Stick Welding Chart: The Complete Electrode, Amperage & Settings Reference (2026)

My neighbor’s old AC buzz box had three settings on the dial, one box of rods with faded labels, and a scrap pile of failed beads. The day he finally taped a laminated stick welding chart to the side of the machine, his welds went from bird droppings to something a pipeline welder would at least nod at. That’s the real power of a stick chart: it compresses decades of shop knowledge into a few columns of numbers, and it gives your hands something to aim for on every pass.

Why Every Stick Welder Ends Up Staring at a Chart (And Why the Chart Isn’t the Whole Story)

Almost every stick welder has a moment where they stare at a bead and realize they have no idea if it’s too hot or too cold. It usually happens in a hurry, with a scrap of metal and a machine that leaves little room for guesswork. That’s when the chart comes out. Whether it’s taped to the side of a machine, laminated in a shop, printed in an electrode catalog, or pulled up on a phone for a field repair, a stick welding chart is simply a set of reference tables to work from before you strike the first arc.

What a Stick Chart Actually Contains

Most charts consolidate a few key pieces of information to keep a job moving. These are the columns you’ll run into time and time again:

• Amperage by rod diameter: A working current range for each electrode size, from 5/64 in up to 3/16 in and beyond.
• Polarity: Whether the electrode wants DCEP (electrode positive), DCEN (electrode negative), or works on AC.
• Position capability: Flat only, horizontal, vertical, or all-position, including overhead.
• Electrode classification: What an AWS designator, such as E7018, promises in terms of strength and coating.
• Material thickness matching: Which rod diameter best suits the plate, from 18-gauge sheet to heavy bar.

These values aren’t arbitrary. They form the foundation for a written pipe welding procedure, and they feed directly into a weld procedure specification (WPS). The standards that back those documents are published by organizations such as AWS and ASME.

Why Stick Welding Deserves Its Own Chart

SMAW, or shielded metal arc welding, is one of the oldest and most widely used arc processes. It dominates construction, pipeline work, structural steel, and repair jobs where wind, draft, or dirty metal can quietly defeat a MIG arc. The process runs on a consumable flux-coated electrode: the burning flux creates both a shielding gas around the puddle and a slag layer that sits on top of the cooling weld until it is chipped off. Arc voltage during welding typically sits around 20–30 volts, while the open-circuit voltage on the machine before the arc strikes is usually 50–80 volts.

Plain-Language Terms You’ll Meet in Every Column

Before using any chart, it’s worth knowing the terms that show up across them. The following cover the essentials:

• Electrode: The metal rod with a flux coating that carries the current and becomes filler metal.
• Flux coating: The chemicals that shield the puddle, stabilize the arc, and form slag.
• Slag: The glassy crust left on the finished bead; it must be removed between passes.
• Arc: The electric discharge between the electrode tip and the base metal.
• DCEP / DCEN: Direct current electrode positive (deeper penetration) or negative (shallower, faster deposition).
• Travel speed: How fast you move the rod, measured in inches per minute.
• Duty cycle: The percentage of a ten-minute window the machine can run at full output. Small hobby welders are typically rated at 20–30% duty cycle at maximum output, meaning only a few minutes of welding out of every ten before the machine needs to cool.

Trust the Numbers, But Know When to Leave Them

A good chart saves time, but it will never account for every variable on the job. Poor fit-up can steal penetration, long leads can drop amperage, cold steel behaves differently than preheated plate, and even a brand swap can shift the sweet spot. For that reason, the chart should narrow your range, not lock it in. If you’re just starting out, our honest beginner’s guide to stick welding pairs especially well with these references.

Before you strike an arc, it’s equally important to protect yourself. Make sure your gear matches the job, starting with complete welding PPE — and note that OSHA’s welding, cutting, and brazing standards set the baseline for ventilation and fire control at every station (OSHA).

The goal isn’t to memorize every number on the page. It’s to build enough judgment to trust the chart when it’s right, and to trust your puddle when it’s telling you the chart needs adjusting. That’s the lesson every stick welder learns, and it’s exactly where we’ll start in the next section: breaking down the code stamped on the electrode wrapper.

How to Read an Electrode Code: Decoding E6010, E7018, and the Suffixes Nobody Explains

Walk into any shop and you’ll see boxes of rods with a four-character code stamped on the end: E6010, E7018, E6013. That code is not a part number. It’s a compressed spec sheet written by the American Welding Society under the AWS A5.1 specification for carbon steel electrodes, and once you can read it out loud, you never have to guess what a rod will do again.

