>Can't get an arc half the time>Other half immediately get my rod stuck to the work surfaceWhy is this shit so hard? Especially when all my advice is just>Here watch you just have got to get a feel for it bro
My only advice is turn up the amps or if you want, intentionally stick the rod for a few seconds to warm it up. It lights off easier when the rod itself is warm.
Just git gud son...
>>28773762youre too heavy handed like most of the gorillas in the field
>>28773762The fuck do you want us to say? Keep practicing until you get a feel for it, faggot.
>>28773762your amps are too low, you have too short of an arc, and/or you're striking it like a retard. just keep practicing.
>>28773762>Why is this shit so hard?I've never found stick welding hard at all. Just strike the arc and maintain appropriate distance.I think doodling all the time helps with control, especially with all the whiteboards I've vandalized over the years of public school
>>28773762I tried arc welding several times, and had the same frustrating experience you're describing, before giving up and just getting a cheap wire feed. shelved the arc welder, I'll learn wire feed first and hopefully some of it translates to arc welding.
>>28773811Supposedly starting with MIG is more likely to teach you bad habits, whereas if you can lay a decent bead with a stick welder you can do the same with a MIG.Not that you're likely to be using stick on cars anyway, it's almost all MIG and TIG.
>>28773762You'll get it.>arc length>angle>speed
>>28773811I don't get how you guys get dressed in the morning.Arc is actually the most braindead type of welding possible. Even retards can do it with minimal teaching
>>28773762You fucking what?T. Migger
>>28773881The fuck kind of pigeon shit is that?
>>28773855the minimal teaching i got was "just strike it like a match bro, it's ez"but when i do that it gets stuck.
>>28773896>the minimal teaching i got was "just strike it like a match bro, it's ez"I got a similar guideline when I was taught. Old boomers aren't great at instruction. What I tend to do is:>drag fast enough not to stick (strike like match)>sustain electrical arc back where i want to start>don't lift too much>melt a pool and start weldingI usually don't drag more than two inches before I return back to where I want to start welding.
>>28773762Strike your arc away from your joint by dragging it across the metal then quickly move it where you want to weld while it's still hot
>>28773917This works for me. 10000 hours in mspaint
what would battery welding be? mig or tig? am complete weldlet so i dunno if it's completely different to the latter two etc.
>>28773965Arc because there is no inert gas (the "IG" in MIG and TIG)
>/o/ - Auto
>be prime Minister of Australia >Doing bullshit politician stuff>Rich boy useless cunt>Photo OP>Pic relatedMakes me kek hard every time I think about it
>>28773762Keep a small rock on your surface, and knock the flux of the end when you need to restart the arcIts a trick for suckers, but it works.
>>28774024holy fuck how did i miss this, i can't stop giggling like a retardhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVFSvw1V1sI
>>28773762>>>/diy/
>>28773762Unless you're doing something very specialized, MIG and TIG welding is vastly better than stick..t TIG certified for Aircraft
>>28774133Stick is only good for welding fat bars together outdoors, that's about it.
>>28773814Stick is an ancient art form that is relegated to heavy construction- and even that is being replaced by MIG in ship building and pipelines.It has no place in the future and spending time on learning it today is an absolute waste of resources.
>>28774018Ill take "flux core" for $200, Alex.
>>28774018ty famalam
>>28774204Lol no stick is never going away. It's too cheap, simple, and versatile. It's nowhere near as common as it used to be, but it's never going to disappear and if you're just a hobbyist, stick is probably the best decision.
no one's mentioned this but it could be your rods too. i learned to stick weld with 7018s that i didn't store correctly (if you just open them and leave them exposed to air they absorb moisture and won't be good anymore) and had the same problems as you. then i got some 6011s and life became a lot easier.
Striking the arc is one of two things they had us grind at welding school, the other was rows of straight beads. Just one of those things you have to do over and over to get consistently right.
>>28774204I just took a basic welding class as a required part of a community college machining program. It was half stick, half MIG, and the instructors all acted like it was an absolute atrocity that there was anything but stick involved, and they're going to change that class back to pure stick next fall. Absolutely insane if you ask me, maybe that'd make sense for welding majors, but it's a required class for auto tech, machining, and even electrician programs, and having them waste their sole semester of welding on a technique they'll probably never use while taking away the thing that might actually be relevant to the job is pants on head retarded. They're not even boomers either, my teacher is 38, actually a little over a year younger than me, and the program head is probably only mid-40s too.
>>28774207Lol yeah go apply to a structual welding job with your heckin basederino hf flux core experience
>>28774044eh, there's enough crossover between the two and I imagine there are more people with welding experience browsing this board
>>28774204Stick is versatile as all hell. Great for welding dirty steel in sub-optimal conditions. It will never go away.
>>28773762Check the required amperage on the box of electrodes.
>>28775339under water too
>>28774519Theres also a lot of crossover with cars and busses, but its inappropriate to post busses here.Moots pissed, and mods are fed up
>it's "I can't weld stick but I can point and click the hot glue gun"I like to use the term "weld operator"
>>28775596Stick is used in zero (0) high performance applications.
>>28775691touch grass anon
>>28775728He's right thoughMig and tig are all you'll find outside of farmers with 60 year old buzz boxes.
>>28773773TPBPTickle it rather than slam it
>>28775691>Stick is used in zero (0) high performance applications.What are we calling high performance? Like pipelines to transport millions of gallons of oil across long distances? Seems kinda high performance to me.
>>28775767Let's use some context cluesWe're on an automotive enthusiast board talking about welds used in high performance applications WHAT COULD HE MEAN????
Want me to show you some stick welds I did on a gooseneck hitch mount for my pickup? How about some on the flatbed I'm fixing up for it? Those are both going to be more high performance than anything you faggots have ever built.
>>28776645God damn you're so fucking stupid
just get a mig bro
>>28776645yes show us
>>28773881>T.Nigger
>stick welding in 2026literally why. it's probably the rod ur using, some are hard to strike. you should also bake them in the oven to dry them out.
>>28776645>Those are both going to be more high performance than anything you faggots have ever built.You can believe what you want
>>28777719>Implying your little cage couldn't possibly be stick welded. My farm equipment I repair will see more stress on it than that ever will
>>28777963Your farm equipment is made of 3/4" plate or something like that. Nobody disputes that stick is appropriate for that kind of thing. Trying to get clean welds with consistent penetration around the 1/8" cage tubing would be a totally different story, especially because that cage is cromoly, which is somewhere between nightmarish and impossible to stick weld. Stick still has its applications (even if flux core is eating some of them nowadays) but it's way less relevant to a normal automotive mechanic than MIG.
>>28775767>Like pipelinesLiterally transitioning to MIG.Like other anon said, stick is a relic of a bygone era- being kept alive by poor rednecks and farmers. Its "adequate" for plate steel when tolerances are measured in feet.My chassis' went through x-ray inspection before they hit the track. You'll never pass using stick on 7/8" .080 tubing.
Stick is simple and cheap and if you git gud with stick you're gud with a TIG.
>>28773762skill issueyou should be ashamed. welding is like one rung above working at mcdonalds.
>>28773762Those fancy inverter machines do help a lot in this case, and your rod quality is important too. Welding with those ancient transformer tombstones takes some experience
