What is more important, price or classification? The Consumables Corner guys have the answer.

Q: A majority of our welding is done on 1/4 to 5/8-in.-thick carbon steel that has a weldable primer. Most of the welding is done on basic partial joint penetration (PJP) T-joints without any joint prep. We use an E70T-1 0.052-in.-dia. flux-core wire with a 75 percent Ar/25 percent CO2 shielding...

Q: We're a small shop that builds and welds a lot of custom metal products. In many instances, the products are made from two or three different material combinations, including stainless steel at times. Is there a good rule of thumb for deciding the correct filler metal to use? A: That is a...

Q: We're a job shop and much of our work is customized or unique. Because of this, we have to work with multiple welding codes and sometimes we have to verify welding procedures. We have been bidding on some new projects that have welding crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) requirements. How is...

What guidelines should a job shop follow in regards to heat input if there is no welding procedure to fall back on? The Consumables Corner team has the answer.

The Consumables crew assists a reader tasked with repairing a tower crane.

Q: We manufacture various products for the agriculture and transportation industries. A majority of our products are made from 6061 and 5652 aluminum and are joined with gas metal arc welding (GMAW-S) using a 5356 filler metal and 100 percent argon shielding gas. Most of the joints are partial...

Q: We need to weld a 1-in.-thick AISI 1050 carbon steel plate to a 2-in.-dia. A514 steel shaft. The AISI 1050 has a yield and tensile strength of 95 KSI and 115 KSI, respectively. We know we should preheat, but we're unsure of what temperatures to use or what filler metal to select. Could you...

The Consumables Corner team counsels a company struggling with weld fusion when joining ferritic to carbon steel.

Q: We're a construction equipment manufacturer that is finding that our customers increasingly require more components designed and manufactured from high-strength steels such as A514 or 4130. This means we have to preheat and follow slow cooling conditions, but even then certain joints or...

Q: We manufacture stainless steel tanks used in various industries and we aren’t always informed of service conditions and chemical exposures. We would like to reduce or minimize the number of filler metals we use to cut down on costs and prevent accidental use of the wrong filler metal. The...

Q: We are a bridge and structural steel manufacturing shop that uses a mixture of common base materials such as A36, A572, and A992. Recently we’ve been experiencing sporadic centerline cracks in the root passes of fabricated I-beams that we weld with flux-cored arc welding (FCAW). Oddly enough,...

Q: We manufacture structures for the utility industry and primarily weld A36, A572-Gr. 50 and A871-Gr. 65. Recently we converted some of our welding processes to higher-deposition submerged-arc welding (SAW) but are concerned about the amount of heat we are adding from welding. What is the...

Q: We're a midsize job shop that manufactures a wide variety of products from various types of metal. Currently we have a project that requires welding 304L to 316L stainless steel and welding both of these alloys to A572 Grade 50 steel. Some of the welds are structural and some are used in...

Learn how to eliminate porosity when welding galvanized steel in the Q&A from the experts at FMA. Find out more about welding galvanized metal here.