Digit by Digit: What Each Character Actually Says

Take E6010 and break it apart:

• E — the rod is an arc welding electrode. (A bare filler metal without flux would carry an ER prefix instead.)
• 60 — the first two digits give minimum tensile strength in thousands of psi. 60 means the deposited weld metal must hold at least 60,000 psi before it breaks. E7018 jumps to 70,000 psi, E8018 to 80,000, and so on.
• 1 — the third digit is position capability. 1 means all positions (flat, horizontal, vertical, overhead). 2 means flat and horizontal fillet welds only. 3 means flat only.
• 0 — the fourth digit identifies the flux coating type and which current the rod will run on.

So E6010 reads as: electrode, 60,000 psi minimum, all-position, high-cellulose sodium coating that requires DC electrode positive. Hook it to AC and it will not run properly — a mistake we’ll hit hard in the troubleshooting section.

The Coating Code Table (The Fourth Digit)

Notice the pattern that matters most on the job: 5 and 6 mean low hydrogen. E7015 runs DCEP only; E7016 and E7018 run AC or DCEP. That low-hydrogen coating is the reason E7018 is the default for structural and code work — less hydrogen in the puddle means less risk of cold cracking in thick or heavily restrained steel. It’s also why E7018 rods must be stored in a rod oven or held in a heated quiver; a low-hydrogen coating that soaks up atmospheric moisture hands that hydrogen right back to the weld. As a reference point, our 3/32 E7018 amperage guide walks through exactly how one specific diameter behaves once you’ve picked polarity.

The Suffixes Nobody Explains

Real boxes often read E7018-H4, E7018-1, E7018-R, or E7018-M. Here’s what each adds:

• -H4, -H8, -H16 — maximum diffusible hydrogen in milliliters per 100 grams of deposited weld metal. H4 allows 4 mL, H8 allows 8 mL, H16 allows 16 mL. Lower is safer for cracking; H4 is the common choice for heavy wall pipe and low-alloy work governed by ASME and structural codes (ASME codes and standards).
• -1 — an optional supplementary requirement, most often improved notch toughness in the weld metal for applications that demand it.
• -R — moisture-resistant coating, giving the rod a longer out-of-storage life before hydrogen pickup becomes a problem.
• -M — mechanical property or military-grade variants with additional testing requirements.

What the Numbers Promise in Real Terms

Tensile strength is only half the story. A typical E7018 deposit carries a minimum yield strength around 58,000 psi with roughly 22–25% elongation in a standard test gauge. That elongation figure is the ductility margin — the ability to stretch and absorb load before fracture — and it’s noticeably higher than the cellulose rods like E6010. When a WPS calls for E7018, the inspector isn’t chasing a branding preference; the engineer specified that yield, that elongation, and that hydrogen ceiling.

And here’s the elegant part: only the last two digits change as strength climbs. E8018, E9018, E10018 and E11018 all keep the same third and fourth digit logic. The 8 still means low-hydrogen potassium with iron powder, the 1 still means all-position, and only the deposited metal gets stronger. Learn one coating code and you’ve learned it for the whole family. The same digit logic carries into stainless classifications like E308L-16, which we break down further in what electrodes are in welding: types, numbers, polarity and how to choose.

Note: Classification tells you what the rod can do. It doesn’t tell you the amperage for your plate thickness, your joint, or your position — that’s the job of the master chart in the next section.

The Master Stick Welding Amperage Chart: Rod Diameter, Polarity, and Machine Settings

This is the table most people came for, so let’s put it up front and then explain what actually happens when you dial those numbers in. Every figure below is a starting range for mild steel on clean, fit-up plate at room temperature. Treat them as a launch point, not a commandment.

Amperage by Electrode Diameter and Classification

Notice the anchors that show up repeatedly in shop practice: a 3/32-inch (2.4 mm) E7018 wants about 70–110 A, a 1/8-inch rod sits around 90–150 A depending on the classification, and a 5/32-inch (4.0 mm) E7018 usually wants about 120–180 A. We cover the 3/32 rod in depth in our 3/32 E7018 amperage and polarity guide, and the heavier size in our 5/32 E7018 settings walkthrough.

