Flux core wire: how long will it stay fresh?

[mx842]

I'm finally getting to the point where I can set up my welders in my new/old pole barn. It's new but the way it's been going it will be old before I finish it.:laughing: I finally was able to get my big oven off the trailer it's been sitting on for three years and into the building where I can work on it to repair some damage to it while it was outside all that time. I never did completely finish it so this is a fix and finish kind of deal. I started working on it last week but I got very little done because I ran out of wire. I had several small 2 lb spools but didn't want to use them so I went to my welding supply place and picked up a 33lb roll of solid core wire so I could get back to working on the oven.

In the mean time I was doing some clean up and trying to put things in order around the shop and I found this brand new roll of Lincon 71A 85 .045 Ultracore wire I had bought when I first bough this new Miller 252. I had forgotten that I had it because of the way all my stuff has been scattered out while I have been working on my new shop. Anyway It's still in the unbroken box and still in the foil package so It should still be good even though where I found it was rather damp and humid.

I asked my son who is a welder at a large factory here in town about it but he didn't really know because this is the wire they use at the plant he works at and they use so much of this wire it rarely stays on a spool drive but a couple weeks before it's used up but if for some reason one of the welders doesn't use up a roll within a month it gets pulled off and a new roll goes on. They say there is some kind of welding rule somewhere that says moisture can effect the resin and cause possible failures.

They do this even in their climate controlled shop so I wondering what is going to happen if I break open this roll and try to use it in my not so climate controlled shop considering this is the first roll of wire this machine has gone through and I have had it over a year now and I think that was just a 10 lb roll. I'll probably be using it more now that I have the machines at least set up to where I can use them but it will still be some time before I have the money to finish the building to the point to where I can go to work.

My son didn't really know how long the stuff would last and stay usable because they never leave it on a spool but so long so I'm wondering what you guys think.

 

[Shield Arc]

I would give it a try, if it worm tracks, and you can not adjust the machine to get rid of the worm tracks. Contact Lincoln and ask them about re-baking it.
Worm Tracks - Causes and Cures

 

[mx842]

I would give it a try, if it worm tracks, and you can not adjust the machine to get rid of the worm tracks. Contact Lincoln and ask them about re-baking it.
Worm Tracks - Causes and Cures

Thanks, for the link that was a good read and explains a few things that I had seen before but never knew what the cause was. I just blamed it on the welder....Me:laughing: and kept on keeping on. Most of the welding I normally do is never that critical but it is good to know what is causing some of the crazy things I see in some of my projects. I thought about putting the wire in one of my powder coat ovens and cooking it for a few hours before I try to use it. I'll get with the Lincon people to see what they have to say. Thanks

 

[Shield Arc]

It's never my fault! It is always the machines fault!:laughing:

I have some dual shield wire I cannot keep from worm tracking. I need to re-bake it, but I don't run enough dual shield wire to worry about it now. If I ever need it I'll stick it in the oven. Remember what ever Lincoln suggest for stickout, that is what I would do. The wrong stickout will give you worm tracks too. Correct stickout is crucial with some wires more so than others.

 

[Arc weld]

Some of the Dual Shield worm tracks for no apparent reason. When I was building flare stacks, they welded all the bases with flux-core. There would be square plate welded to the pipe with 4 gussets. You'd do the first 2 sections perfect and then on the 3rd it would worm track. Nothing changed but now you have to try and grind it out with a die grinder which is a real pain. Someone mentioned at a later date that if the nozzle on the gun gets too hot will cause worm tracking but that doesn't make a lot of sense unless it somehow affects the shielding gas. I was going to do a job test with Metal-Core but have never used it so the company said I could come and try it first. I checked with a welding school what kind of settings it should be run but at the shop the foreman said they usually run a lot more volts. I'd do one perfect bead and then the next was full of porosity. The foreman said I had too much stickout but I didn't change anything. Every 3rd bead would have porosity. I think I should have left the voltage lower. I was so frustrated/embarrassedullinghair: I never went back to do the job test. Maybe that's why most old school welders much prefer stick for critical welds:thumbsup:

 

[mrmikey]

I have some dual shield wire I cannot keep from worm tracking.

What shield gas are you using?.....Mike

 

[Shield Arc]

C/25. The wire is ESAB 70 Ultra Plus, .045".

DUAL SHIELD 70 ULTRA PLUS

 

[mrmikey]

From their site:

It is optimized for use with 90% Ar/10% CO2

We had a similar problem when we went to flux core wire and were using 75/25, same as we had on solid wire. You'd get a nice small bead but the minute you tried to lay any size bead, you'd get wormholes. According to the sales rep, reason being is the higher concentration of CO2 isn't supplying enough de-oxidizers for the amount of time the puddle is fluid. We ended up going to 90/10 and all was well.....Mike

 

[Shield Arc]

I had a bottle of C/10 a while back to play with some spray arc welding. Didn't think to try it with the 70 Ultra Plus. I have some ESAB 710X that I have no problems with C/25.
Some over head, vertical up, and flat fillet.

