Warning: That guy who said to always preheat the rod oven for 2 hours straight? Ignore him.

Worked with a veteran named Dave on a job in Newark last week, he swore double time on the rod oven would stop hydrogen cracking. I let the rods bake that long and they came out brittle as hell, snapped mid-weld on a 15 foot vessel. Anyone else get burned by bad oven advice from the old heads?

2 comments

2 Comments

parker_patel841mo ago

Double time" probably melted the flux coating off those rods, that's all.

river_fox181mo ago

Did you ever run across those cheap Chinese rods that feel like the flux is just kind of glued on? I had a whole box of them fall apart on me one time, the coating flaking off like old paint before I even struck an arc. Kept thinking I was doing something wrong but nope, just bad flux that couldn't handle any sort of heat.