Converting Inches to Millimeters

Electrode boxes in the US list inches; machines and European rods list millimeters. The quick math: mm = inches × 25.4, and inches = mm ÷ 25.4. So 5/64 in = 0.078 in ≈ 2.0 mm, 3/32 in ≈ 2.4 mm, 1/8 in = 3.2 mm, 5/32 in = 4.0 mm, and 3/16 in ≈ 4.8 mm. Round to the nearest standard metric rod size (2.0, 2.5, 3.2, 4.0, 5.0 mm) and you’ll never buy the wrong box again.

Polarity: What DCEP, DCEN, and AC Actually Do

• DCEP (electrode positive, reverse polarity): roughly two-thirds of the arc heat stays at the electrode, giving deep, narrow penetration and a stable arc. This is why E6010 is DC-only and must run electrode positive, and why low-hydrogen E7018 behaves best the same way.
• DCEN (electrode negative, straight polarity): more heat flows into the workpiece, which produces a wider, shallower bead and faster deposition. It’s favored for thin sheet and for high-deposition iron-powder rods like E7024.
• AC: the current alternates, splitting the difference. It was developed partly to let fast-freeze cellulose rods like E6011 run on old transformer buzz boxes, and it reduces arc blow on magnetic parts.

For a fuller breakdown of what those digits on the wrapper mean, see what electrodes in welding actually are. Welding standards and classification systems are maintained by the American Welding Society.

Your Dial Is Lying to You

Budget machines frequently deliver output 10–20% off the number printed on the knob, and the drift grows as the machine heats up. Long, thin cables make it worse: every extra 10 feet of undersized lead costs you real amperage at the arc. If you’re running 50-foot leads to a fixed station, upsize the cable one gauge and keep connections clean and tight, which our cable connectors guide covers in detail.

Duty Cycle in Practical Terms

Duty cycle is the percentage of a 10-minute period a machine can run at rated output before its thermal protector trips. A 200 A machine at 30% duty cycle can only weld at 200 A for 3 minutes out of every 10, but at 130 A the same machine may run continuously. Manufacturers such as Miller Welds and Lincoln Electric publish these ratings on the data plate.

Heat Input Formula

Heat input (kJ/in) = (60 × arc volts × amps) ÷ (1000 × travel speed in inches per minute). On thin plate, dropping from 125 A to 90 A at the same travel speed cuts heat input by about 28% — which is usually the difference between a bead and a blown hole. Our stick welding thin metal settings guide walks through that exact trade-off.

The Electrode Selection Chart: E6010 vs E6011 vs E6013 vs E7018 vs E7024 (And When to Ignore the Chart)

Amperage charts tell you how hot to run. Selection charts tell you what to run, and that question has two axes. One is base metal condition: clean or rusty, thick or thin, carbon steel or stainless or cast iron. The other is the weld’s job: a root pass that must freeze fast, a structural fillet that must pass inspection, a cosmetic bead on visible sheet. Get both axes right and the rod choice mostly makes itself. Get them wrong and no amperage setting saves you, which is why any chart ranking electrodes from “best” to “worst” is nearly useless. More on that at the end.

Fast Freeze vs Fast Fill: The One Idea That Explains Most Rod Behavior

Every stick electrode is a compromise between how fast its pool solidifies and how much metal it deposits. Fast-freeze rods (the 6010 and 6011 family) build a slag chemistry that sets almost instantly, so the pool holds its shape pointed uphill or hanging overhead. The price is a forceful, digging arc, heavy ripples, and a relatively low deposition rate. Fast-fill and medium-fill rods (7018, 7014, 7024) carry iron powder in the coating, deposit metal generously, and leave smoother beads, but their fluid pools sag if you fight gravity. Hydrogen sits on a third axis: low-hydrogen coatings (7018, 7024) need dry storage, while cellulose coatings (6010, 6011) basically don’t. That difference is why how electrodes are classified matters more than most welders admit.

Rod-by-Rod: Where Each One Earns Its Keep

E6010 produces a forceful digging arc that punches through mill scale and light contamination. It is the classic open-root pipe rod, precisely because its fast-freeze slag bridge holds a keyhole root without dripping through. Run it on DCEP with a tight arc and a slight whip-and-pause and it will burn through rust, paint, and old coatings that make a 7018 spit and wander. If you’re sequencing pipe welds, it’s almost always pass one, and pipe welding procedures covers how root, hot pass, fill, and cap split up the work.

