Welding rod cheapskate....me!

Am I the only cheapskate that welds the next rod to the 4" or so piece of rod left over after use? It is easy enough to do, just stick the stub to the puddle, touch the next rod to the end of the stub, weld them together and resume welding. I was TIG welding using 1/8" 5356 for about 5 hours and have no stubs left over. I figure I paid for the whole rod, why throw 4" of each one away.

I do as well but I was taught to weld by a scot!

pressbrake1 said:

I do as well but I was taught to weld by a scot!

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Likewise !

But damn, he was one hell of a great teacher.

Of course, and also use coathangers for a lot of mild steel oxyacetylene welding, like exhaust pipes and various frames and contraptions made of EMT.

I also pick up old coated electrodes from garage sales and the scrapyard. Sometimes these do not run well, but often they work fine. Of course, applications on crack-prone, high carbon and alloy materials need to watch out for hydrogen in absorbed moisture. Some can be dried if you have an oven that will go up to 800F or so, but AFAIK suitable preheat of the workpiece covers it.

4"? What current you tigging at? Me with 1/16" filler i will happily go to less than 1" with just my fingers all day long, will some times chuck em at 2" if thats the end of a weld and i need more than 1" for the next weld.

Stainless it may be worth being tight, but std steel filler you could be spending more on the argon and the time than the pence your saving in rod.

If you want efficent, get a cold wire feed setup, you will weld faster and spools are so cheap its silly, most wires on the spool seam to be less than 1/4 the cost of sticks!

adama said:

4"? What current you tigging at? Me with 1/16" filler i will happily go to less than 1" with just my fingers all day long, will some times chuck em at 2" if thats the end of a weld and i need more than 1" for the next weld.

Stainless it may be worth being tight, but std steel filler you could be spending more on the argon and the time than the pence your saving in rod.

If you want efficent, get a cold wire feed setup, you will weld faster and spools are so cheap its silly, most wires on the spool seam to be less than 1/4 the cost of sticks!

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I was on Aluminum, 250 Amps. I burn them to 1-2" on steel running low Amps as well.

adama said:

If you want efficent, get a cold wire feed setup, you will weld faster and spools are so cheap its silly, most wires on the spool seam to be less than 1/4 the cost of sticks!

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Do you weld offhand with a wire feeder? I have one but have never bothered to rig it up, thought it was just for automated work.

Personally, I find the collection of 2"-3" pieces of fill rod on the ground strangely satisfying when wrapping up a project.
The more the better, I don't even mind sweeping them up.

All those short pieces on the floor would be like walking on marbles. I do it and they roll under my boots.

Those aluminum stubs are great to clamp flat stacked parts in a vise. One piece towards each end and the whole stack is tight.

Mud said:

Do you weld offhand with a wire feeder? I have one but have never bothered to rig it up, thought it was just for automated work.

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Currently no, but have played with one a couple of times before. Yeah there real common in automated work, but in manual stuff you can use them, my problem was coordination + there bonkers cost. Spending more than a £1K to save a nominal 4% on filler rod stubs would take a life time to pay off, now switching to reeled wires, hell yeah it would pay off in a few years.

My plan is very much to roll my own before long, but because all of my welding is odd short bits, i want it something like a back pack type device, so i can have the wire feed running down my arm, or have it sat on the bench - were ever. sorta a bit like spider mans web shooter. I don't want yet another machine and another lead ran across the work area, that im haveing to find pick up and put down really really want it so its kinda just always there to hand. Simply want it to quickly poke out say another 1/2" or so of wire on the button press too so its far more like welding with sticks, not trying to match a wire feed to a tig pool to the work to the current. 90% of my welding is small as in sub 1" tube joints, so its all odd positions all be it bench work.

From the breif play i had with one, if i can make it kinda work like i hope then i think it could be really really good, if its like the commercial one i used, its kinda clumsy to use free hand. Im really after something like a sharpie marker pen that just spits out endless filler rod but only x amount every time you squeze it or press a button. The one i played with had a secound foot pedal and cordinateing 2 feet and 2 arms is kinda hard!

Not sure I'd want a 2" section of rod with no flux going into any important welds.

I do this mostly just so at the end of the day there isn't a pile of stubs to clean up... When you are doing chassis work you can burn through a ton of rod in 8-12 hours. With SS you gotta be careful not to carbide up the weld, like everything with SS...

Illinoyance said:

All those short pieces on the floor would be like walking on marbles. I do it and they roll under my boots.

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Nahh i find with the mix of swarf off the lathe and Bridgeport + the odd mitred tube end the floors plenty grippy still. Whats the point of boots with steel insoles if your going to use a broom?

Jeremy said:

Not sure I'd want a 2" section of rod with no flux going into any important welds.

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Whats the issue with no flux? By the time your down to 28" on a new 30" stick there’s still no flux :-)

WERE TALKING TIG HERE!!!

I join brazing and silver soldering rods together. I thought everyone does it.

adama said:

Whats the issue with no flux? By the time your down to 28" on a new 30" stick there’s still no flux :-)

WERE TALKING TIG HERE!!!

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When the day comes that a fella tries to weld flux coated rods together is time to give up ,I do remember being told that you can use non coated rods with DC , hmmm.