Cutting steel with a stick welder (not arc gouge)

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So... I got a 275 gallon steel tank from my neighbor and wanted to cut a couple doors in it. It's a horizontal tank that probably used to hold #2 fuel oil. Used to fuel a heater for a house or something like that. Anyway, I needed to cut a couple 24.5"X24.5" holes and a 12"X4" hole. They didn't have to be exact - maybe within 3/4", since I needed to weld a big flange around the openings and a piece all the way around the doors, anyway. So, since where it was, I had access to the stick machine and nothing else (I started on it with an angle grinder. with a cutting wheel... no thank-you). I took some 1/8" and 5/32" 6011's and ran a little over 200 amps and burned the holes in the drum. I've done the same thing (also with 5/32" 6011) in a 1/2" AR cutting edge on a blade for a tractor. I'd say (conservatively) 1/2" - it was probably thicker than that... Anyway, cutting the 12 gauge steel drum was actually really fast and reasonably accurate with a stick machine running a 6011. Most of the cuts I did with a 1/8" rod since I ran of out 5-32's. I ran a SUPER shallow angle, basically keeping the flux touching on the base metal in front of the arc. I rotate the stinger down, to keep the flux pressing on the base in front of the arc, not doing much dragging. I kept my hand in basically the same spot through the cut, and just tipped the rod into the cut. The pressure you put on the rod seems to be relatively important - You don't want a whole lot of pressure, but feeling the flux on the unburned metal wasn't too much pressure. When I was cutting, I'd control the cut quality by varying how much pressure I had touching the rod to the base metal. **That's if I was using the "twisting the rod into the cut" method. If you're cutting it as if using a regular rod and were welding a stringer, ignore that.** The kerf of the cut was pretty wide - 1/4", PLUS the melted edge and the heat affected zone. I'd call it +/- 3/16" either size of the cut line... IF YOU HIT THE CUT LINE. I had a whole inch of play with my cut lines and when I was learning on the first few cuts, I NEEDED it. By the last few cuts, I stayed well within my tolerance.Last edited by 52 Ford; 1 Hour Ago at 02:05 AM.
Reply:Ive cut a fair amount with 6010-11. Not pretty but effective. Soaking the rods in water for a while helps because it slows the burn off of the flux on the electrode.