By: Bob Moffatt on June 3rd, 2019

STICK WELDING 101: GETTING STARTED WITH

SMAW
STICK WELDING BASICS | SMAW 101

STICK WELDING 101: Getting Started with SMAW

- Today we are fielding viewer requests on entry-level stick welding. We've had a lot of requests
lately so let's get into shielded metal arc welding or stick welding. 

You guys like to stick your tungstens in when you're TIG welding. I like to stick the stick
electrode. That's why they call it stick welding, innit? Let's talk about rods because this... this
process is real simple.

-It doesn't have very many variables to it at all except for the rod. Very simply when we set up a
machine, any machine, we are essentially connecting the ground or work cable to the negative
lead or lug on the machine. And we are connecting the electrode holder, stinger, whatever you
want to call it, we're puttin' that to the positive terminal. Okay? It's that simple. Some machines
you can switch polarity on.

-Some machines you have to unbolt and physically move'em to DCEN or DCEP. Some
hi h AC t t Th 'll ll th l iti Wh ll th ' t lki
machines have AC output. They'll run all three polarities. When we say all three, we're talking
alternating current, DC electrode positive, DC electrode negative. Okay? Let's talk about the
electrodes themselves. I'll go through each of 'em one at a time. I'll run'em to their capability and
I'll call out an amperage. And there's a big range of an amperage. First one, common rod
E6010.

-This rod is designed to run DCEP only. Okay? It's the way it's designed to run. So, the
classifications of the numbering system for these common electrodes these are for steel. These
are for carbon steel electrodes. The first two numbers in sixty ten indicate tensile strength. It's
sixty thousand pounds. The third digit being a one indicates position. And here's where it gets a
little weird. One is for all positions. Two is for flat and horizontal. Okay, let's take that one. We're
saying it's all positions. We can weld flat vertical horizontal and overhead. But it doesn't tell ya
whether it can run vertical up, vertical down, or both.

-As far as a sixty ten, it will and here's why. Let's get to the last number. It's a zero. That has the
flux makeup and it has the I'll say the flux characteristics and the electrical characteristics
because of the flux. So zero in this instance is high cellulose sodium. Big deal, you know. Here's
what's important. The sixty ten is a violent, digging, fast freeze type of weld pool. Which means
when I strike an arc I can dig and gouge. I can actually blow holes in this three-eighths plate
with it. But as soon as I step right out of the weld pool, the weld pool freezes nicely. Which
allows me to weld flat, horizontal, vertical up, vertical down, and overhead, in this particular
instance. That's just the nature of sixty ten. Again, DCEP only. Eighth inch. Just for the flat
beads that I'll demonstrate, I'm going to run about about eighty-five, ninety amps.

-There are correct and incorrect ways to stick weld. Okay? We don't want to use extreme
angles. With TIG welding we said that we're always going to push. So when we weld this is
always a forward process. With MIG welding, we're generally straight in, slight drag, slight push.
With stick welding, kind of the same thing. You have a window here, but we don't want to use
extreme angles like this and drag it. We don't want to use extreme angles and push an
electrode. We need to direct the arc down into the material. So, with just about any of 'em, any
of the rods we're going to discuss, you know if this was straight-up ninety degrees and I went
over here to about ten degrees or so, fifteen degrees, and I was dragging, I'd be fine.

-Okay, so let's just keep everything real simple here. We'll get into techniques of weaves and
motions and all that later on. So first rod we're going to run, e sixty ten, eighth inch, DCEP. I'm
going to run about eighty-five amps and I'm just going to strike an arc and use a very slight
rocking motion. Okay? Just back and forth and just kind of carry the bead along It's all I'm doing,
real simple. Keeping the rod very slow, barely dragging the rod on the material... with a very
slight pitch. So this rod, the nature of this flux produces a I want to say a light crystally type of
flux. It doesn't come off real easy. It doesn't come off connected, I should say, but don't beat the
out of it because it can become airborne if you beat it and come right back and stick you in the
lip or go in your eye. So... Generally let it cool. Scratch on it. Wire wheel with a grinder or hand
wire brush.

-One or the other. This rod does produce a fair amount of spatter. That's just the nature of the
beast. Remember, I said it was a violent, digging type of arc. So the benefits of this rod, root
passes, tacking stuff together, again, we can run it in all positions. So if you're just running
beads, and you're running at the correct amperage, with the right technique, your bead is going
to be about twice the size of your rod. I wasn't gouging it in there. As a matter of fact, if I was, it
would probably stick. So let's run, let's run this wrong. Let's do a, a long arc. Okay? So we're
going to strike an arc, and we're going to run normal for a little bit, and then I'm going to show
you what happens if you do, if you lift up and start running a long arc. Weld pool is going to get
violent. Or I should say the arc is going to get violent.

