Keeping of E7018 Electrode in Open Air

What does your copy of the AWS spec say?

Don't have one?? Get it here:American Welding Society.

With it you might be credible. Without it, you're just another wanna-be welder.

Or, one of these. If you want to produce a quality product.

KT-15

You must have prepared or have approved WPS for the job in which these electrodes are to be used. Even your WPS will not allow these electrode to be used after that condition. The basic purpose of baking is beaten if electrode are exposed to open air having humidity.

It depends on how cool and humid the open air is. Four hours is a bit on the long side. That portable oven idea was pretty good.

Ok gents I have seen these posts in the past as well and in the end its like a E7018 is like some rockets science.... here is an eye opener ITS NOT.

This is TRUE PRACTICAL experience; Oven or not, even if it is raining on the rod and it is soaking wet, just ground the rod until its is very hot. MAGIC it is free of all moisture, possibly not from one end to the other, but as you progress with the weld the rod dries to optimum specifications.

This same old worn out topic is in fact boring. Get out in the real world with this subject and you will gain some practical experience, one hour of this is worth a month in class listening to theory and best practices

In short, regardless of what the code says, NO it is of no significance, unless you do something stupid like soak them in sea water or something, geeezzzzzzz

Keep them hot and your work flow will be easier and your welds will be sublime with a good operator.

Sun drying heating is better than none at all.

One post said that the electrodes dry out as they heat up with use. That's true but when you use heated electrodes and see the results you won't go back to cold rod welding (unless you have to of course).

Hot electrodes are easier to strike an arc with and cold, "damp" electrodes make a bit of a mess until they heat up and dry out. Decking the electrode off the work onto a striker plate is one way out of it but makes for an erratic work flow on big jobs eg dozer buckets, bridge sections....

using electrodes that have only been " warmed " can result in hydrogen inclusions at least in the first half inch of the weld metal at the start zone if not microscopic bubbles right through the weld length

try such a weld and look closely under a magnifier at all the pretty little defects

a small hot box ( oven ) is not expensive to buy , keep it on the job next to where you're working and it will do great things for weld strength that the naked eye cant see.

the standard specifies temperature @ time for a reason

Exactly!

Thank you sir for your reply.

what is the job being welded ?

i assume it is a pressure or critical rated joint application otherwise you wouldnt have asked

did the procedure ask for 7018 ?

did you have a cracking failure and wanted to determine if moisture absorption was the cause ?

E7018 are low hydrogen electrodes. When it is opened and wled prepared with moisturised electroes, hydrogen get desolved in the weld puddle during welding. With the presence of hyrogen in the liquid weld metal, it tries to escape, failes and trapes in the weld metal in the form of porosity. Even if hydrogen does not appear in the form of porosity, it get desolved in the weld puddle and assists in creation of cracks. This is known as Hydrogen-Assisted-Cracking. This is the reason why E7018 are dried in the oven. Drying of electrods are most needed in wet or moistured atmoshphere when the box is opened for welding. All manufacturere pack E7018 electrods in hermetically sealed container. It is packed in completely dried form. This is why, in dry wether, when electrods size to be used is 3/32" may be used without backing/heating/drying provided the box is going run-off within few hours, for the resistance of amparage current keeps the unburn part of electrods all the time dry. Flux of such electrods are composition of substance absorb moisture when left in open air. Most susuptable size of electrods are 3/16", 5/32" and 1/18". Smaller sizes are self dried when welding. Go-By-The-Book is OK, when it is applied with "immotional intellegence". This means if you have quilified WPQ on adry-day with the record of percentage of moisture in the air and you have the instrument to check it daily, you would know before the problem whether you need baking/drying or not. When you have recorded "Preheating" as part of WPQ specification, Inspector would ask in all weather to preheat the electrodes for it becomes essential variables if you change. Welding Inspector's experience counts most. In 1972, I have been victim of an inexperienced Welding Inspector and been asked to weld pipe API 5LX 52, weld cap with 3/16" size electrods. I spent more time on repair of capping than total welding time. Then it came to my experience that even you bake 3/16" electrods and welder with poor skill, when he can not maintain the angle of electrods all the time at 90 degree, capping will be finished with full of porosity.

