Rod Oven Temperatures

[donswheel]

AWS recommends rod oven temperature to maintain low hydrogen rods, 7018, 8018, etc, at approximately 250 degrees F. The shop welders are reporting to me, QA Manager, that at that temperature the rod flux is very unstable and falls off the rod. Just touching the flux causes separation from the rod. Are we interpreting the recommendations wrong?
Thanks

[ksmeggy]

I would think you may have a bad batch of rods. What color are they? Do they look mottled, splotchy?

I've had my troubles with 7018s in the past, I now store open boxes with all my other rods, but I run them through my (regular house) oven's 'clean' cycle the night before I'm going to use them. Hardly ideal, I know, but it works and I haven't had trouble with flux just falling off the rod.

[arandall]

I would think you may have a bad batch of rods. What color are they? Do they look mottled, splotchy?

I've had my troubles with 7018s in the past, I now store open boxes with all my other rods, but I run them through my (regular house) oven's 'clean' cycle the night before I'm going to use them. Hardly ideal, I know, but it works and I haven't had trouble with flux just falling off the rod.

Ksmeggy:

Lucky man. - If I put my rods in the wife's oven, I'm pretty sure I'd be sleeping in the shop along with my projects.

Cheers,
Art R.

[matteh99]

I had a box of 7018 rod shipped to me and around a quarter of them had missing flux on the end. I call the place I got them from and they said they have trouble shipping 7018 because the flux does come off easy. It seemed like on my rods once a crack started it kept going so I would just be very careful loading them.

The 7018 rods I got were from lincoln and the box said to put them in a oven at something like 650 degrees for a short period of time and then store them at another temperature. I can't remember the exact numbers but 250 doesn't seem to high.

[ksmeggy]

Ksmeggy:

Lucky man. - If I put my rods in the wife's oven, I'm pretty sure I'd be sleeping in the shop along with my projects.

Cheers,
Art R.

Well, it's a temporary solution, as I happen to be in a little window of opportunity here (ex-wife gone, new gf hasn't moved in yet).

The new gf has said she wants a double oven for entertaining, Christmas dinner, etc. There may be some negotiating over that.

[donswheel]

Thanks all: Wife's oven is out of the question also my problem is the AWS spec is part of the QA welding procedures and processes and the rod oven is a part of that. Without an alternate oven spec or welding rod, I'm stuck.

[ksmeggy]

I suggest trying a different manufacturer for the rods. The specs I've seen are 250-400 degrees F for storage, rods good for less than 4 hours after opening the package. Of course if the package wasn't well sealed when you got it, the rods have to be cooked at 500-600 degrees (in stages; warm-up, hold for +1hr at temp, cool-down), and you can only do this 2-3 times before the rods have to be scrapped.

I find mine are dark gray before (when they've absorbed humidity), and mottled after cooking, and a little more fragile than they were fresh out of the box. Of course this depends on things like atmospheric humidity, temperature when welding, etc. If you're having trouble, the two obvious solutions are to increase the temp of your holding oven, and cook them according to your manufacturer's specs. But there must be differences between different makers in the composition of the flux, some are probably better suited to your shop's conditions than others, so experiment?