Welding Tips and Tricks

Been doing some open root 6010 on 3/8 plate 1/8 land and gap with 1/8 rod at ~65 amps and dig on 7
The root looks great until I run out of rod and have to start a new one. Then there is a lack of penetration about 1/4 inch and then looks great again. I can fix this with a grinder if I feather it and am able to punch through the weld but I've been told not to use it as a cruch and go do it without a grinder. Anybody have tips to get better penetration at the restarts?

If it's an important weld that you only want to do once then grinding isn't a crutch it's the right way.

Kinda how I feel about it. At work, I would grind my tacks or millscale or do any other precaution to prevent weld discontinuities on parts or repairs. Might have to have him show me what he wants. I don't usually get demos from him since I have a lot of experience already and pick up fairly quick.

There are some teachers here I'm interested to see how they feel about this

You should always feather grind your starts and stops.
One thing I do with open root welding. When the rod is just about burned up, and I have to stop and change rods. I punch the rod right through the groove. This gives you a small hole. Feather grind the area, and when you start back with the new rod, it’s a perfect tie in.

Shield Arc wrote:You should always feather grind your starts and stops.
One thing I do with open root welding. When the rod is just about burned up, and I have to stop and change rods. I punch the rod right through the groove. This gives you a small hole. Feather grind the area, and when you start back with the new rod, it’s a perfect tie in.

Ya know, I've heard that several times and always forget to try the punch through method.
Guess I'm slow some times

I agree, feather it and no worries

Here’s a couple pictures of it.

Ive always been told that feathering all starts/stops is the right way to do an open root, but quite often we all take short cuts. When Im feeling lazy and dont feather, I just make sure to start my next weld back between 1/4 and 3/8s back and push through. It gets the weld hot and usually ties in pretty good.

You may encounter a test that does not allow grinding at all.

That's where the money is.

Actually yeah I got some pointers and its not that big of a deal to me anymore. It's basically leaving it as thin as you can at the stop and then when lighting up weld over it getting it hot enough to push through and tie into the bead. I'd rather grind it for sure but I prefer to know both ways.

Otto Nobedder wrote:You may encounter a test that does not allow grinding at all.

That's where the money is.

A tig root!

Start depositing metal with your new rod about a quarter inch before you keyhole, do this in order to build up some heat so you can punch through the backside of the old keyhole, hold the rod there for just a sec to start filling it in then continue running out the joint, are you allowed to grind the highs and lows of your root pass after it is in?

Otto Nobedder wrote:You may encounter a test that does not allow grinding at all.

That's where the money is.

Example is Red Seal, you can't use any angle grinder at all, just bench grinder to clean the coupon from tacks to the fixture or to do the land and wire brush (well, you can use hacksaw ). Damn hard but satisfaction 100% when done
What position is it you welding
E.g. 45 degrees inclined overhead I have done by starting with long arc above about 1/4" going down bit below of the bottom of the keyhole and then after heating it up about a second or bit longer perform little push and start whip as usually.
Overhead pretty same with good push but no whip.
In each case you have to heat it up to let it fuse together

Hotter! 70-75