Thanks for the kind words :). I have been working on a bigger testing video to really compare things. It will be a few weeks before its done but it will be worth it. I think everyone (myself included) will gain a lot of insights and make better decisions because of the video.

Surprised with a preheat it still didn’t get it. 3/8 plate definitely likes to make a mockery of amperage though 😅.

I 100% agree and that would undoubtedly work.

I will be testing JB weld pretty soon, it will be interesting to see how strong it actually is lol.

No problem 😀. Glad to hear you had some success with building some stuff, that’s the best part of welding 😀. I should do a video on making a rebar bender, that’s a handy thing to have.

It’s strange how random bugs can happen lol. I have had excellent reliability thus far so it’s strange when something totally out of the norm happens. Kind of like when your reliable vehicle randomly doesn’t start with no warning lol.

That’s awesome you planned on doing some testing with your boys, that’s the fun part about welding 😀. It also shows that cut corners and poor welds aren’t strong lol. That’s Interesting that the 312 failed. If both welds were the same size with same prep, it’s hard to say why. 312 actually has quite a bit of ductility, although er70 has higher elongation in test results. It could be a simple case where the slightly better ductility of the er70 was enough to make a difference. It could also be a issue where the weld reacted with oxygen with the 312 and produced undesirable defects (carbides, poor grain structure, etc). I rarely weld 17-4 but when I have I used 308 filler and a preheat based on thickness. I have never had a 17-4 weld crack on me, but I haven’t welded that much of it lol.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg 17-4 welds excellent with 309 or 312. In fact, I broke a Chinese made 3/4” breaker handle (attempting to disassemble hydraulic cylinders).....so I machined a piece of 17-4 for the 3/4” driver, & then used 309 to join it to a 2" piece of scrap shaft that conveniently fits inside of a 12Ft cheater pipe. I've put a tremendous amount of force on it, & the 17-4 head and the 309 weld have held up great so far. Back to the clay spade joint: I really believe that something in the clay spade steel made the 312 joint brittle; but the prep was different as well. I had originally machined M/F matching tapers, to preserve alignment. On the ER70 joint, I added weld to the spade portions, then drilled/tapped to accept a 5/16" bolt in both sides (for security and alignment). Fully welded from the bolt out to the 1-1/2" diameter. My boys really enjoy welding.....I just thought the testing of different rods/processes and their strengths would be a slick way to trick them into learning something...😉 They're at the tender age where learning, best occurs when they least expect it. 😂

I will have to find some of those for a upcoming welding cast iron and hard to weld metals 👍

Look forward to it ,, I have used there 7018 and 6010 equivalent and was not disappointed 👍

I definitely will be testing that In a upcoming video. I 100% think a real solid preheat would solve the porosity issue. I also picked up a dual shield wire to try and I am happy that has 100% solved the porosity issue when welding thick plate.

When preheating using a standard MAP/Propane gas torch for that very reason, obviously too little heat has minimal benefits, but is there a limit of too much heat that is attainable when using small MAP/Propane torches. I think it would definitely be easy to change the properties of the base metal like Annealing or Hardening (and rate of cooling/quenching) at critical temps?

@@makingmistakeswithgreg nice...look forward to the video. hope you are well and i appreciate greatly your educational and informative videos. thank you

Without a doubt you are onto something with that idea. My preferred method on this task would be 312 or 309 stainless with tig, it would likely exceed the performance of the methods I used. They do make stick rods here called “the problem solver” that are variations of 312 stainless. They are incredibly strong and not susceptible carbon pickup (which causes the weld to be brittle).

Many years ago we had a situation on a structural steel building frame where we had to weld A410 high strength bolts to beam flanges, through trial and error we determined that a preheat to 250 degrees C and the use of 312 SS rods was the best expedient field method. Great video Greg, as per usual.

The method using a preheat and 312 makes total sense to me that would have came out as a solid option. The 312 can handle a lot of carbon absorption without becoming brittle, it has a tremendous tensile strength near 110K with a yield near 80K, and it is well known to handle welding dissimilar metals. I have a stash of 312 tig rod and it can be a life saver. Its cool to hear actual testing that showed the validity of 312.

Hi Greg, 312 SS is used more often than one may think, in the field. we used it for joining dis-similar materials and when a proper preheat could not be achieved. If 312 was less costly I am sure we would see it used even more.@@makingmistakeswithgreg

The test isn’t designed to be accurate to the ftlbs, it’s designed to be comparatively accurate to itself. I actually tested a straight one vs the one in the video and they were almost identical on a torque wrench calibrator. The reason it’s bent is because I had an issue with the straight one running out of travel room unfortunately.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg Firstly, I would like to apologize as most likely my explanation is unclear due to my lacking language knowledge (my native language is not English). So back to the topic. I do understand that there were limitations but what I tried to explain that due to two factors these series of measurements are very limitedly suitable as comparison between themself. Factor 1: Because of the angle between the bar and the wrench handle this measurement setup is sensitive to the change of the angle of attack (I believe this is an aviation term, I don't know if it is right here). Basically what I wanted to say is: Your leverage is from the slot in the bar to the end of the wrench handle. A force exerted in an angle of 90 degrees to this line will create the biggest torque that force can create (on the slot of the bar). For the sake of illustration lets assume that between the bar and the wrench handle there are 90 degrees (they are perpendicular to each other). In this case if you exert a force perpendicular to the wrench handle (parallel to the bar) you will get torque on the sensor but not on the slot of the bar. If you exert force parallel to the wrench handle (perpendicular to the bar) you will have torque on the slot of the bar but not on the sensor. An uncertain amount of angle will create an uncertain amount of sensitivity to the angle of the force. Factor 2: As far as I was able to determine, the angle wasn't the same through the series of measurements (see Factor 1).

