Heard a foreman say stick welding is dead and flux-core is the future, got me wondering

Was standing near a job in Houston last month and this old-timer argued stick is still faster for outdoor fits, but the young guy on the crew swore dual-shield flux-core saves him an hour per joint on girth welds, which side do you lean on for heavy wall pipe?

3 comments

3 Comments

kevin_williams5d ago

Wait, did the old-timer really say stick is faster for outdoor fits, or did he mean it's more forgiving in the wind? Because stick welding on heavy wall pipe outdoors, you're burning through rods and stopping to change them constantly, whereas dual-shield flux-core (that's the gas-shielded kind, not self-shielded) actually runs smoother and faster once you dial in your settings, especially on thicker wall stuff like 1-inch plus. The young guy might be right about saving time on girth welds, but it's not just about speed, it's about avoiding slag inclusions and cold lap issues that stick can leave if you're not careful. I'd lean toward dual-shield for production work, but stick still wins for field repairs where you can't lug a gas bottle around, you know?

ray_burns4d agoMost Upvoted

Hang on, is this really worth all that detail? I mean, yeah, dual-shield can lay down metal pretty, but you're acting like we're building a space shuttle (and even those guys screw up). I've seen guys burn through a whole spool of flux-core on a single big pipe joint, and then spend twenty minutes grinding out the slag that got trapped because they were going too fast. Honestly, half the time it's not about the process, it's about whether the guy running the gun had his morning coffee or not.

logan2714d ago

Had a buddy who swears by dual-shield now after he spent a whole day on a 12-inch pipe with stick and still had slag trouble, but like @kevin_williams mentioned, he couldn't haul a gas bottle up the scaffolding so he went right back to stick the next week.