Stretched out at two arms length welding away on your favorite chunk of iron or pipe, switch rods, fire-up a fresh one (welding rod that is) and next thing you know....BLUP!!..... out goes the light! Whadda ya do? Swing the stinger back-n-forth trying to break it free... hand looks like your negotiating the pylon course at a BMW test track... the rod finally melts through... you lay down an arc strike that looks like Zoro visited the jobsite. This ever happen to you???? Surely not.
But this little trick is not for every day use. Save it for those special occaisions, like when you're reaching around something that only lets you see "the zone" about 2 or 3 inches long and 1" wide... the pipe is only 4" off the floor or wall, or say you're looking into a mirror 8" in front of your face and welding behind your right ear ( you know you've had a rough day when the back of your neck gets a ray burn! )....Those are the times I'm really proud to have dropped out of college....

What you want to do is "prep your rods". Grind a point on it. 6010 electrodes and it's cousin 6013 aren't too bad, but, 7018 and the like are a bit more finicky as the flux tends to chip. Grind with the rod pointed towards the direction of rotation and hold it as close as you can to the end to keep the vibration down, and make the point as blunt as you can. If you grind into the flux too much, it will chip, if the end of the rod gets too hot, it will chip.
Most of the times I've had to use this technique, cutting the rods down to length was also part of the prep. If your making shorter rods, be sure to clean off the other end to bright metal so the stinger has good electrical contact.
The pointed tip lets the rod burn off very quickly and start burning hot. It is especially useful for engine driven machines that have a delay before the rpm's get up to welding speed.
If it's hard to brace-up, get steady, poor access for a welding rod, it's even harder to get a grinder in there....

By the way... Why does the rod always stick outside the weld zone????