 

[yomax4]

There are 71-T1 dual shield wires out there that are formulated to run on CO2. Most actulally. I'm surprised that 75/25 would be deemed too much CO2. Interesting. Some of the new cored wires are seamless. that makes for a longer shelf life. I'm starting to see a lot more cored wire applications shifting back to hard wire on Pulse. Cleaner, Faster, Much less Smoke. Big Iron still requires dual shield and I'm glad I don't have to run it. I was watching guys build large excavator buckets for the mines. 1" plate 3/32 wire..No Thanks. When i used to sell it, Worm Tracking among other things was usually tracked back to formulation of the core but I would guess old wire would run bad as well.

 

[Arc weld]

Metal-Core is getting popular for structural welding here. Kind of like solid wire on steroids without all the smoke of Flux-Core. It still screws up for no apparent reason though. I've ran some 3/32" Innershield NS3M and you could lay a bead down that looked like it was done with sub-arc. Went through a 50 lb. spool in less than 2 1/2 hours! If you get arc blow, it's a big mess though.

 

[mx842]

I had a bottle of C/10 a while back to play with some spray arc welding. Didn't think to try it with the 70 Ultra Plus. I have some ESAB 710X that I have no problems with C/25.
Some over head, vertical up, and flat fillet.

That's nice, That vertical up weld looks like it was Tig welded by someone that almost knew what he was doing:drool:....very nice.

What effect on the weld itself does worm tracking present? Is it more of a cosmetic thing or is the actual weld integrity faulty. I could see maybe where it could be a problem in pipe welding that was going to be inspected but general shop welding and light fab work what does it do to the actual weld?

 

[mx842]

Metal-Core is getting popular for structural welding here. Kind of like solid wire on steroids without all the smoke of Flux-Core. It still screws up for no apparent reason though. I've ran some 3/32" Innershield NS3M and you could lay a bead down that looked like it was done with sub-arc. Went through a 50 lb. spool in less than 2 1/2 hours! If you get arc blow, it's a big mess though.

Alright now I have heard a new term...what the heck is arc blow?

 

[CNC Dan]

Alright now I have heard a new term...what the heck is arc blow?

Arc blow is when the magnetic field of the welding current pushes the arc out of it's normal position.
You can often fix it by :
Changing the location of the work clamp.
Change to AC current.
Wraping the work lead arround the work.

 

[mx842]

I sent Lincon an e-mail this morning and they replied back with a page out of a ref. manual that says this wire has a 3 year shelf life if kept in a controlled environment above the dew point. I guess this puts me out of business since this wire has been kept every way but that atmosphere. I asked about the oven thing but the paper made no mention of any remedy to bring it back alive once it goes bad or gets damp.

 

[CNC Dan]

looks like you have nothing to lose so go ahead and try baking it.
Might try winding some onto a small spool to keep un-baked for comparison.

 

[Shield Arc]

What effect on the weld itself does worm tracking present? Is it more of a cosmetic thing or is the actual weld integrity faulty. I could see maybe where it could be a problem in pipe welding that was going to be inspected but general shop welding and light fab work what does it do to the actual weld?

I really don't know. It sure is cosmetic. I guess an inspector could call you on it for not having the proper weld volume. Maybe even not having the correct throat size too. Years ago I worked for about 2-weeks in a bridge shop running dual shield. I was welding 24-inch heavy wall pipe to 2-inch thick plates for a job in Alaska. I could not keep the wire from worm tracking. The welding inspector would not accept the welds. Before it was over with I think everybody in the shop tried to stop the worm tracks with that wire. Ended up buying new wire, no more problems.

 

[mx842]

looks like you have nothing to lose so go ahead and try baking it.
Might try winding some onto a small spool to keep un-baked for comparison.

I think that's what I'm going to do and see what happens. I hate to throw a hunnard dollars + away and not get something for it. I can't see where it could hurt it to put it in the oven for a few hours at around 200 degrees, what's the worst that can happen?

 

[mx842]

I really don't know. It sure is cosmetic. I guess an inspector could call you on it for not having the proper weld volume. Maybe even not having the correct throat size too. Years ago I worked for about 2-weeks in a bridge shop running dual shield. I was welding 24-inch heavy wall pipe to 2-inch thick plates for a job in Alaska. I could not keep the wire from worm tracking. The welding inspector would not accept the welds. Before it was over with I think everybody in the shop tried to stop the worm tracks with that wire. Ended up buying new wire, no more problems.

I don't think I'll be building any bridges anytime soon so I think I'll keep it around and use it on bubble gum projects just to see what happens. Most of my welding is weld and grind kind of stuff anyway. I'm working on lawn mower decks right now that have worn through from years of use and most of them have large holes in several places that I have to weld in backup plates under the deck then build up the surface on the top then grind it smooth to get a nice flat finish. When I'm done it looks like nothing ever happened but it takes a lot of time to make it look right. You couldn't send them out to a real shop to get this done because you could buy a deck for what it would take to get it done but if it takes me a half a day to patch one up around here I guess I'm money ahead.

 

[CNC Dan]

I can't see where it could hurt it to put it in the oven for a few hours at around 200 degrees, what's the worst that can happen?

I'd go a little hotter than that.
Start at 200, then go up to 350.
You might try using the re-baking procedure for 7018 stick welding rods.