I've never used 8018. How does it penetrate on stuff like mild steel? I normally use 6010 to get big penetration on a root pass and then finish with 7018. You were saying you used it on a hitch. By that I presume it is a stronger weld on mild steel besides being used on hard stuff? I may need to get some.
Its a great rod for mild steel and hardened steel.
Ive used it welding high pressure chemical vessels,pipe,cooling jackets on vessels,wear plate in rock mining machinery..etc etc.
I work alot of nuclear power plants,alot of times I'm just a rigging and welding superintendant over the ironworkers and millwrights,8018 is a common rod used on the turbine deck area for the turbine shells among other things that are hardened steel along with mild steel,they use it ALOT to repair hardened tools that have broke as a temporary fix until a new tool arrives on an order and it holds up well,even on busted hardened sockets on 1" air hammers,those tools stay around even after they get a new one and those things have been there for ALOT of years and the welds are still holding up,and im talking about 2-5" sockets used to bust loose bolts with a torque spec of 1500# or more.
The reason i thrive on using the better rods on spider gears is because of what they made of,we've used 7018 on wear plate,hardened steel,,case hardened..ect ect on jobs where "we" questioned as to WHY???...and always told thats what the prints call for..in the end..thats job security because we WILL be back to cut,,repair and weld into it more next time.
This is NOT "our" call,the main reason is the plant doesnt want to pay the extra for the right rods,time consuming preperation and preheat equipment and proper ventilation and respirator equipment,they would rather have it temporarily fixed until the next outage/shutdown and patch it all up again,somehow it all works out cheeper for them to go that way.
Doing it this way I've seen over and over how EVERY weld done with 7018 has cracked at the edge of the weld .
8018 is really not much more money than 7018 and works MUCH better for the spider gears than mild steel 7018 and would work even better if it was preheated to 450 degrees.
Another great rod is the 309L..it can be used to weld stainless to carbon and mild steel,but its a much more expensive rod,but its a favorite of ironworkers,millwrights,pipefitters and boilermakers as an all around rod.
I watch guys at dirt tracks in Georgia weld their spider gears up with 7018 all the time but they'll tell you the same thing"its a cheep fix and "when"(NOT IF) it breaks i'll just "weld'er up again!"
