"thin weld on stake pockets"? A picture would help a lot.

 

I would weld vertical up at about 70-90 amps with that rod. I am more worried about the thickness of the pockets. Rick is right, Have a picture of them?

 

I will post one when I get home and take a picture.

 

Are these the type that mount on the outside of a trailer frame? Most of them are to thin in my opinion, ours are all bent up from hooking straps or binders into them. They are also meant to have a heavy strap of flat stock mounted on the outside for a rub rail this also adds a lot of strength. Anyway uphill will be better but downhill will still probably be stronger then the pockets themselves. If you are putting on a strap
hold it down a bit from the top of the pocket so you have a small fillet weld instead of a butt of the two edges. Can't recommend settings though, the pocket will be much thinner then the trailer frame so concentrate most of the heat there and then wash it onto the pocket to prevent burn through. Also there is nothing wrong with setting up a few test pieces to get your settings correct before you weld on the real thing.

Ken

 

Okay, here are the pictures as promised, they appear to be a little under 1/8" thick.

 

never mind about the pockets, i want to know how you managed to kill the grass and then bring it back to life all in one photo shoot

 

Haha, that's funny. I never would have noticed that. I'm guessing the pictures were taken on both sides of the truck.

I've used 4" channel for this on a utility trailer. Plenty thick, but there might not be enough clearance in the hole depending on how large your chain hook is.

 

My lawn is slowly recovering from a dry summer, some has come back with a vengeance but some spots are still dry, in fact some slag dropped and was glowing pretty good, was worried I would end up with a small fire.

 

You have to weld vertical up with 7018. The stake pockets are thin but you can keep the heat mostly on the heavier steel you are welding to.

However welding vertical up with 7018 on AC is tough to do well. A DC welder would work much better. Another option is to turn the trailer on it's side and weld it flat. This may be your best option with your welder and experience.

 

agreed with what norite said.

how much are these things holding back? im guessing your putting sides on the trailer using these? you would be surprised of the welds i have seen hold a lot of stress. take your time try to get some 3/16" material and practice a little to get settings right and get a good feel of travel speed, work angle, ect.


PS. when you use a tape measure for something like this start at the one inch line and go from there the end is always off by a little most of the time off by a 1/32nd or so making it a little more difficult to read smaller numbers.

hope this info helps.

 

Thanks guys, all good input, and it is funny about putting the trailer on it's side, have done that on other things when I have had to in order to do a nice weld.
Might be an idea.

And yes, I want to put sides on or off as I need them, better when hauling dirt or gravel, rather than using my truck for it as I do now.

 

I would personally set my machine too 100amps and run downhand. Yes downhand with 7018 is possible, and is a widely used practice on many pipe procedures.

 

Really? Downhill with a 7018? NEVER heard of that. Not calling you wrong but I have NEVER welded down with a 7018.

 

Had a maintanence worker at the plant I used to work at griping an bitchin' about how this cheap *** company wouldn't even buy him good rods to run. He was having a hard time with his welds and they looked like crap. He was trying to run E7018 1/8" downhill. He never got it and I just didn't have the heart to tell him that he didn't know what the hell he was doing. Those maint. guys did not want a line supervisor telling them how to weld! I've heard guys say that they can do it but never saw it happen. I've tried but all I got out of it was a good laugh and some BAD looking welds.

 

of course its possible and works very well if you know what your doing. I have a pressure ticket that allows for a d/h hotpass and fill with 7018. I also use it extensively in the boiler. Once they do ultrasonic testing on the tubes to check for wear we are required to do whats called pad welding on those tubes that are below tolerences. Some of the wall thickness's on these tubes are sometimes less than 1/16" and still holding 2000 psi, quite amazing really. But theirs no way your running an uphand bead to build that back up so we're required to make multiple layers of downhand beads generally over 3/4 of the circumference of the pipe, sometimes in streches as long as 5' of the pipe. Generally this takes place where the soot blowers are " mechanisms that inject coal into the boiler " essentially their sandblasters to piping. The main reason people dontt think it works is because their running too cold, 3/32" 7018 run at 100 amps, it requires a slight weave and let the slag run away from the puddle dont panic and dont run past the slag! try it

 

That's the key that a lot of people miss right there. They try to outrun the slag. Anything that I feel needs the maximum strength, I run 7018 uphill on, but I have ran 1/8" downhill on things like bore casing, and pipe fence. We were welding up some 18" bore pipe one time, I ran out of 7010 (thats what I usually run on pipe), so I started running 1/8" 7018 downhill on the side I was welding, just to get the last 20'
of the day welded on and run into the bore. I planned on picking up more 7010 the next morning, so no big deal. I had a friend helping me, who actually is a welder in a shop, and had been for about 20 yrs at that time. So he grabs a handfull of 7018, and starts doing the same thing on his side. He got to the bottom, grabbed the buffer and knocked the slag off, and says "you can't be serious about using this crap for this" I looked at his side, and it looked horrible. What he had done, was the slag started running, and he was trying to stay ahead of it... Funniest thing I had ever seen him do...