Problems welding Chinese Steel

GlenIdaho

Well-known Member
Anyone having problems mig welding Chinese steel? Helping a friend build a flatbed trailer and attempted to weld 1/8"lat steel tabs to 1/8 X 1 1/2 X 2 angle iron using a Millermatic 175 mig with argon gas. Locationg was inside my shop, no wind. The metal was clean and bright but the welds look terrible. I couldn't get the metal to flow right; a lot snapping and popping, not the normal sizzele. I tried different heat settings, gas settings and wire speed. At a loss at to what is going on. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!
 
Argon/CO2 might be a better choice. Also make sure you're getting good gas flow. I had that problem, found gas had gotten turned down, not good shielding.
 
First question, are you using straight Argon, or are you using a standard 75/25 Argon/CO2 mix. If your using straight Argon the arc will do exactly what you are describing, alot of popping, etc, and next to no penetration. Maybe at the last exchange the supplier got the mix wrong, had the bottle labeled wrong, etc. Reason I know straight Argon will do this is when MIG welding is when I was working for a body mfg I changed out my tank and grabbed a straight Argon by mistake. The tanks were outside, it was dark, and I simply rolled it to my machine and hooked it up like I usually did at least ever week or so. Anyway, it took three of us nearly 30 minutes of trying to get the thing to weld right, and scratching our heads when nothing we did worked, to ever figure out the actual problem. Hooked the right bottle back up and things were just fine.

I've welded on steel made in alot of different places and, other than the gas mixup, have never had the problems you describe unless it was because contamination of some sort, which is basically what your asking about. Typically when I've had problems it's in a place like a pin bore where lubricant had gotten ingrained in the pores of the metal and leaches out as the metal warms up from welding. I've also had it happen when it was necessary to weld something that couldn't be gotten 100% clean and had a thin layer of rust, flecks of paint, etc, etc left on it. The rust, paint, etc you can plainly see, but the oil can be there even when the metal looks clean as a pin.

Beyond that I don't have a clue. Good luck.
 
What do you mean by Chinese steel? Some of the best steel in the world comes from China. Were you welding old bed frames or something you had no idea what it was?
 
They've also got some of the worst steel too...
More likely something else is the problem but you never know.

Rod
 
Thanks for the replies. I"m using the standard 75/25 argon/co2. The steel was new, bought from the supplier today. We sectioned a fender (older US steel) earlier and had absolutely no problems with the welds, penetration, appearance all what it should be. I used a flap wheel to clean the new metal followed by automotive wax/grease remover as I"ve done numerous times before. Always had good results.

From sources on the net there is an indication that Chinese steel composition is not quite up to US standards. Unfortunately they didn"t describe the effects when welding. In another article there was a complaint concerning steel being used in the Bay bridge in Ca being inferior and causing some concerns for safety.

I suppose I"m grabbing at straws trying to figure out the problem (s) so I can get some good welds. Guess I"ll keep trying. Thanks again.
 
The fact that you welded something earlier that didn't give you any problems is informative but not conclusive. The time difference introduces the possibility of something else having changed. If you would get some other steel that you are confident is okay---the closer the dimensions to the steel you're having problems with, the better---and put it right beside the problem steel, you can very quickly isolate the problem to the material or to the welder.

NCWayne said he and several other people spent 30 minutes trying to troubleshoot a welder problem that turned out to be the wrong gas. Having the chance to rule out a whole range of possible problems is an opportunity you shouldn't pass up.

Stan
 
I realize that but people have to stop blaming everything that goes wrong on China. It could be a high carbon steel or something but unless it says China on it, how would you know where it came from? I was reading a while ago that China has one of the most advanced steel mills in the world.
 
(quoted from post at 22:07:10 11/27/12) Try a Chinese welder, Chinese wire, and Chinese gas.
Just trying to help

Forgot something...Hire a Chinese guy to operate the welder... :lol:
 
(quoted from post at 00:35:12 11/28/12) I realize that but people have to stop blaming everything that goes wrong on China. It could be a high carbon steel or something but unless it says China on it, how would you know where it came from? I was reading a while ago that China has one of the most advanced steel mills in the world.

They do; but they don't export much from those mills. China is busy building their own infrastructure with our old machinery. Guess who will win the next war? The US needs a war going to have enough jobs that don't get outsourced to pay what little of our bills we can pay.

Enough politics, Glen, grab some old scrap USA steel and run a bead. Using the same settings run a bead with the new steel. If it doesn't work right, you are right!
 
