rate of speed 1/8 inch rod melts?

by henry harris
(atlanta ga.)

I am a student at the Center for Industry and Technology. I am trying to find out how much or how fast the base metal and the electrode metal melts per amperage (heat). My root passes are either too heavy or too light to pass certification. If I could get an idea about how fast the arc melts the metal, I believe I would do better on my root passes.

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Henry,

interesting question.
It would seem logically that at a given amperage, a stick welding rod would burn at a certain rate.

but arc length plays a role too.

my best advice is the next time you hit the sweet spot. i mean lay in the best root ever, and you just know things went well, do some tests and take some notes.

here is the test.

mark a line 3 inches from the tip of a new rod using a sharpie.

either with a stopwatch or by counting seconds...
thousand one , thousand two.

count how many seconds it takes to burn 3 inches of rod....and write it down.

also write down your gap, land, and bevel angle.

next time you prepare for a root on a strange machine, this will come in handy...all you need to do is adjust the amperage until you duplicate what you wrote in your notes and your amperage will be really close to what worked.

make sense?

thanks for posting,

jody