Arc welding 6013 6013 Mild Steel Electrodes

                                Arc Welding 6013

Arc Welding while cleaning my shop I found some old Arc Welding electrode (3/32/ 6013) and decided to hook the stinger up and weld on some plates.

 I set the machine around 85 amps with a dig setting around 30 put the plate together in a T Joint fashion and sat down to weld. To my surprise, the welds looked great, and, after a bunch of passes, I paused to take a  for better or worse.

 I have 2 different types of flux coatings on the 6013 I have been using one is light grey similar to some 7018's I have worked with, some is dark grey with a black tip and much narrower, the second type seems to run much better uphill - both were ugly for the overhead which I did not photo as it was really UGLY.

It is safe to say that I enjoy GTAW much more than SMAW but, this has been a fun couple days of playing with Arc welding and it is likely that I will try to pick up some different types of an electrode in the near future (6010-6011 and some 7018, etc ) to play with.

 I have been welding for about 3 years now, 2 of which I have dedicated to learning how to TIG weld. Like most types of welding, there is far more to do wrong than right, this thread is dedicated to pictures of both good and bad welds most of which I have found on the web 

 The joint was prepared with a double V grove pictured below.

The face was welded under the gussets, the gussets were tacked into place.

after welding the gussets in place I put the root pass (the root pass is the first pass of 2) in the top of the plate after letting the plate cool to 140 Degrees Fahrenheit the cover pass was welded in...

After taking this photo I decided to let it cool down a bit and put a few more passes in before dinner and the next photo is the end result as I left it.

   I go out to my shop every day and weld for a few hours to stay in practice, for the next few posts I will likely be adding various Arc Welding-related things.

I have been building my dream shop for a few years now.

This recently included a YouTube channel, it's been pleasantly keeping me busy.

When next I have a welding project, I will be certain to update here with all the related information, links, and technically subjective information.

 These are the tools that I used to do the job. A "third hand" to avoid arc strikes, brass backing with holes drilled oversized to the hole to be welded.  These served as argon traps for 100% penetration and, limited the distance of the finished weld penetration. 

It occurs to me that I have not included much about safety. This is a very large portion of welding and covers many differing facts, it is not just your eyes, lungs, and skin but others, as well as the light and fumes, are dangerous for everyone in the shop and in some cases up to 100 feet away for bystanders eyes.