OK, I know I suck at welding...but

[denidoug]

Chromium is used to make stainless steel. I doubly there is a lot of it in star pickets. Shipping containers may well be a corrosion resistant grade that is hard to weld.

I'm guessing that the lack of fusion to the star pocket would be due to the difference in wall thickness of the materials. More heat is required to melt the thicker section.  If all of the amps are travelling to the earth on the gal tube you may need to move the earth to the picket. By directing more of the rod to the picket you can also control the heat on each part to some extent.


It is well known through out the structural steel industry that ALL Chinese manufactured steel contains excessive amounts of Boron,chromium and copper,earth position and amp direction??? Have got nothing to do with it,the steel in the star picket failed, not the weld
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[Footy Shorts Shane]

All this technical talk.
Maybe it was just a Shit weld??

Cheers Glen

[terravista]

All this technical talk.
Maybe it was just a Shit weld??

Cheers Glen

Well the heading did say I sucked at welding so that would generally be true. But in this case the four welds actually looked half OK. I would have hoped that at least one of them held enough to have to use metal fatigue to break it off.
Maybe that was the problem, looks like a supermodel, as poorly efficient as my second wife.

[glenm64]

Maybe that was the problem, looks like a supermodel, as poorly efficient as my second wife.

PMSL

Cheers Glen

[truck]

My 2 cenrts worth = I think you will find it is a combination of the material the star pickets are made of and the type of welding rods you are using. I had the same issue.
I am trying to remember when welding disimilair metals use 308 or 309 electrodes. Also sometimes you may actually need to change the polarity ie earth positive electrode negative, move the earth to a different location on the job to stop arc wander. Consider the angle of the electrode also as previous mentioned.
Finally - nothing worthwhile comes easy 

[Troopy_03]