Welding Tips and Tricks

I have a shipping container with some pretty significant pockmarks in the overhead frame rail at the door. I want to fix this before anything starts getting packed in there again.

I cleaned up the area, and then I tried to weld it up with 7018 1/8” rods. I could NOT seem to get that dialed in. Either pool seemed way too hot and wanted to sag/drip, or I couldn’t keep the arc going (even with a 30% hot start). That is within a swing of only about 10 amps. I didn’t have arc force turned up. But I’m really kind of stumped here. I was using an anti-stick feature, but on the lower heat, that didn’t really seem to do much.

I’m not trying to lay down a lot of metal, because I’m going to grind it flush when I’m done. But I’m really at a loss of how to solve this.

Anyone have any suggestions? A different electrode? I am using an Everlast PowerArc 210STL.

Thanks for any suggestions!

So you are not able to cut out the affected areas and replace with good steel welded in place? I'm at a loss as to why you'd want to use stick welding as "body filler" material when cutting out and replacing seems much more sensible.

For starters, I cannot easily buy COR-TEN metal. So, if I have to put metal in here, I’d rather add as little non-COR-TEN as possible. Hence, the “body filler”. Given how much regular steel costs these days, I can only imagine how much COR-TEN would cost IF I could find it.

I see. Well if you're dead set on using that rod, don't go below 105A (tricky to run at times), and keep it under 130A, generally speaking. Also, we can't see just how well you cleaned the area. What did you use? Did you just use a hand brush? Fine-bristle cup wheel? If so, then I'd say that would be very ineffective. The more details you provide, the better suggestions you will get. oh and turn up the arc force.

you need to grind all that rust off. needle gun, sand blaster. whatever you need to get it down to the metal.
just looking up weathering steel, that rust won't be normal rust.

the other alterative is use different rods. eg 6010/11 burn through the rust but you will loose the rust protection. or possibly even something like 312.

Good luck welding that with 7018 and 1/8 rods. Cor-ten that has corroded like that is a MFer to repair, and the material is far thinner than you think right there. I’d drop to a 3/32 60xx series or 70xx if that’s all you have.

You could try a chemical cleaning first, then sand to bright metal. That might get you better results.

cj737 wrote: ↑Mon May 02, 2022 12:15 am Good luck welding that with 7018 and 1/8 rods. Cor-ten that has corroded like that is a MFer to repair, and the material is far thinner than you think right there. I’d drop to a 3/32 60xx series or 70xx if that’s all you have.

You could try a chemical cleaning first, then sand to bright metal. That might get you better results.

I have been reading up on it, and it appears that a certain 7018 (c3) is used for welding weathering steel, because it has 1% nickel. Not sure I’ll be able to find any of that in short order.

I do have some 6013, but I’ve never been able to run it overhead or horizontal. It’s just too fluid. 6010, works well in horizontal, but to your point about material thickness, I think 6010 would just be too aggressive.

Ugh… I hate being a newbie. I feel like I have analysis paralysis.

tweake wrote: ↑Sun May 01, 2022 11:27 pm you need to grind all that rust off. needle gun, sand blaster. whatever you need to get it down to the metal.
just looking up weathering steel, that rust won't be normal rust.

the other alterative is use different rods. eg 6010/11 burn through the rust but you will loose the rust protection. or possibly even something like 312.

I’ll have to look into the 312 option! Thanks for the advice!!

I was able to score a (local) can of 3/32” 8018-C3-H4R. I used an abrasive (120 grit) nylon-bristle cup brush to get down into the bottom of those pits to get back to shiny metal. It actually worked pretty well. Used a flap disc to clean up around the pits. As cj737 predicted, some of the areas were a real pain. From the 3/16” that the metal should be, I had some areas that were probably down to 1/32”. They burned through like paper! Got it all patched up, though.

It’s far from perfect but way better than it was. I had a few spots of undercut, but there is still way more metal there than there used to be.

Thanks everyone for all of your help!!

It's much better atm. Good job is done. Are the budget flux core welders(examples) suitable for this job?
Cheers!