Hardend Steel????

[WillietheWelder]

My conpany orders special steel for different jobs and alot of it is cionsidered "hardend", is there a certain rod i should use on it???? Im doing a butt weld on 1/2" and right now i just use a 6011 and crank the welder up to about 160amps so it burns in good....any other ideas

[Aerometalworker]

My conpany orders special steel for different jobs and alot of it is cionsidered "hardend", is there a certain rod i should use on it???? Im doing a butt weld on 1/2" and right now i just use a 6011 and crank the welder up to about 160amps so it burns in good....any other ideas

I would think the designer or engineer that layed out what your building , would have specified. Is the steel actually "hardened" or "hardenable"?
I think your going to need to specify a lot more information like:
1-Alloy
2-Hardness
3-Application
At least those 3 as a start.
-Aaron

[WillietheWelder]

i wish it was that easy, our bosses stock pile it from pipe to flat and when certain things come up, they say use the "hardend" steel...it take forever to cut on a saw and is (from what i'm told) cured in oil to make it a harder material? It is up to us to do whatever to weld it they only care when we are done, they have no welding experence, so i always wondered if there is some other thing that should be done?

I work at a huge sewage plant so it is used for different things all the time

[Burnindaylight]

If its along the line of AR plate, I use a 7018 stick with preheat , a flux core wire works well also I use Corex or lincoln wire, but depending on what you got to run you can always get a bottle of 98/2 and spray weld it with mig and some preheat, again thinkness and position also come into play

[JonnyTIG]

I wouldn't use 60xx anything on hardened steel. The steel has to have a higher carbon content or alloys added to make it hardenable over A36 or 44W, 7018 and preheat should get you past just about anything out there. I use a medium carbonsteel covered electrode with a 85,000 lb tensile strength.

[MetalCrafter]

I too would use 7018 at 120amps.

[WillietheWelder]

thanks for the help allo thats very very interesting!

[WillietheWelder]

oh yea also got a millermatic 350, can i use that with flux core??? dont mig often sorry to sound behind on this one!

[WillietheWelder]

ok i'm gonna take a 1/8" 7018 to it in a bit but when you say "preheat" how hot should i get it?

[paulrbrown]

Willie, I am with Jonny on the 7018, anytime you are dealing with a 'Medium to High Carbon steel' which is what makes the steel 'Hardenable' you need a low hydrogen type rod to keep hydrogen embrittlement from occuring. 7015 and 7016 are your alternatives. Make sure you store your rods above 200 degrees once they have come out of the sealed container. You pretty much only have a few hours to work with them until they absorb too much moisture and need to be baked to get the moisture out, [over 500 degress F]. The 11018 and 12018 rods are only supposed to be out for 30 minutes. Hope this helps and makes some sense. Paul

[WillietheWelder]

ok let me make everyone laugh a bit......i am only 32 and only been in our shop for almost a year so i cant change anything, but our rods (7018) are kept out 24/7, yes in the open air at room temp!!! We do have a oven but it says "food only" on the door and that is all i ever seen it used for?? so how bad is this. If i tried to make a statement i would only get laughed at refered to as a kiss a*s and get dirty looks the rest of my carreer!! So now what!

Anyone Hiring!! lol

[paulrbrown]

Well, I guess you could show them something in writing, my old shop was the same way. Ask them why some rods are vacuum packed and others are in cardboard???? All the rod manufacturers have that data...Hope this will help, Paul

[Burnindaylight]

325-350, I got a infared tempatue gun, worth the money

[JonnyTIG]

Just use your 7018 straight out of a new package. A trick I learned was to take the rod and stick it to the base metal, short it out completely for a couple seconds. If the rod starts to steam, then it had moisture in it which will now be gone. Break the rod off of the work, and start welding. This also preheats the electrode, making for better stop-starts. As for Preheating the base metal, 300 to 400 seems to cover most general steels, T1, AR plate, A400 etc. After you finish the weld wrap the component in a fire blanket to help it cool slowly if you can.

And if you can get your hands on a temp gun it will be much less of a headache than using temp sticks.