Our company does a lot of field welding on small, low pressure mild steel piping using OFW (oxyacetylene) because of the low cost compared to equipping all the crews with arc equipment. The traditional filler metal used has been RG-65. Our procurement people say they can no longer find it. The closest substitute is RG-60, although very limited testing with it showed more susceptibility to failure in our bend tests (not sure if that was anomalous performance or a commonly observed thing). I have three related questions:
Has anyone else encountered difficulty in finding RG-65?
Opinions about the apparent bend test performance and welder "appeal" between RG60 and RG65 (they swear they can tell the difference between the two rods, with RG65 preferred)?
Comments about the likely performance and/or pitfalls of bare steel arc welding filler metal (i.e., ER70S-x) used in OFW application.