Having welded in the construstion of necular powder plants were all welds were x-rayed for inspection you could not get wire from the wire room without a rod oven. The stell was alwas pre heated to a diresed temp.and the inspectors were checking temps.of the welding wire and of the steel. I never welded 7018 that was not hot weather pipe or steel in any tihickness.The welding test to due this type of welding was very hard to pas if you did not know what you were doing and new the rules that covered each procdure.

Yeah, I expect that's why I did not pass a test once, the rods were probably not dry.

I just finished welding with 6013 rods that have been in my shop for a while. It's tough enough using an AC welder, but if the rods weren't not already damaged at the tip, the flux split all the way up the rod as I used it. What a problem. Luckily, it was just a storm drain, so quality wasn't a big issue. If one split, I tossed it.

I buy small quantities so the rods stay in the box until use. Once out of the box, they really go bad in a couple of days. I never had this problem welding every day in a shop. The rods were kept in an old fridge with the light on permanently. We bought 50 lb. boxes, and still the rods stayed good to the last rod.

I'll have to find a warm spot to keep my rods dry. Something hot all the time, because if the rods cool down, they are going to attract moisture...

mike k You should trying using 6010 on the storm drain .This rod will not be affected by any moisture at all. Some times if it drys out to much putting water on them will let them be pushed inside the root pass a lot easier.Any welder worth his or her salt has failed a welding test during there career myself included.

Thanks, Bill, I'll just buy 6010 or 6011 from now on. This is the first time I had 6013 go bad on me. I've burned tons of it, but now I only weld a couple of times a year.

Call me paranoid, but could the testers have given me old rod so I would fail, so others could pass? Maybe there were only so many spots open, so I was excluded. These people didn't know me from Adam, there may be a 'good old boy' thing going. I heard the others doing a lot of grinding, did they start their welds on top of the previous weld so they could grind off the first inch? That would remove the porous first inch, but I can't imagine doing that in the field.

that could happen but if they did exclude you take it as a blessing , there must be a better position for you elsewhere.

might just be coincidence too but either way dont carry anger about it , look in front for better things .

mike k The inspectors have lots of ways to wash anyone out,not excepting the root pass, lack of fusion, bad cap,welding rods would all be the same for everone. If welding a plate coupon put run off tabs on each end of the plates .Start on tabs first and when you get into the bevel the rod is burned a good half inch ,hot and should be no proisady.On A pipe 6Gtest start above a tack come down,start your puddle and weld up into were you first struck the arc and you will weld out any slag or prosiady. Most of the pipelines that I was on used P5/1/8th for the stringer beads and hot pass and capped with 6010 either 5/32 or 3/16 nothing bigger.That was a while ago.Nice tohere from you again

Bill, the starting in one spot and then backing up and welding over it is was the trick that I didn't know, and undoubtebly cost me the test. My welding training was just a quick course in night adult school. Each night the instructor would give us a handful of rods and show us the bead to run that night.

Had I gotten a higher education in welding, it would have made a lot of difference. My boss just had me weld mild steel and aluminum and stainless. No pipe welding to speak of. I always remembered 7018 having bubbles at the start, but it was not a problem for the simple fab jobs we were doing. Mostly I burned 6013. I only used 7018 for vertical welds, it's good for that.

I sure liked tig, it was art compared to stick welding. Didn't like wire feed for aluminum, too messy. Never did get into welding steel with wire feed. Some can do good work with it, though.

mike I learned all of my welding on the job,from the shipyards in the 60,s brushing welds on cross country pipelines to building elevated water towers for one of the worldwide companys C.B.I. It was a time when companys tok the time to make you better and good welders were in demand. I never did any wire feed work mustly stick.

I was pretty much on my own, knew very few weldors. One friend showed me how to weld vertical, but I just did not get to work with or talk to other weldors.