China doesn't export their best steel? In case you
haven't noticed, China exports everything! Why do
think so many jobs are being lost? China has some of
the most state of the art facilities in the world
and the steel has to meet very stringent
international standards. I'm not pro China but just
stating facts.
 
I have noticed that in the last few years too. I assume it is cheap chinese made steel. If not from there, then from some other cheap country.
 
I remember in the mid 70s working in a General Motors assembly plant for model year change over. I was installing a monorail conveyor system to carry engines & transmissions, all the 6-inch S-shape beams came from Japan. When cutting the beams to length with a torch the majority of them the web was laminated, talk about eating sparks!
 
They may indeed have some very advanced mills... Thet've also got the remnants of our old mills from the turn of the last century and the processes that go with them...
One of their main problems is poor quality control... and the fact that they'll ship product whether it's usable or not. Wether it's their fault for shipping it or our for accepting it... is open for debate... but 90% of what comes from that country to our shores is CRAP.

Rod
 
Well... one of those state of the art mills came from sydney. Actually I don't remember if it ended up in china or india but that's a coin toss anyhow. That was one of those most advanced electric furnaces of it's day in 1990 when it was installed along with the rail mill they stole at the same time... so yes, they have advanced mills... and it's producing rail for their own infrastructure, not us.

Rod
 
For whatever it's worth, a friend of mine who is from South Africa says the very same thing about US made products. Seems to be a common theme with many products you buy these days from a number of sources
 
The company where I last worked bought some of that Chinese steel to save a few bucks. One item that they bought was hot rolled inch and 1/4 X 1/2". The ends did not even have square corners and one end did not even measure close to the inch and 1/4 X 1/2. I have never seen Canadian or US Steel as bad as that.
 
Hello GlenIdaho,
You stated that you were welding steel with
Argon gas only. That could be your problem.
MIG steel welding usually is done with 75% CO2
25% argon mix. Oxigen getting in the puddle would make the forming of the same pretty hard, if at all. Make sure you were using the proper polarity also
Guido.
 
You see Glen, the Chinese hate us. They have a patented system of alloying steel and asbestos so that Americans will have trouble welding it. The original plan included using sand, but, they figure they can get people Mesophelioma and we'll never be the wiser. It is part of the master communist plan to destableize freedom.
 
Check the wire to see if the coating is corroded and consider trying a different spool to see if that makes a difference. Once I had a spool that had a bad stretch of wire.

Maybe wire not feeding steady? Feed rollers dirty? Metal "fuzz" building up around wire entrance inside nozzle? I've had these issues before and they had similar symptoms to what you're describing.
 
A lot of the problem is the people on this end who import the stuff and do not do quality control. Or they hire a chinese contractor to manufacture "x" widget and specification number one is that it has to be low cost.

I've had some chinese things that performed very well. I've also had some that were worth less than the material they were made out of.
 
I'm not talking about recycled steel mills. I was reading about China producing boiler plate that is second none in a brand new state of the facility. I'm sure they probably produce some bad steel as well but for anything critical, it's fairly easy (relatively speaking) to test the steel to make sure it meets the required specs.
 
I'm not talking about recycled steel mills. I was reading about China producing boiler plate that is second none in a brand new state of the facility. I'm sure they probably produce some bad steel as well but for anything critical, it's fairly easy (relatively speaking) to test the steel to make sure it meets the required specs. I worked in tank shops back in the 80's that would buy cheaper spec. steel and it would be laminated and didn't come from China. China exports steel all over the world. Even Donald nnalert doesn't like buying steel and glass from China but it saves him a ton of money. That's why he thinks there should be a 25% tariff on products from China so they are competing on an equal playing field.
 
Electric arc furnaces are where the highest quality steels are produced... It's the most controlled process they have. For making sheer tonnage... that's going to come from a basic oxygen process.

Rod
 
The biggest problem is that there's no quality control at the source... Even stuff done on spec has no measurable control. The manufacturers on this end that are buying on spec simply look at the cost and say... if I have to toss 10% or 20% or whatever... and it's still cheaper than buying here... so be it.
I know a guy who works in engineering at one of the more prominent auger manufacturers in Canada... and they started buying gearboxes from china a number of years ago... I think it was something like a 20% reject rate on stuff coming to them. But ask yourself... if they reject 10-20% outright.... how good are the ones that make the cut? Just good enough? Good enough for 1 year? 5 years? 20 years? Suppose they paid 50% more for a Hub City that will probably last 25 years if appropriately sized... and it adds 50 bucks to the price tag... is their name really worth that little?
Then there certainly is, as mfpoor has said... US manufacturers that do produce absolute junk, stamp the flag on it and call it good. It's done here too...

Rod
 

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