Stick Electrode Holder from Scrap Metal

[ChuckE2009]

Goodmorning everyone

So, this is the most recent thing I've built for the shop...

I got tired of having various electrodes rolling around everywhere, so I took some 2" pipe leftover from last summer when I built park benches for a local school, and I dug up some 1" flat bar from my truck bumper build, and came up with this:

It only has three "feet", so that it can rest on un-even surfaces, and the way I designed it, that piece of horizontal flat bar holds back the larger, new electrodes and lets the shorter partially burned rods "flop out" the side of the pipe, where they're easy to grab and finis off...

I really like how it turned out... I didnt really have a plan or anything, pretty much just made it up as I went. I decided to give it three tubes because I never use more than three electrodes at a time (6010 root, 3/32" 7018 fill, 1/8" 7018 cover), so that's what I went with and I'm pretty thrilled with how it ended up...

The only thing I'll actually buy for this build, is a can of spray-on clear coat to keep it from rusting...

Anyway, just thought I'd share my little project with y'all... I hope you like it... Feel free to copy my design, make it your own, etc...

Have a nice week, guys

 

[Gary Fowler]

I used to have those (not as neatly built as yours) to keep various sizes of 6010 rods in when I worked on a fab table welding up pressure piping back before Brown & Root started TIG root and hot pass on all pipe (Studies showed that it is actually more cost effective to run TIG than stick on the root and hot pass) More on that if anyone is interested. What with wide and narrow gaps possible due to the fitter trying to keep everything square and plumb, I would have everything from a 3/32 to a 5/32, 5/32 was my limit on allowing the fitter some slack, any gap larger than that, he had to grind down the fitting to get a better uniform fit. Those little pieces of pipe keep everything neat and easy to get the size I wanted even with gloves on.
The down and dirty way I built them was to cut the bottom on about 15 degree angle, then rotate them around so they all slanted outward so the rods would splay out. The pipes were about 8" tall, short rods went in the rod stub bucket (I wasn't buying them and anything less than half a rod went in the dumpster) and they were welded to what ever thin plate we could find, usually not much around thinner than 1/4" then in the middle of the 3 or 4 pipes we would make a handle out of rebar and weld it on so we could pick the whole thing up and move it around easily. As far as I can see, that is what is missing on yours.

 

[deereman75]

Looks good.

 

[6011Artist]

I've got one of those I built 20 yrs ago, still use it today. I took a piece of new exhaust pipe scrap and cut 3 tubes, welded them together and used a piece of 1/8 X 1/2 flat to form a handle. I had a piece of 1/8 plate that was a circle handy for the bottom. From the idea hitting me to a finished project was about 30 min. I use one tube to put my short burned up tips in, always did hate picking them up if just thrown on the floor.

 

[ChuckE2009]

Cool guys!! Sounds like I'm not the only one to have this idea, haha...

Actually, I started this idea at school, where we have a pair of 6" pipes that hold electrodes... But theres only two of them, and little half used electrodes dont show up, so I made mine a little different...

 

[Gary Fowler]

I have a magnetic tray setting on my vise that I sometimes dump short stubs in if they are long enough to use for a tack or something. If it is used up completely, it goes in a metal coffee can till the welding is completed and all the rods are cooled, then its dumped in the trash can. The problem with the magnetic tray is it catches all the metal shavings from grinding and looks like a fuzzy cat after a while. I find that high pressure compressed air gets them off best. Those magnetic trays from HF are pretty good at holding on to loose bolts, washers, etc when doing a repair, just toss them in and they will be there till you pull them loose. If I put something on my work table, I invariable gets knocked off on the floor during the work and then I have to search for several minutes and it is usually under the table so I have to move it to find the small stuff or sometimes not ever find them. I cant believe the stuff that disappears never to be found while working on a concrete floor. I just know there is a mini black hole in there some where that just sucks stuff in.