-The weld pool is going to get, it's going to kind of scatter all over the place. It's going to be hard
to see where the actual pool is. So let's try that. We're still at eighty-five amps. Again, we're
running at eighty-five amps. Gentle pitch, carrying the weld pool, normal arc length, and here's
what happens when you pull the arc length back too far. Hard to keep the arc lit. Violent. Wide.
Okay, we're just kind of making a mess. Things are out of control because we're not getting that
good stream down at the bottom of the rod to direct it into the plate. We're just pouring a bunch
of heat in there. The normal bead, the slag is already off of it. This mess down here, might have
to get some power tools on it to get it cleaned up. We're three times as wide as a normal bead.
So that's the sixty ten. The second rod that we have to run, very similar, but it is called sixty
eleven. Again, let's go through the numbering system. Sixty thousand pound tensile strength.
The one in the third digit means that it'll run in any position. Again, this one has a violent,
digging, fast freeze type of arc. I wish that I had the exact same size, but I don't, so that I could
show you the comparison. Some people have a hard time telling the difference between the
two, as far as the arc characteristic. Fast freeze, digging, violent type of weld pool. The one in
this case indicates a composition that allows it to run on alternating current and DCEP. So it's
very similar to sixty ten, except this one will run alternating current as well. I'll run it on DCEP to
show the arc characteristic and you can hear it and everything. And then I will run it AC so you
can kind of hear it. And it's a little different, a little... I'm going to say it's close to the same arc
characteristic although it doesn't, it doesn't penetrate or dig quite as much because again it's on
alternating current. So let's run sixty eleven on DCEP. This is three thirty-second. I'm going to
run it about seventy amps.

-Everything is pretty much exactly the same. It looks the same under the hood. It smells the
same when you get done. It's got that light, crispy, flaky slag on there. So both the sixty ten and
sixty eleven run real close to the same. Every one of these little ripples is my heart beat. No, I'm
just kidding. Every one of these ripples in here is where I kind of just a gentle stitch, rock, or
whatever. But that's how violent and how fast freeze this electrode is. As soon as you oscillate
or step forward, it freezes it. It makes that ridge in there. Let's do a whip and then we'll run this
rod AC as well. When we talk about whip, stitch, they kind of all mean the same thing to me.
Whips is more of a violent term, you know? It's like - Whip. I'm going to whip it. So, we're going
to initiate the arc, get the weld pool, and then we're just going to step completely out of it. We'll
step, let it freeze, come back on the leading edge.

-I'll try to make each of these ripples in here, I'll try to make'em more pronounced. So let's try
the whip. Whip it good! ♪ We can whip it. ♪ ♪ Whip it good! ♪ ♪ Moving forward. ♪ ♪ Step back. ♪
This is kind of like dabbing. Yeah, yeah, you know what? The bead doesn't look too much
different than anything else. But that is the big ol' stitch and the whip and all that. There's all
different than anything else. But that is the big ol stitch and the whip and all that. There s all
kinds of little techniques. Slag doesn't want to come off of there very friendly. Look at all those
beautiful dabs. Beautiful. So there you go, there's a little afternoon playtime for you there. Stitch,
big whip, I mean, every time you step out of it, it freezes. You come back on the leading edge of
it, and kind of make that ripple pattern in there. Oh, I mean this has got so many applications for
it. It's a great farm rod. Eats through rust, mill scale. You can repair stuff.

-There's two rods you can weld the world with out on the farm with an AC machine. This is one
of 'em. I'll tell you what the other one is here after awhile. Got a little story to tell ya. It's a good
one. So I did mention that this rod would run alternating current. I'm going to have to turn the
amperage up slightly. I'll probably go to this was seventy amps DCEP, I'll go eighty amps
alternating current. So I was thinking about that arc shot you can see that, you know, you can do
some movement and manipulation. I think I did the little stitch and nene there. Maybe, no? I
don't know whatcha call that, but. Started out a little cold, it looked like, but that was the right
amperage. I could tell that it was softer in the penetration profile.

