these things finished. No problem MIG worked just fine. Thanks to all for the help.