E6011 is essentially the AC-friendly version of E6010. If you own an old transformer buzz box with no DC setting, 6011 is your digging rod. It handles rust, mill scale, paint, and grimy farm repairs far better than E7018 or E6013, which is why it lives in glove boxes on tractors and utility trailers nationwide. Call it the “one rod in the truck” rod; it’s a fair claim.

E6013 is the opposite temperament: soft arc, shallow penetration, light spatter, a bead that lays down pretty with minimal effort. That makes it the standard first rod for thin sheet, tacking, and welding over gaps or poor fit-up. It won’t dig, so it won’t save a dirty joint, but on clean light material it’s genuinely forgiving. Thin-material settings live in stick welding for sheet metal.

E7014 bridges the gap: iron-powder coating, medium penetration, easy starts, low spatter, and acceptable AC performance. It gives you 7018-ish speed without 7018’s fussiness about moisture, which makes it popular for maintenance work on mixed machines.

E7018 is the default structural rod under AWS D1.1-type specifications: low-hydrogen, iron-powder, smooth arc, medium penetration, and noticeably better ductility and notch toughness than the 60-series. It rewards a long enough arc to keep the coating from stubbing and a rod kept in an oven or sealed quiver. For settings on common sizes, see 3/32 E7018 amperage and 5/32 E7018 amperage and technique.

E7024 is the flat-shop workhorse: very high deposition, buttery arc, a cap that needs almost no finishing. It’s limited to flat and horizontal fillets because its heavy iron-powder pool sags anywhere else. Production shops running fillets on heavy plate love it; field welders rarely touch it.

Non-Carbon Steels: Let the Base Metal Pick the Rod

Stainless and cast iron don’t follow the 60/70 rules. For stainless, the base metal number drives the choice: E308L-16 for 304-type alloys, E316L-16 for molybdenum-bearing 316 grades, and E309L-16 for joining stainless to carbon steel. The “-L” means low carbon, which reduces carbide cracking in the heat-affected zone. Cast iron gets a nickel electrode like ENi-Cl, run cool on short, staggered beads with peening between passes to relieve shrinkage stress.

Why “Best Electrode” Charts Mislead

A ranking chart will happily tell you that E7018 “beats” E6013 on tensile strength, deposition, and toughness. All true, and all irrelevant if the job is a 20-gauge patch on a rusty fender, where 6013 is the right answer and 7018 would blow through the panel. Charts describe capability; your joint decides which capability matters. Before committing to any electrode, check the machine, fit-up, position, and code, and confirm the rest of your setup, since cable length, connectors, and ground placement all shift your real output, as we cover in welding connector selection. A rod that’s perfect on paper and wrong for the joint is still the wrong rod. And if you’re still building confidence with basics, is stick welding hard? is a good place to shore up fundamentals before chasing specialty electrodes.

Thickness, Joint, and Position Charts: Matching the Rod to the Work

Every beginner memorizes the amperage chart, then walks up to a real job and freezes. The plate is 3/8 inch on one side and 18-gauge sheet on the other, the joint is overhead, and the rod in your hand doesn’t match either number. Charts give you amperage by rod size. What they rarely spell out is which rod size belongs on which thickness, in which joint, in which position. This section fills in those missing columns.

The Diameter-to-Thickness Rule

The most reliable matching rule in SMAW: start with an electrode diameter roughly equal to the plate thickness for the root pass, then step up in size for fill passes. A 1/4-inch plate gets a 1/4-inch root rod in theory, though most welders dial back to 3/16 for controllability. The practical companion rule is that your electrode diameter should generally not exceed plate thickness on the first pass, because excess heat sinks into thin metal and blows the joint open.

Below about 0.048–0.063 inch (18 to 16 gauge), stick welding gets genuinely difficult. A 5/64 or 3/32-inch E6013 at 40–70 A is the practical floor, and even then you’re racing the heat. For more on pushing past that limit, see our stick welding thin metal guide.

Joint-Type Chart

Open-root pipe joints typically pair a gap of about 2.5–3.2 mm (3/32–1/8 inch) with a land of roughly 1.6 mm (1/16 inch) when running a 6010 root. That gap matters more than amp settings: too tight and you wash the land away, too open and the rod won’t bridge. For the full sequencing, our pipe welding procedures guide breaks down root, hot pass, fill, and cap.

