Washington Alloy E7028 3/16"

By lhp2 Date 04-01-2007 14:38

Does anyone have any experience with the rod above?

We've been using it recently since Lincoln has quit making their 7028 and I have to say results have been mixed. Most of the time, the rod works great. However, on occasion, everybody gets theses really weird, giant holes in the top of their fillet. These holes are big, like you could fit a 1/8 rod into it, not looking like standard porosity. It won't matter how fast/slow you travel, no matter what, seemingly at random they appear. I know for myself, I'm not holding any kind of an arc on this thing, just dragging it along the base metal. Also, if you try to try to fill in an existing crater, sometimes the weld over the crater will be severely deformed, it almost looks like twisted die cast metal.

Some more info I can share on heat/polarity settings... We've been running this rod on AC at about 250A. Since I had some nice, thick steel I was working with I jacked my amperage up to 300A just to see if it would help, but still I ended up with some of those holes, though not as bad. I know some guys are having more trouble with this rod than others, and I seem to be doing ok with it most of the time, just odd that on 1 outta 10 welds I get these strange holes.

Any advice or experience with this rod would help. Also, if you were using 7028 from Lincoln, what are you all using now that it's so rare? And if you happen to read this post jwright, any news on Lincoln's 7028? I got an email saying they were reformulating their 7028 to use some of the Excalibur formula but not to epect any soon...

quote:

Louis:

As I understand it, the E7028 electrodes will not meet the lower H4 hydrogen level. We are working on a new design with the Excalibur formulas but I am not promising any product in the short future.

Harry

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By jwright650 (*****)

Date 04-01-2007 23:23

We gave these rods a try and had similar results. Problem number one was that the sample rods that were shipped to me were shipped in a cardboard box and the rods were not hermetically sealed. I did find that the fillets have a really smooth cap and and very even legs with no undercut whatsoever. One problem I saw was that the rods do not restrike very well. We could run a nice fillet and when we broke our arc and immediately tried to go back and fill in the crater, it would not relight. Thier website at the time didn't have any recommended ranges. I did get that info after calling the mfg and they faxed over the info that we requested.

On a side note, our Lincoln rep and two engineers from the Lincoln corporate office paid us a visit on Thursday(Mar 29). The engineers told us then that the E7028 should be back on the market within the next year or so. They promised to keep us informed and work with my welders to give us a product that will satisfy all code requirements and have a good operator appeal for the welder.
They will continue to produce the 5/32 dia, but the 3/16 and 7/32 will be revamped and hopefully will be back within a year to year and a half.

By lhp2 Date 04-02-2007 01:09

thanks for the info, i was gonna mention the hard restriking. also, i found it was really, really difficult to get undercut with this rod as well. As far as packaging goes, ours come in cardboard as well with plastic over it, not sure I'm too keen on that. what are you guys using for production now, still 5/32? we can't even seem to get 5/32 right now and we have a load of that WA stuff.

By jwright650 (*****)

Date 04-02-2007 10:42

Here's why I won't use the Washington Alloys E7028 electrode....

AWS D1.1:2006 Paragraph 5.3.2.1
"All Electrodes having low hydrogen coverings conforming to AWS A5.1 and AWS A5.5 "shall be" purchased in a hermetically sealed containers or shall be baked by the user in conformance with 5.3.2.4 prior to use."

We have enough trouble keeping the rod ovens stocked without having to worry with trying to dry electrodes before using them. I can see a fight between production and myself if they ran out of dried rod and needed some of the rod that hasn't been dried yet. It is just a headache in the making to try and go that route at my shop. Somebody will inadvertently use the undried rod. Auditors will have lots of questions and you will have to have a bullet proof procedure to satisfy them that nobody will grab the rod and using it before it had been dried.

By chall

Date 04-06-2007 14:43

We had some problems with WA in the past and actually stopped using them. However, recently we purchased some filler material from them and I was presently surprised with the packaging. (I am going to avoid nitty gritty details at this point.)

One thing we discovered during research following our intitial problems with WA was the ridiculous definition of "Hermetically Sealed" contained in SFA 5.1 and 5.5 (the subparagraphs on Packaging).

An "hermetically sealed" container is one that leaks no more than for 30 seconds when submerged in water such that the top surface of the container is only one inch under water.

As I ponder the absorption of hydrogen from the atmosphere, I just shake my head at what is actually allowed to be considered "hermetically sealed".

Charles

By billvanderhoof (****)

Date 04-07-2007 03:57

So an open topped bucket passes the test? You push it under, the water fills it up, and it then stops leaking. All in less than 30 seconds. Ridiculous.
Bill