Old welding rods

glennster

Well-known Member
Looking for something in the barn today and found a 5 gallon pail full of 6010 and7018 welding rods. Gotta be 30 years old. Flux seems ok on em. Can they be dried in an oven and used, or just scrap em. ? Thx
 
Try a few.
As long as the flux is not all white and chalky or bubbly looking they are fine.
Dry a pound or two in the oven as you need them and use them up.
Very few welders here are good enough that a bit of porosity is going to greatly affect their welds.
 
Do not put the 6010 in an oven! If anything they will be dried out. So dip them in water and let them air dry for a day or two.

The 7018 is any body's guess if they'll be any good, but put them in an oven, and see.
 
I have taken old rod like that and dried them as needed in an oven or is I need them right now I will take one and hit the metal and hold it there a moment or too to get it hot then pop it free and weld. I have never bakes very many at a time because I have found the flux can flake off if you do a lot then let them lay for long
 
If you think about scrapping them think my way. When I weld up angle iron fixtures and such I don't give a whit as to how old the rod is as long as it has flux still on the rod. I don't dry them either. Aint like I would be welding a ship that might sink or a gas pipe line that might pop. :)^D

Weld a coupla plates and break them. Bet you will find that they will do anything you will need them to do as is.
 
Another thing you can use rod like that for is as a filler rod. To do that you weld like normal but feed in the 2rod rod by hand so the weld your doing melts the 2nd rod and fills in large gaps in metal. Be sure you have gloves on if you do that or you can get a deadly zap
 
6010 and 6011 rod should not be dried in the oven what ever the daily humidity is works best for them. If you are not sure of the moisture content do as puddles suggested.
As far as the 7018 goes they are a crap shoot. After seeing Puddles weld test on 7018 out of the oven and 7018 out of a long opened box, for a critical weld put them in the oven. If it is not critical you can always weld it again.
 

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