Position: Where Charts Quietly Disqualify Electrodes

Position codes aren’t suggestions. Flat and horizontal work is forgiving; vertical-up demands fast-freeze or controlled-fill rods and disciplined weaving; vertical-down suits thin sheet and fast root runs; overhead is its own sport. Key matching facts:

• E7018 vertical-up deposits strong, deep-penetrating passes with excellent sidewall fusion, making it the structural standard.
• E7024 cannot be used vertical or overhead at all. Its heavy slag and fluid puddle will sag right out of the joint. Flat and horizontal fillets only.
• E6010/E6011 handle all positions thanks to their fast-freeze cellulose coatings, which is why they own root passes everywhere from pipe to repair.

Thin vs. Thick: Changing Technique, Not Just Amps

Thin sections want tight fit-ups, faster travel, smaller rods, and often vertical-down progression. Thick sections want a modest root gap, slower travel, stringer passes, and multi-pass stacking with interpass cleaning. When you move from a 6010 root to 7018 fill and cap, drop back into your low-hydrogen routine: fresh rod from the oven, short arc, no dragging the slag ahead of your puddle.

The Preheat Warning No Chart Prints

Here’s the failure that embarrasses even experienced welders: a flawless chart setting on 1-inch plate or high-carbon steel, followed by a cold crack along the toe two hours later. Thickness means faster cooling; high carbon and restraint make it worse. AWS and ASME procedures commonly call for preheating thick or high-carbon sections to 200–400 °F (100–200 °C). Preheat slows cooling enough to let hydrogen escape before it can cause cracking. No amperage chart can substitute for it. And since preheating, grinding, and hot work all carry fire risk, brush up on station safety with our welding PPE guide and OSHA’s 1910.252 hot-work requirements before you torch anything.

Technique Charts: Travel Speed, Rod Angle, Arc Length, and Weave Width

Every stick welding chart ends at a number on a dial. But the dial doesn’t lay the bead — your hands do. Four variables fill the gap between “set to 90 amps” and a fused, properly profiled weld: rod angle, arc length, travel speed, and weave width. No amperage table controls them for you. This is where static numbers turn into motion.

Drag, Push, and Why 5 to 15 Degrees Matters

Most covered electrodes want to be dragged, meaning the top of the rod leans back over the direction of travel, at roughly 5 to 15 degrees of tilt. Dragging shields the puddle with the flux coating and lets slag trail behind instead of running ahead of the arc. Push instead and you blow the puddle forward, expose molten metal to air, and invite porosity and a lumpy, oxidized bead.

There are honest exceptions. A whipping E6010 root often runs with a slight push or a near-vertical rod, and a few fast-fill rods tolerate a mild push in flat. Our guide to push vs. pull stick welding covers which rods bend the rule and why. Working default: drag it, hold the angle steady, and change only one thing at a time.

Arc Length: Keep It Tight

Arc length is the distance between the rod tip and the puddle, and the rule is simple: about the diameter of the electrode core wire or less. For a 1/8-inch rod, that means a 1/8-inch arc or tighter. A long arc does three bad things at once — spatter, atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen that poison the weld and cause porosity, and a wandering puddle that stops tracking straight.

It also steals or adds amperage. A long arc drops effective current and penetration; a tight arc concentrates it. That’s why two welders on the same dial setting get different results. Our 3/32 E7018 amperage guide shows how much narrower that window gets on small-diameter low-hydrogen rods.

Travel Speed Reference Chart

Hand travel speed typically runs 6 to 12 inches per minute, a big reason SMAW is slower than wire processes. Slow down for thick plate, uphill vertical, and root passes; speed up for thin sheet and out-of-position fills where gravity works against you.

Read the bead, not the clock. A too narrow bead with sharp, tall toes means you’re moving too fast, and undercut follows — see our undercut causes and acceptance limits guide for when that becomes a rejection. A wide, flat, gray bead means too slow or too hot.

Weave Width, Restarts, and Craters

Stringer beads are the default because they keep heat input down. When you do weave — mostly vertical-up E7018 fill passes — hold the weave width to about 2.5 to 3 times the electrode diameter. A 1/8-inch rod weaves to roughly 3/8 inch, no wider. Go wider and the trailing edge of the puddle never gets enough heat, so trapped slag and lack of fusion hide under a bead that looks perfect on top.

