Storage conditions of the welding consumables:
1) Environmental temperature should be over 10℃ and relative humidity should be under 60%.
2) Sort them out according to their models and diameters
3) Be careful in moving and avoid hurting the flux coating of welding rods and spools of the wires.
4) Don’t stack them for too high
5) Welding consumables should be raised up and at least 0.3m away from the walls to avoid getting damp.
Receivings of the welding consumables:
1) Don’t receive more welding consumables than half a day dosage.
2) The welding rods should be kept in insulation bucket before using
3) Welding wires can’t be left on the welding machines overnight, cover them with canvas if necessary.
4) Don’t expose the re-dried welding flux to humid air in moving them.
Bad effects of the humid welding consumables:
Welding rods:
Appearance: welding rods will get darker after getting damp, no crisp metal sound can be heard when they collide. White crystallization on the flux coating may be found.
Weldability: More spatter, strong arc force, undercut, incomplete slag coverage and difficult slag removal, porosity or cracks in the weldbead may be found
The means to distinguish humid welding consumables:
1, If porosity, too much spatter and flux coating peeling off are observed, consider humid welding consumables and re-dry them.
2, Take some welding rods and shake them in your hand, crisp metal sound can be heard if the welding rods are dry. Otherwise they are humid and need to be dried.
3, Take one piece of rod, bend it slowly to 120 degrees, if no serious flux coating peeling off are observed, the electrodes are good for using.
4, Rust and not bright surface can be observed if flux cored wires are humid. The vacuum packaging may be not complete.
Drying of welding consumables:
1) Welding rods should be dried before using. While drying the electrodes, make them scattered (≤3 layers) to ensure each piece be dried properly and the moisture can escape quickly.
Only one re-drying can be done, more dryings may make the flux coating peel off or lose the protective functions.
2) Humid flux cored wires can be dried in low temperature (50-60 ℃ for at least 8 hours). Seriously humid wires should be re-dried when top 2-3 layers of wires are used. Too high temperature may damage the plastic spools and bring wire feed problems.
“Expired” welding consumables
So called “expired” doesn’t refer to those welding consumables which have been storaged for a long period of time, but refer to those whose quality have changed to some extent.
Welding rods- After being storaged for a long time, there may be white dots on the flux coating, this is caused by water glass, and the white dots are not harmful to the welding performance, but they are the signs that the electrodes are very damp.
1) Dry these damp electrodes in oven under a certain temperature and test their weldability. They are good for using if there are no porosity / more spatter / flux coating peeling off can be observed. The mechanical properties can be assured in this situation
2) Slight rust in the core rod doesn’t influence the welding performance. But they are not suitable for very-demanding welding jobs any more.
3) If there are severe rust in the core rod, the electrodes can be used downgraded. And mechanical properties testings should be carried out before deciding if they are good for using.
