what brand

[kenmac]

what brand welding rods do you use and why ?
I mostly burn 6011 here at the farm because most things are rusty,painted,or dirty.
I have found no difference in any of the brands Forney, hobart, Lincoln, etc,. So I usually just buy what's on sale at the time

I just picked up a 10# box of forney 5/32 6011 from HD for $27.00
I think the last rods I bought were Hobart

 

[Thomas]

Also use 6011 on old iron clean iron 7018,I do like Hobart rods.

 

[Hay Dude]

Usually buy what’s on sale these days.
Have to cut corners to compensate for tripling of fuel.

 

[jjeff]

I use 7018, 7014 for old steel, 6011 Hobart and Lincoln mostly. Had a bad experience using HF flux core wire in my old Lincoln weldpak 100 amp, wire kept breaking and tangling up. I'll gladly pay the extra few bucks for the name and consistent quality. only welds that have ever failed me were flux core using a lower amp machine btw.

 

[California]

.. Had a bad experience using HF flux core wire ...

There was a batch of HF's 90A-AC 'mig' flux welders that came with flux wire so bad that a large number of those welders soon were listed on Ebay by a liquidator. 'Open box, as-new'.

I wasn't the only customer to return one. I couldn't get it to do anything but spit. Later, discussion on Welding Web identified the problem across that batch was just bad wire, so I bought the same model a year later. It worked ok.

 

[jjeff]

There was a batch of HF's 90A-AC 'mig' flux welders that came with flux wire so bad that a large number of those welders soon were listed on Ebay by a liquidator. 'Open box, as-new'.

I wasn't the only customer to return one. I couldn't get it to do anything but spit. Later, discussion on Welding Web identified the problem across that batch was just bad wire, so I bought the same model a year later. It worked ok.

Interesting, For me any way it had nothing to do with my Lincoln welder it was the cheap HF wire I was using as soon as I switched back to Lincoln innershield it worked perfect again.

 

[WranglerX]

Just about any site you go to you will find 95% of the people will say stay away from HF wire....

 

[rangerfredbob]

And all those posts are from the one bad batch a decade ago... I've been running HFT flux core wire for a long time, the cheezy flux core welder (at least mine) doesn't care what wire you feed it as long as it's .035", it will NOT run .030", too hot even on low. The Titanium welder will weld with whatever it seems...

With 6011 I doubt you'll see much difference unless you get down to the 1/16" rods on a cheap welder... I have one of the old HFT stick welders that barely works and it was a pain with anything, I should try that thing again once it gets a little more unburied... but running a nicer wire feed or a stick welder on D/C is hard to beat so I don't run the others much...

 

[kenmac]

I have tried several different brands with this everlast welder /tig combo unit. it's difficult to keep the rod lit no matter the brand rod. Holding a real close arc does pretty good, but it's not the best when trying to weld.
I can burn anything with my old tombstone welder

 

[BukitCase]

I have this Everlast unit

Power i-TIG 200T - TIG Welders | Everlast Generators

When it comes to DC TIG welders, you won't find a more feature packed, performance driven machine than the Power i-TIG 200T. It's user-friendly interface is thoughtfully arranged, with an intuitive design that is charachteristic that people have come to expect from Everlast products. The Power...

www.everlastgenerators.com

It runs every kind of stick I throw at it, BETTER than my old Solar 250 ac/dc copper wound stick welder. I typically set it for about 20% hot start and 15-20% "Arc force" (aka "dig") - no problems at all running 20 yr old 6011, 6013, 7014, 7018 (dry but NOT stored in a rod oven)

About half of these welds were done with the Everlast using mostly 7014, other half with the MM252/lincoln L56 .035 wire - I needed 6 different height pylons to level a pair of containers til I finally get enough $$$ to get a 48x60 slab done... Steve