Everyone keeps saying to use 6010 rods for root passes. I think that's wrong for most guys.

I see it all the time on sites and in the hall. Guys swear by 6010 for the root on heavy wall pipe. But at the Cleveland shop I worked at last winter, our lead inspector showed me the rejection numbers. Over 40% of 6010 roots had wagon tracks or lack of fusion. We switched to 6013 for the root and our weld test pass rate went way up. Has anyone else tried a different rod and seen better results?

2 comments

2 Comments

skylerg1726d ago

Man, I feel you on that. "Wagon tracks" is EXACTLY what I saw too. I ran beads for a shop in Pittsburgh and we had the same problem with 6010 on root passes. It's like some guys can make it sing but most of us get those little lines or it just won't fuse right on the sidewall. We tried 6013 for a month on a big pressure vessel job and our rework time dropped by half. People act like 6010 is the only thing that'll burn deep but I've had way better luck with 6013 for the root, especially on thinner wall stuff. The inspector even said our caps laid in nicer because the root was cleaner.

andrew_kelly26d ago

Bethel Valley tested 6013 on schedule 40 pipe and their rejection rate dropped 40 percent overnight.