Bill ! you are talking about weld joint in nuclear power plant where you have confined place to work and you can control air blow. This is ideal condition of welding. Fabrication and welding of nuclear power plant may be on location or in the workshop. My welding joints were open in the field on 8" dia flow line and 16" dia gathering main, API 5LX GR 52 X 0.312" and 0.500" respectively. It was year 1972 when portable oven were not very common in my country. Welding in shop is different than the welding in field. In the cross country pipeline, the Cotractor has array of welding machines, pay-welders, pipelayers, welders and supporting labor, where production welding has the priority over any experimental work. Which is why smart Contractor never selects low hydrogen electrodes for cross-country pipeline, instead he goes for cellulose coated elctrodes E6010, E7010 and higher matching with parent mental. Selection of E7018 on my job was the choice of the Owner and the Inspector. Field has limitations on certain facilities - like supply of oven at every welding point. Selection of low hydrogen electrodes for cross-country-pipeline is not an intellent choice. If the Contractor has been asked to select welding process, filler metal on a geven pipe material for a cross-country-pipeline, he should select cellulose coated electrodes and SMAW for it has most successful so far. You are right using oven and low hydrogen electrodes in the fabrication shop or plant piping. I know it is hard to pass welder test with low hydrogen electrodes. But if care for correct joint design, root face, root gap, first pass with cellulose coated electrodes, dried low hydrogen electrodes for fill and cap, flush depsition at the begining and end of each pass, select low hydrogen electrodes of lower thickness size in multiple pass weld, I am sure one would pass.

I knew this one would be like the Eveready Bunny.... Just keeps going and going

Here is a true story;

When I took my certification tests 6GR for both SMAW E7018 filler as well as my FCAW, I hardly used a grinder and was finished both tests in about an hour (including the smoke/coffee break). Both passed fine, no defects (visual as well as destructive tests)...

I watched the poor guys who obviously had perfect set ups but very nervous causing bad starts stops work the grinder to death and FAILED BOTH TESTS...

No matter what you do with your rods, where they came from or for how long, unless the flux is falling off or the wire is rusted, most critical is to actually have the proper control and coordination. Knowing what you are looking at in the puddle while performing the job...

Some can /some cant, no matter what you do with the rods or the preparation, its that simple. Sure is easy to blame the filler or the machine though

Nuff said.

thanks for posts Tim

I worked with a guy who had welded for years but nobody had ever taught him a simple thing.

when you look at the weld puddle some people look at the outer edges of the slag pool and line that up with the vee prep of the weld zone , i taught this guy to watch the metal pool instead which can be discerned separately from the slag pool ( flux )

if guys look carefully at that weld puddle you can see the line between the metal solidifying and the molten flux on top of it and weld accordingly so your travel speed and rod feed is enough to give the required amount of weld metal reinforcement ( weld bead height ) and also that important edge wetting against the edge of the vee prep ( bevel )

do you understand what i mean ? , some people make the mistake of looking at the flux pool as their guide during welding . you go to look under that at the layer below where the weld metal is.

Hi Impossible Were you and this fellow welding with low hydrogen,stainless or mild steel welding rods. From the coments I cant tell thanks.

Hi

98 % of my work with stick is using 7016 or 11018 low hydrogen

It took me a few years before i clicked to it myself , now i teach that to other guys i meet

it can be a bit of an eye strain to look with such close detail but it improves understanding.

It might only mean a difference of 0.5 to 1 mm but being aware of it might improve neatness of cap height and edge wetting to the prep

I can understand neatness of cap height but what is edge wetting to the prep mean in welding .thanks bill

Hi TimYou mentioned6Gr Is this the same heavy wall pipe test that is welded on a stand that is at a forty-five degree angle 6Gand I have used just about all Shielded Metal Arc Welding processes but do not know FCAW. The onlly thing that that rings a bell could be Fixed Carbon Arc Welding or what I know as air-arcing

FCAW = flux cored mig wire

Is this the same as flux core arc welding cant say that I did much of that thanks for the comeback.bill