-I haven't sicced a grinder on any of these yet. You come back and look at these over the top.
You walk by 'em and glance at 'em, going to be real hard to tell which one's sixty ten and which
one's sixty eleven. The next rod we want to run is the sixty thirteen. Very common rod, very soft
arc, very dense slag. It'll all, it'll come off in a slag peel. And it kind of looks weird because when
you run this rod correctly, when you get down to the end, there's these massive holes in, in your
slag that's getting ready to come up and you swear you got porosity. Sixty thousand pounds
tensile strength. One position, although, I have not had much luck running this vertical up. I think
it runs vertical down for me.

-Three indicates the type of flux and the polarity. The correct polarities that this rod will run on
are DCEP, DCEN, or electrode negative and alternating current. So this rod will run anything.
Electrode negative will deposit more material quicker, so you'll get a little bit more of a crown or
build-up with EN. Let's run'em on all three. And we're not going to play no songs during this one
here. We're not going to whip it. This is just straight drag, be as steady as you can, try not to fall
asleep. Very quiet. Very quiet to run. Do not see a slag peel. This plate is getting super heated
from all of these other beads. But watch this. This is how easy. This is just coming right up off of
there with the rod that I'm flicking it off there. So this one looks to be crowned up a little bit. It's
got good color. Again it's real soft running.

-This is not one that you want to do a bunch of manipulation. You're not going to gain anything
by doing that. As a matter of fact, you're going to make welds if you do that. 'Cause this slag is
so dense you take a chance of this slag running around in front of your pool. And so that's
where you'll trap slag. So this is one of those rods that we just kind of want to drag it and be as
steady as we can. That was DCEP at a hundred amps. I'm going to change polarity. All I'm
going to do is change leads and do another bead at a hundred amps. So that was EN. To me it
looked softer and quieter. Should be crowned up about the same, maybe just a skosh higher.
Skosh, that's a welding term.

-Essentially those two look the same. Again, as I was welding this, it sounded somewhat
quieter. Now we'll run this alternating current and listen to it. I think with alternating current, I
want to turn this up from a hundred to about a hundred and fifteen. Got a little AC buzz working
right here. Nice, soft, smooth arc. Little sparkle cell going on because that's the nature of AC,
but those sparkles are small. They're not heavy, big spatter. There's a long arc. Don't do that. So
this is another good general purpose farm rod. Again, soft arc. You can make some beautiful
welds with it. Sheet metal downhill, thin stuff on EN. If you had a machine that's alternating
current only this is another good choice of a rod.

-No reason to manipulate it on any polarity. You're not going to gain anything. EP, EN,
alternating current, and I turned it up slightly. Soft, very pleasant type of an arc, weld pool
appearance. Okay. The last rod that we have here is three thirty-second's seventy eighteen.
Now seventy eighteen is one of the other rods that I mentioned, if you had two rods, you could
weld the world with alternating current. Well, this is one of 'em. Great, all around farm rod.
Seventy thousand pound tensile strength. One in the third digit indicates that it will weld in all
positions. Flat, vertical, overhead, horizontal - it'll do'em all. However, unlike sixty ten, this will
only weld in the vertical position uphill. We do not want to run this rod going downhill. Slag, just
too fluid. It'll run right down in front of your pool.

-The eight indicates the characteristics of the flux. Low hydrogen type of flux. Low hydrogen is
the diffusible amount of hydrogen particles per million. It's low hydrogen. Okay, we've done
some videos. You can reference a video that we did on hydrogen boil with seventy eighteen or
sixty ten. Pretty interesting stuff. Anyway. Soft, medium type of penetration. Good appearance,
good mechanics. We're going to run this pretty much like a sixty thirteen. We're not going to
manipulate it, whip it. We're just going to drag it. Try to make a nice round weld pool. I'll run
DCEP first, and then we'll run alternating current. DCEP, I am going to run eighty-five amps,
three thirty-second, flat position.

-I'm trying to do that in here. The flux, the slag on this rod is more of a, I don't know, I don't want
to say it's like a dense iron powdered glass type. You can see how shiny it is. Smooth ripple
pattern. I'll run this rod again on alternating current to show you that it will run nicely. We had a
bit of a rough start there, camera guy. Well, this is alternating current and it runs pretty smooth.
Sixty hertz output. Old time stuff, right here. Intro to stick welding. I hope that helped the viewer,
several, multiple viewers, actually, that were asking a lot of questions about getting into stick
welding.

-Pretty easy stuff. Again, simple rules about rod angle, arc length, I think those are the main two
things. Pay attention to amperages. Just keep it real simple when you start out and if we can
help you with anything, please contact us. Thanks so much for subscribing to Weld.com over
the years. We sincerely appreciate that. Please check us out on Facebook and Instagram and ♪
Whip it. Whip it good. ♪ You might have to cut that part.