Stick welding a thing of the past.

[Gearhead]

I have been looking all over for a REASONABLY priced used welder/generator. I have been picking up some extra jobs from local farmers. Went to numerous welding supply stores and have asked about the prices of stick welder/generators. Just about everyone of the sales reps have told me the stick welding process has run its course and will be something in the past, everything is going in the wire welding direction. I have a Lincolin 215 and a Millermatic 200 both are fine machines, but I don't want to haul them out in a field to fix farm machinery. Has anyone else heard that Arc welding is being phased out....

[Flywheel]

Originally Posted by Gearhead

I have been looking all over for a REASONABLY priced used welder/generator. I have been picking up some extra jobs from local farmers. Went to numerous welding supply stores and have asked about the prices of stick welder/generators. Just about everyone of the sales reps have told me the stick welding process has run its course and will be something in the past, everything is going in the wire welding direction. I have a Lincolin 215 and a Millermatic 200 both are fine machines, but I don't want to haul them out in a field to fix farm machinery. Has anyone else heard that Arc welding is being phased out....

I have noticed that wire welding is becoming more popular as more and more people get into hobby welding, etc...but for low cost farm work that has all kinds of different needs, I think you'd be hard pressed to beat a stick...

[lotechman]

Welding with stick electrodes will always be around but for production work it is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Many/most larger portable welding machines as well as larger power supplies have a SMAW ( constant current)option on their current selection. My guess is that any unit that only provides CC will be out of production in another ten years.

[DDA52]

I severely doubt that it will ever be phased out. Yes, it is declining, but it has way too many places where it shines much brighter than wire. Try scaling the side of a building with a feeder. Been there and it would never work. Too much weight and bulk.

I too am guilty of the wire deal. My Bobcat runs more wire than rods now. I bet I have used all of 2 pounds of 7018's this year. Wire...now that is a different animal. Gonna maybe burn a few pounds of wire today, too.


And FWIW....never listen to sales reps. I have too many that think they are God's gift to welding...but have never struck an arc.

[Roy Hodges]

I think a lot of those salesmen are NOTHING more than "SALESMEN". think they're too good to soil their hands. And would be down the street tomorrow , selling shoes , if they could get 50 cents/hour more. I usually pay little attention to what they say, unless i know they was a weldor.

[zapster]

stick welding will NEVER be "replaced" in my honest opinion...

if you do what i do on a regular basis then sometimes stick is the only way..

we fix stuff that will never be clean enough no matter what you do ...

so...
200 amps will suffice...

...zap!

[Pat the Welder]

Absolutely, sometimes you physically can't get at the piece with a wire gun, it has to be stick. Having said that, in a production environment it is being phased out.

The rep gets more commission selling MIG anyways

[bcreely]

A very well known tank welding outfit worked in our plant this year on a 17 ft diameter vacuum vessel splicing in a new section to make it taller.
I was quite surprised the entire repair was done with stick electrode as it seemed to be an ideal candidate for a mechanized feeder.
The reason I was given was the required quality could not be guaranteed if his welders used feeders. (old metal/new metal, fit up, and possibility of trapping slag, lots of out of position welding in a very dusty and dirty environment)
This tank required 4 weldors per shift on back to back 12 hour shifts using 5/32" electrodes, welding 1" rolled plate around the circumference, 100% welds in 2 places, back gouged and re-welded.
If stick welding is fading out, no one told these guys, they did an excellent job and in record time. We lost no production time with this outage. I still am very impressed.

[Roy Hodges]

Am i right in assuming this vessel was upright , so as to weld horizontally ? I think i can see why they "sticked" it .

[TxRedneck]

Ok, heres my stance. First off, Gearhead, what part of the world do you live in? Second, TIG aint going nowhere, neither is stick. But more importantly tig aint. If you cant rid yourself of TIG you cant rid yourself of CC because TIG runs on CC. Now, one may project that the consumables would no longer be offered. Yet this will never happen, and if it did, one must remember there was a time when we had non-coated rods. Yes, stick wont go anywhere. However, I was told back in 2001 by a reliable source, the poundage of SMAW consumables, while one of the smaller groups of all consumables, is greater than it was back in the 30's and 40's when stick welding was the king of welding. If the poundage of smaw is greater now than back in the 40's how in the world are we gonna loose it.
THere are other issues, like you ever get into a discussion with JTMcC, Mr McCracken will tell you about the disadvantages of wire in the cases on the pipelines when they tried to say its faster and just as good for cheaper than smaw. Well they have had a lot of welding repairs, enough to really question the cost of the faster process and the consumables. Anway, enough ramblings. Stick wont go nowhere IMHO its here to stay

[mla2ofus]

Always remember how to tell when ANY salesman is lying: WHEN HIS LIPS MOVE!!!!
Mike

[FearcityINC]

Even if stick were to go.....I would hold on tight...I love stickin'. Theres something about a nice 6010 run, just making it do WHATEVER you want it to. It's a beautiful thing.

[billie_]

mud..oil...grease...stick it....in the field under the combine scabbing a shaft together so you can keep going till the replacement comes in the morning...stick...you couldn't get a gun in there to save your life

my old hobart with the willies jeep engine or my newer linchon 250 never sit idle too long...stick will be here longer than you and i

[Tailshaft56]

Stick will dissappear when it cost too much to make the electrodes except production would just get moved to china. LOL I guess stick will be here for long time. You might try Home Depot for a cheap engine drive stick welder. they had a Lincoln for $750 a while back.

