I did some work with my nemesis, E6011, tonight. In order to maximize my chances of success, I did careful joint prep, including beveling and *gasp* even cleaning a spot for the ground clamp. I had been having trouble running 6011 with my new welder--having to maintain very tight arc length to keep the arc from going out, for example--but that all seems to have been related to poor grounding. With my new work table, I get a little lazy with just setting items on the tabletop and counting on contact to provide a ground.
(EDIT TO ADD: Now that I think of it, these were 1/8" Blackstone rods, and the ones I had previously been having trouble with were 3/32" Hobart rods, but I still think poor grounding was the problem and not the rods.)
Joint prepped and tacked.
It's 3/8" bar, ground to perhaps about a 1/8" land on a double-bevel. I would have done a smaller land if I wasn't running out of daylight and wanting to get some welding in before nightfall.
The first thing I did was try to dial in the best output. This is Blackstone 1/8" E6011. The box calls for between 80-120 amps, so I started at 100 and worked towards success.
At 100 amps, there was plenty of penetration. The bead profile was flat in the bevel. The rod ran a little too fast for me to keep up with it, however, and I had problems with undercutting.
90 amps. Less undercutting. The rod was still a little too fast for me, as can be seen in my uneven and too-fast travel speed. It seemed like it was burning in so fast that I had to go fast to keep up with it, although this may not have actually been the case.
85 amps. Now we're getting somewhere. Very little undercut and almost no slag at the toes. This may have been the best 6011 bead I'd ever run.
Still 85 amps. Trying for a more consistent travel speed and an explicit wet-in of the toes on the "pause" part of the whip-and-pause.
85 amps felt pretty good, but I figured I'd better go for 80 just to see what it was like. It felt too cold, although it ran okay. The bead was taller and it wasn't significantly easier to run than at 85. I suspect this one has less penetration.
The backside shows that none of the beads burned totally through the 1/8" land, not even the 100 amp one. Apparently, I wasn't as close to burning through as I imagined on those hotter passes. I never did see a keyhole. The reason I kept moving was because the bead was cratering out the toes and sinking into the bevel--although, now that I think about it, that's supposed to happen if you're going to do a cover pass next. Maybe this was just more bevel than I should have tried to fill with a single run of 1/8" rod.
Finally, I flipped the bar over and did another four beads on the back side bevel. These two were the best of them. Again, I really tried to focus on pushing the puddle back into the crater and watching it wash out to the toes of the weld. I think I did okay compared to my previous efforts in my short career as a hobby weldor.
As always, feedback is welcome!
