oxy/act pinholes

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I have been making an insturment cluster out of 1/8" flat steel from lowe's. I plan on having it chrome plated so it the surface has to be perfect. I decided to use oxy/act torch to weld it together instead of my lil 110 mig so i went out and got filler rods that are kinda copper looking, they have ER 70S-6 stamped on them.  After i did the welding i ground down the beads to a smooth surface but there will be a few pin holes everywhere, so i went back and tried heating up each pinhole and filling them with filler rod, after grinding that weld down there will be 2 pinholes !  I cant figure out what is goin on maybe the filler rod or the steel from lowe's or what
Reply:I use RG45 and RG60 for OFW.  It's specially formulated for use with gas.  When you finish the weld, bring the torch off slowly.  If it cools too quickly, the weld will bubble up and be full of holes.  Is this at the end of your bead or are there pinholes throught?
Reply:it seems to be all the way through i had a brain fart, im gonna try tacking with my mig on the pinholes thinking maybe it will help
Reply:you were useing flux right?ChuckASME Pressure Vessel welder
Reply:no i sure didnt, actually dont know much about using flux
Reply:You don't need flux to weld mild steel with gas.
Reply:Did you try surface grinding the protective coating off of the steel platebefore welding it? Don't know if that will solve the problem, but it's easyenough to try.Best of Luck,Don
Reply:Forgot to mention that you could try cutting off a small strip of that steelplate and use it for filler rod.Don
Reply:yeah i had the surface completely ground clean before welding, im gonna try and take a couple pics so everyone can see what is goin on
Reply:Scooter,If your basic technique is sound, torch angle, neutral flame, filler rod in theflame's protective envelope, adding filler to the edge of the puddle, thenit's got to be a contamination problem.
Reply:Scooter,Dicharry may have hit on something, are you sure you have a neutral flame.
Reply:I take back what I said about trying a strip of the original metal for filler rod.Sheet and plate steel is semi-killed - it contains some oxygen that causes weld porosity. You are better off with filler rods containing deoxidizers. Astrip of the original metal may only contribute to the problem.Those pinholes may be unavoidable due to the nature of semi-killed plate steel.Have you had any luck eliminating the pinholes?Good luck,Don
Reply:well i took a welding course about 4 years ago and they showed me the way to set up the torch and how to weld, im kinda rusty since then but if i can remember right its set up ok. im gonna work on it some more today after i get ready, heck its like 430 am so i have all day to work something out
Reply:arn't those tig rods????
Reply:You should be able to weld with tig rods using OFW, but it doesn't work as well in the reverse.
Reply:Tig Rods and Oxy/Act Rods look the sameRG45 Gas Welding70S2 for Tig70S6 for Mig