[SSBN727]

"Stick" welding will ALWAYS be needed for obvious reasons, and for not so obvious reasons... For instance, and Roy could probably vouch for me on this: Has any one tried to perform "mirror" welding in any possible circumstance with a MIG gun? You may be able to get away with welding with one mirror if there's enough space to jam in the gun but ,most of the time when you need a mirror to weld or repair, you do'nt have the luxury!!! Do'nt even think about trying MIG when welding with more than one mirror!!! For me it's either "Stick" or TIG if a "mirror" repair has to done on pipe that was previously TIG welded.

The real motive behind all this BS coming from these sales people is because there is much more "after" initial power source sale - profit margin for these MIG/Flux cored "pushers"!!! Think about the gases, the contact tips, the anti-spatter compounds and all the other "accessories" that these "actors" push on you by stating that: "you're definitely gonna need to use a Tri mix if you want to minimize or even eliminate spatter around your welds but just in case, here's some really inexpensive anti-spatter gel or spray to ensure your welds to be spatter free!!!" Well - if you fall for that line of "Elephant Dung" then, you need to visit Ed Craig's website: http://www.weldreality.com in order to get "educated" about the real facts, myths, advantages, disadvantages, applications and limitations with respect to the MIG/flux cored welding processes.

Man!!! I could go on and on but, why bother???
SMAW otherwise known as "Stick" welding is and will always be here in this world!!! As far as out of this world goes, who knows?

Respectfully,
SSBN727

[TxRedneck]

And to reiterate from what has been asked in the past, stick-smaw is also called MMA. I do believe its manual metal arc. They all mean the same. They can be used equally. Though not all folks will identify with all of these terms, they are all correct.

[SSBN727]

Hey TxRedneck!
Yeppers! "MMA" is the old British or BS, currently the EN designation for stick welding these days.

Respectfully,
SSBN727

[wello]

Originally Posted by TxRedneck

And to reiterate from what has been asked in the past, stick-smaw is also called MMA. I do believe its manual metal arc. They all mean the same. They can be used equally. Though not all folks will identify with all of these terms, they are all correct.

when I started out 28yrs back it was called MMA I still call it that or stick
stick will be here for ever the only down side as we have found at work beside's us older fella's its getting hard to find welders that know how to do it properly we don't use it alot but when we do its for something important .Its taking a back seat at Tech collage over here and I think thats wrong anyone can use a mig but it takes skill to use a stick properly

[wirehunt]

We've got these wire welder's at work ATM I'm unimpressed, on 60" pipe it takes twice as long to weld than with stick But I must admit it makes us look good

Stick is going no where, in fact it's becoming more sort after because there's a lot the wire CAN'T do, just get it out into the field and take a look, but avoid doing tie-in's with it.


Stephen

[gnm109]

As a "hobby welder", I look for opportunities to use and practice stick welding. There's someting nice about a well-done bead stick bead. I also like the fact that there's no expensive shielding gas required. Pretty hard combination to beat for my little projects.

I also have TIG, MIG and O-A but I have the most fun with stick.

[Roy Hodges]

gnm109 ITTO ! i mean , i feel the same way & how did that stupid face get in here ? (i did not put it in )

[Roy Hodges]

Originally Posted by SSBN727

"Stick" welding will ALWAYS be needed for obvious reasons, and for not so obvious reasons... For instance, and Roy could probably vouch for me on this: Has any one tried to perform "mirror" welding in any possible circumstance with a MIG gun? You may be able to get away with welding with one mirror if there's enough space to jam in the gun but ,most of the time when you need a mirror to weld or repair, you do'nt have the luxury!!! Do'nt even think about trying MIG when welding with more than one mirror!!! For me it's either "Stick" or TIG if a "mirror" repair has to done on pipe that was previously TIG welded.

The real motive behind all this BS coming from these sales people is because there is much more "after" initial power source sale - profit margin for these MIG/Flux cored "pushers"!!! Think about the gases, the contact tips, the anti-spatter compounds and all the other "accessories" that these "actors" push on you by stating that: "you're definitely gonna need to use a Tri mix if you want to minimize or even eliminate spatter around your welds but just in case, here's some really inexpensive anti-spatter gel or spray to ensure your welds to be spatter free!!!" Well - if you fall for that line of "Elephant Dung" then, you need to visit Ed Craig's website: http://www.weldreality.com in order to get "educated" about the real facts, myths, advantages, disadvantages, applications and limitations with respect to the MIG/flux cored welding processes.

Man!!! I could go on and on but, why bother???
SMAW otherwise known as "Stick" welding is and will always be here in this world!!! As far as out of this world goes, who knows?

Respectfully,
SSBN727

I have not welded on pipe with a mirror , but i have used a mirror many times on a sub (in a sub) - no way could i imagine using anything else besides stick- that was more than difficult enough. I had a time in the mud tank of a fast attack boat , with a mirror, in a place so tight , that i told my boss, "i can do 1/2 of it -right handed , then you need to get a left handed guy to weld the last half". Boss agreed , & that way , we got it done .

[MAC702]

Originally Posted by Roy Hodges

how did that stupid face get in here ? (i did not put it in )

The shortcut for that smilie is the colon followed by the capital D letter. I get a stupid smilie everytime I grammatically correctly put a colon or comma before a closing parenthesis, too, so I have to purposely put it afterwards.

[MAC702]

Originally Posted by Roy Hodges

... i told my boss, "i can do 1/2 of it -right handed , then you need to get a left handed guy to weld the last half". ...

I've been there...

Working by myself...

[TxRedneck]

howdy ssbn good to see ya friend