• Whip and pause (E6010 roots): strike the arc, pause to open a keyhole, whip forward so the puddle freezes at the sides, then step back. The pause controls penetration; the whip keeps heat from blowing through the root.
• Restarts: overlap the crater by about a half rod diameter, then flick out. On T-joints, restart on cold metal, never in the crater.
• Crater filling: pause at the end of the bead, reverse slightly, and let the puddle fill before pulling away. Crater cracks are the most common “I finished fine” failure in the sequencing described in our pipe welding procedures guide.

The One-Variable-at-a-Time Drill

Cut three coupons of 1/4-inch plate, run eight stringers with the same rod, and vary deliberately: beads 1–2 at your chart amperage with a tight arc, 3–4 with a 1/4-inch arc, 5–6 at 10 amps hot, 7–8 at 10 amps cold. Photograph each. Twenty minutes of that beats an afternoon of random practice, and it builds the feel you need to verify your dial when machine and chart disagree. Output drifts with cable length and connectors, so a healthy arc is your backup instrument — a habit worth building before you troubleshoot leads and cable connectors that quietly rob you of amps.

Keep the safety basics in muscle memory while you drill: leathers, gloves, and the correct lens shade for your amperage, per welding PPE. New to the arc? Start with our honest beginner’s guide to stick welding.

Special-Material Charts: Stainless, Cast Iron, Galvanized, Pipe, and Hardfacing

Most stick charts you find online are written for one assumption: you are welding clean mild steel in a shop. The moment your project turns to stainless, a cracked engine block, a galvanized guardrail, a line of pipe, or a bucket tooth, the standard amperage table quietly stops helping. Special materials need their own small set of charts, and this section is that set.

Stainless Steel: Less Heat, Shorter Arc, More Warp

Stainless steel conducts heat roughly a third as well as carbon steel, so the heat from your arc does not travel away from the joint. It sits there, which is why stainless warps and distorts far more readily than mild steel at the same settings. The practical response is simple: drop your amperage about 10 to 20 percent below what you would use for a similar thickness of mild steel, keep the arc short (about one electrode diameter), and move quickly.

• 308L-16: the workhorse for 304 stainless, sheet to plate, all positions on AC or DCEP.
• 316L-16: for 316 material and anything exposed to chemicals or saltwater.
• 309L-16: the correct choice for dissimilar joints, such as stainless to carbon steel, because the extra nickel and chromium tolerate dilution.

Watch the heat input: less is almost always better. A long arc on stainless also burns out the alloying elements and can leave a sugared, oxidized surface that will not pass inspection. On thin stainless, a wider discussion of heat control and filler choice is worth reading in the complete guide to TIG welding sheet metal, since TIG often beats stick here.

Cast Iron: Nickel Rods, Short Beads, Patience

Cast iron is brittle and shrinks hard as it cools, so the weld wants to crack. That is why ENi-Cl and similar nickel-based electrodes are the standard repair rods: the nickel deposit stays ductile and absorbs the movement as the casting cools. Run them at low amperage for the rod size, deposit short stringer beads about one to two inches long, and peen each bead while it is still hot to relieve shrinkage stress. For heavy sections or mended breaks under restraint, preheat to 400-600°F, weld a short segment, and let it cool slowly under a blanket.

Galvanized Steel: The Zinc Problem

The zinc coating on galvanized steel boils off before the steel even melts, releasing zinc oxide fume. Inhaling it can cause metal fume fever, with flu-like chills, nausea, and headache hours after exposure. OSHA’s permissible exposure limit for zinc oxide fume is 5 mg/m³ (respirable fraction) as an 8-hour time-weighted average. Grind or chemically remove the coating at least one inch back from the joint where practical, work in open or mechanically ventilated space, and wear respiratory protection. The same fume-control mindset applies to every process; welding PPE covers exactly what to wear and why.

Pipe: The Pass Sequence

Pipe welding follows a fixed choreography, and each pass has a typical rod. A common sequence uses E6010 or E7010 for the root, E7018 or E8010 for the hot and fill passes, and E7018 for the cap, with rod diameter increasing as the groove fills. Full pass sequencing, positions, and inspection requirements are covered in detail in pipe welding procedures.

