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Up Topic Welding Industry / Metallurgy / Unmarked Welding Wire Identification
- - By hunterisawesome Date 10-26-2017 11:00 Edited 10-26-2017 11:36
Last year I purchased 150 spools of .045 flux core welding wire from a government surplus auction. Every spool had the identification stickers scratched off, and I have no idea how to further identity the wire. I was wondering, is there a way to identify the wire more specifically?

Some properties of the wire:

1.15mm thick
Attracted by magnet

Photos:

Parent - - By 803056 (*****) Date 10-26-2017 12:26
Wow! Ouch, all at the same time.

If it is 0.045 inch diameter it is most likely gas shielded flux cored wire. If it is carbon steel, it is most likely E71T-1 and can be used with CO2.

The best you can do is qualify a procedure to establish the welding parameters, perform the bend test and tensile tests, and then send out an all-weld metal sample to determine the deposited chemistry.

The problem is, you don't even know whether the electrode is from the same manufacturer or the same lot. So, you still cannot confirm it is all the same.

I hope you have plenty of noncode work to use it on.

Al
Parent - - By Lawrence (*****) Date 10-26-2017 12:36 Edited 10-26-2017 12:39
Welcome to the forum Hunter

Ouch indeed...  6,000 lbs. of pain

caveat emptor

You said it was a government auction...  The government always has a paper trail...  It might take an special commission on welding wire to get to it though...   I would try to go back to the seller and make more effort to get traceability...  They have it.
Parent - - By jwright650 (*****) Date 10-26-2017 13:35 Edited 10-26-2017 13:38
I bet Lawrence is right...they have the paperwork on that wire....now, if they will put forth the effort to dig into their files to find it is another story.

edit: oh man, I just realized that you said "last year". Best of luck!
Parent - - By Lawrence (*****) Date 10-26-2017 15:56
They keep the welding wire data right next to the Russian uranium data.

It's all metal right?
Parent - By jwright650 (*****) Date 10-26-2017 22:00
Oh man, that sounds like a Hillary joke.....
Parent - - By hunterisawesome Date 10-27-2017 10:25
Thanks for the advice. All of the spools appear to be identical at first glance, but we use it on misc non-code work. But 150 rolls for $35, I'm not complaining :lol:
Parent - - By jwright650 (*****) Date 10-27-2017 10:59
yup, that is a bargain :cool:
Parent - By 803056 (*****) Date 10-27-2017 12:00
The question of the hour is, "How does it run?"

Al
Up Topic Welding Industry / Metallurgy / Unmarked Welding Wire Identification

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