Since I have a giant bag of bolts I think I will do that. The hard part is I think the nut or threads would strip before the bolt would pull off. I will have to do a test later in the week and see what happens. I want to have a way to take actual measurements so we can all compare strength, I will have to figure that out.

Which ESAB rod are you running? I am not exactly sure why but esab makes no less than 4 different 7018s. They make the atom arc, the prime, a generic one sold as a sureweld, and then another one that is sold at specific retailers. Their 7018 prime is my go to 7018, the rest of the other ones are ok (the atom arc is pretty good). I wonder if you bought their retail packaged one. In the past I have bought the 7018 Hobart that’s generic (available at box stores) and that sucker would stick on me exactly like you described. Even with hot start and high arc force it was a sticky bastard lol.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg I bought it at Northern Tool and it’s the generic one you called Sureweld E7018 and this one will not run on my machine.

@@michaelmusson3593 definitely give the 7018 prime a shot. I do like Esabs sureweld 6010 but there sureweld 7018 is definitely not the best. The 7018 prime has a graphite tip which makes starts easy and it just seems to run super consistent.

@@makingmistakeswithgreg thanks I’ll give it a try

If @cptnbond reads: are you using the Parkside PMSG 200? If yes it has a nice lift TIG-Option. With a cheap TIG-torch, an "one-way" Argon-Bottle and some SG2 ER 70 rods you could get away with approx 100€ to Tig weld this. That welder puts out 200 Amps in TIG-mode.

Great thoughts. Flux core wire tends to be brittle and has limited ductility. It’s actually fairly well known to have failures in high impact force tests. That is why they make specific flux core wires for high impact toughness requirements, and other specific uses. The strength of the flux core is good, but I don’t believe that welding bolts to thick plate (like in the video) will be possible to do with porosity free welds due to how the process works. Even if the surface is clean I would highly suspect internal porosity. Obviously the test did not cover impact testing, but a fairly brittle weld (made worse via absorption of the bolt alloy) combined with even a small amount of porosity would have to be a 100% recipe for failure with a impact.

I always stumble over the differences in standards between Europe and the US. For a application like this i would use 12.9 bolts cause of their high ductility (I personally know these from agricultural machinery such as plowshartes where 8.8 would schear of or break in a matter of minutes to few hours) but i dont think it's a good idea to weld this kind of Material. Drilling through the plate, countersink the holes from the back (would leave about 8mm of Material) using allenkey-bolts and bolted down from top with nut and spring-washer would do the job. To lock the bolts in place i imagine one could use Cusi3 (is it siloliconbronze?) to prevend the bolt from spinning and avoid creating a creepy alloy. It is way of the given prerequisites - just my thoughts.

​@@makingmistakeswithgregmany thanks!

@@sebastianleicht I use my Migatronic 161, a Danish-designed multiprocess welder capable of about 160A. There is an option to add a TIG-torch, but I have not yet purchased it. Cheers.

That definitely could be done, the one issue it could present is the bolt is pretty small in diameter. Welding directly to the the shank will affect the strength of the bolt far more than welding to the head. The head didn’t get that hot but the shaft would get red hot welding on it due to a lack of heat sink. When I grab a shop press I will have to screw around with a test to see how much a difference it makes.

When I built my previous anvil stand, I just welded 3/8 all thread to a 3/8 plate. It stood up to heavy use for a few years. They were done with a Titanium 125. On my new stand, I drilled and welded a grade 5 nut on the back side. You don't really need high strength hardware for an anvil.

So I only used the 6011 and 7018 because those were the options given by the viewer question. In the future I will do a actual strength comparison video with rods to get a better idea of performance. 6013 would likely have been right in the mix with all the results. It has medium penetration and in that specific test likely wouldn’t perform much worse than 7018.

Stick with 7018, 7014, and 6013 rods with that welder. I own the 100$ Hone welder and it won’t run 6010, is rough welding with 6011.

So I actually tested tig and shot a fast video on it that I should have up tomorrow (I left my camera and phone at the shop by accident so I couldnt upload it tonight lol). I suspected that tig strength would be fairly consistent and how strong it was would be based on the weld size. Both of those were proven correct.

With regard to weld strength, when welding something that requires better penetration or joint strength, can Beveling one or more of the surfaces improve joint strength/penetration similar to like they do for thick plate or pipes and Hooks do. Sometimes, I think it could be very beneficial to grind even a small bevel when joining thicker materials, especially on welding process with low penetration like MIG or 7018 etc.

I would agree, the preheat should be enough to make it work. No preheat I bet it will break like my wrong polarity MiG weld lol.

Very few people have such a thing and many people have welders. Obviously if someone needs to do a bunch of them or production work a threaded stud welder would be the way to go.