About a cracked weld.

[Itslay90]

I just had a mobile welder fixed my firebox. He used 7018 stick weld. With reinforcement welds also,Now people on Facebook is telling me it’s not going to hold up Inside my firebox which gets 1,100 degrees for the secondaries to kick in. I have a Pacific energy Summit LE i WANT TO KNOW HOW TRUE IS THAT?

 

[Itslay90]

?

 

[Todd]

I know nothing about welding but have you looked at your warranty to see if this is covered?

 

[Itslay90]

I know nothing about welding but have you looked at your warranty to see if this is covered?

It was covered under warranty

 

[Todd]

Ah, so PE paid for the welding? If it doesn’t work out I’d see if they can just replace the stove.

 

[Highbeam]

Your welder critics were assuming that this was a weld onto cast iron which it is not. That location was welded from the factory with a wirefeed welder using something not much different than 7018. This is all mild steel welding and if welding didn't work then no manufacturer would weld stoves together.

 

[Itslay90]

Your welder critics were assuming that this was a weld onto cast iron which it is not. That location was welded from the factory with a wirefeed welder using something not much different than 7018. This is all mild steel welding and if welding didn't work then no manufacturer would weld stoves together.

Thank you for that.

Ah, so PE paid for the welding? If it doesn’t work out I’d see if they can just replace the stove.

yes they paid to get it welded I just had to showed them proof that I got it done.

 

[Itslay90]

Your welder critics were assuming that this was a weld onto cast iron which it is not. That location was welded from the factory with a wirefeed welder using something not much different than 7018. This is all mild steel welding and if welding didn't work then no manufacturer would weld stoves together.

I just got worried when they told me, but I feel better now

 

[ABMax24]

So first off, in my 15 year working career I've worked in, supervised, hold a welding quality control certification, and now project manage for an industrial fabrication/oil & gas facility construction company. We build pressure piping, structural steel, and are certified to fabricate and repair pressure vessels to CWB W59, ASME B31.1, ASME B31.3, CSA Z662 and ASME vessel codes.

Simply put, the Facebook answers you received are wrong, and there should be no concern with your repair.

With limited exceptions, on mild carbon steel the filler material is selected to suit the base material. Your stove is mild carbon steel, it is very likely A36, or because the stove was built in Canada 44W or 50W material. Regardless of which variant it is, which there is really minimal difference, 7018 or 7018-1 (the -1 indicates better impact values at low temperatures) is the filler material of choice for SMAW (stick) welding on this material. All of our CWB structural welding procedures for SMAW use 7018 electrode.

6010 or 6011 shouldn't be used because they are not low hydrogen electrodes. I have never seen either of these electrodes ever specified/allowed on a structural welding procedure. We use 6010 for the root pass and sometimes hot pass of pressure pipe welds, but there are restrictions on the weld procedures for how much material can be deposited with these electrodes, the rest must be filled with a low hydrogen process which is usually 7018. The only reason 6010 is used is for its fast freeze properties for welding an open root.

Nickel rods shouldn't be used due to their metallurgical mis-match on mild carbon steel, period. Maybe for repairing a cast stove, but you don't have a cast iron stove, yours is made from plate steel. Some welders think because they repair boiler tubes with nickel or chrome moly rods they can use them to repair a high temperature stove, but this is because the boiler tubes themselves are nickel or chrome moly alloys, and that electrode is matched to the base material.

7018 is an excellent choice, I have literally watched tens of thousands of pounds of this electrode welded into countless steel structures and miles of steel pressure piping.

Your stove cracked from what is called lack of fusion. When steel plate is rolled it develops a thin layer of what is called mill scale, which is just steel that was oxidized while red hot during the rolling process. Although it shows as a dark grey color, not the typical rust color you see. Your stove was then welded with GMAW (Mig). Mig doesn't burn through this mill scale very well if it's not cleaned off prior to welding, and that thin layer of mill scale gives a weak point (lack of fusion) that allows the weld to crack and break away from the parent material. Unfortunately with Mig it's almost impossible to detect this lack of fusion until it breaks, it can sometimes be seen by X-Ray, mag-particle or Ultrasound, but this isn't a guarantee. For this reason we don't possess any Mig welding procedures for structural steel at work, we exclusively use 7018 or flux-core. Mig is used in a manufacturing environment because its cheap and fast, and a crack on a stove like this isn't a huge safety risk like it would be on a bridge or a pressure vessel. Ultimately your weld is repaired, it will likely never crack again. There's nothing left to worry about.

 

[Itslay90]

So first off, in my 15 year working career I've worked in, supervised, hold a welding quality control certification, and now project manage for an industrial fabrication/oil & gas facility construction company. We build pressure piping, structural steel, and are certified to fabricate and repair pressure vessels to CWB W59, ASME B31.1, ASME B31.3, CSA Z662 and ASME vessel codes.

Simply put, the Facebook answers you received are wrong, and there should be no concern with your repair.

With limited exceptions, on mild carbon steel the filler material is selected to suit the base material. Your stove is mild carbon steel, it is very likely A36, or because the stove was built in Canada 44W or 50W material. Regardless of which variant it is, which there is really minimal difference, 7018 or 7018-1 (the -1 indicates better impact values at low temperatures) is the filler material of choice for SMAW (stick) welding on this material. All of our CWB structural welding procedures for SMAW use 7018 electrode.

6010 or 6011 shouldn't be used because they are not low hydrogen electrodes. I have never seen either of these electrodes ever specified/allowed on a structural welding procedure. We use 6010 for the root pass and sometimes hot pass of pressure pipe welds, but there are restrictions on the weld procedures for how much material can be deposited with these electrodes, the rest must be filled with a low hydrogen process which is usually 7018. The only reason 6010 is used is for its fast freeze properties for welding an open root.

Nickel rods shouldn't be used due to their metallurgical mis-match on mild carbon steel, period. Maybe for repairing a cast stove, but you don't have a cast iron stove, yours is made from plate steel. Some welders think because they repair boiler tubes with nickel or chrome moly rods they can use them to repair a high temperature stove, but this is because the boiler tubes themselves are nickel or chrome moly alloys, and that electrode is matched to the base material.

7018 is an excellent choice, I have literally watched tens of thousands of pounds of this electrode welded into countless steel structures and miles of steel pressure piping.

Your stove cracked from what is called lack of fusion. When steel plate is rolled it develops a thin layer of what is called mill scale, which is just steel that was oxidized while red hot during the rolling process. Although it shows as a dark grey color, not the typical rust color you see. Your stove was then welded with GMAW (Mig). Mig doesn't burn through this mill scale very well if it's not cleaned off prior to welding, and that thin layer of mill scale gives a weak point (lack of fusion) that allows the weld to crack and break away from the parent material. Unfortunately with Mig it's almost impossible to detect this lack of fusion until it breaks, it can sometimes be seen by X-Ray, mag-particle or Ultrasound, but this isn't a guarantee. For this reason we don't possess any Mig welding procedures for structural steel at work, we exclusively use 7018 or flux-core. Mig is used in a manufacturing environment because its cheap and fast, and a crack on a stove like this isn't a huge safety risk like it would be on a bridge or a pressure vessel. Ultimately your weld is repaired, it will likely never crack again. There's nothing left to worry about.

Thank you, I really appreciate that break down