Hardfacing: Build-Up vs. Overlay

Hardfacing splits into two jobs. Build-up restores worn metal to original dimensions with a ductile, weldable rod; overlay lays a wear-resistant alloy on top. Dilution is the enemy: too much penetration mixes base metal into the overlay and softens it, so run lower amperage and faster passes for overlay work. A general-purpose repair rod is not a wear rod, and the hard, brittle overlay rod will crack if used to rebuild a structural part.

Material-to-Rod Master Chart

Short Note: Every rod above has its own manufacturer sheet, and that sheet outranks any generic chart. When the two disagree, the rod manufacturer and your WPS win.

Benefits and Real Limits of Stick Charts (Plus the Mistakes That Ruin Otherwise Good Welds)

A stick welding chart is the closest thing the SMAW world has to a co-worker who never gets tired of your questions, but it is still paper. It cannot see your machine, your weather, or your fit-up. So let’s be honest about what a chart actually buys you, what it can never tell you, and the mistakes that turn correct-looking numbers into rejected welds.

What a Good Chart Actually Does for You

• It shortens the learning curve. Guessing between 60 and 160 amps burns hours and pounds of rod. A chart gets you into the right window on the first strike, so practice time goes to puddle control instead of temperature roulette. If you’re just starting out, our guide on is stick welding hard pairs well with this section.
• It standardizes settings across a crew. In a shop with four welders and three machines, “run it a little hotter” means four different things. A posted chart gives everyone the same starting point, which makes quality repeatable and training faster.
• It supports WPS compliance and code work. Procedure specifications are built on exactly this data: electrode classification, diameter, polarity, position, and preheat. The American Welding Society publishes the electrode specifications most charts are derived from (aws.org), and structural codes like ASME’s boiler and pressure vessel rules rely on documented, qualified procedures (asme.org). For pipeline and pressure work, our pipe welding procedures guide walks through that documentation chain.
• It speeds up troubleshooting. When a bead goes wrong, the chart gives you a known-good baseline to compare against. That’s the backbone of the defect table in the next section.

What a Chart Can Never Account For

A chart assumes a calibrated machine, short leads, room temperature, and a clean, properly fitted joint. The real world adds:

• Machine calibration drift. Cheap and aging machines are often off by 10-20% from the dial. If yours reads 20 amps low, every chart value you follow is wrong by 20 amps.
• Cable length and voltage drop. Long, thin leads rob output. A setting that works at 10 feet may starve at 50. Our piece on welding connectors explains why loose or undersized connections make this worse.
• Ambient conditions. Wind chills the puddle, cold steel sucks heat, and humidity attacks low-hydrogen coatings. OSHA’s welding, cutting, and brazing standard addresses ventilation and fume control for exactly these environmental factors (1910.252).
• Base-metal chemistry and joint restraint. A heavily restrained part, boxed in with six tacks and a vise, acts like a heat sink. The chart does not know that.
• Operator technique. Arc length, angle, and travel speed can make a “correct” setting behave completely wrong.

The Mistakes That Ruin Otherwise Good Welds

Most catastrophic stick welding failures are not caused by bad charts. They are caused by ignoring what the chart says. The top offenders:

The Stub Cost Nobody Budgets For

Chart math ignores stubs. A 14-inch rod with a 2-3 inch unusable stub loses roughly 15-20% of its length to waste. Multiply that by hundreds of rods and it is real money. Where the chart allows, buy longer rods and ream your stub with a stub end for critical passes.

Stop and Fix One Thing Checklist

1. Polarity — is the rod’s required current actually selected?
2. Consumables — are low-hydrogen rods dry and within their exposure window?
3. Connections — ground clamp and holder clean, tight, undamaged?
4. Duty cycle — is the machine about to trip?
5. Fit-up — gap and land within spec before touching amps?
6. Technique — arc length and travel speed right before blaming the machine?

Change one variable, weld a test bead, and write the result down. That single habit is how a generic chart becomes your shop’s calibrated reference. If you’re auditing your station, our welding PPE guide covers the full kit, and OSHA’s general industry welding standard (1910.254) plus their welding portal (osha.gov/welding-cutting-brazing) lay out the ventilation and fire-watch baseline every SMAW station must meet.

Use the chart. Trust the puddle. Document the result.

Troubleshooting Chart: Diagnosing Porosity, Undercut, Slag, Cracks, and Arc Blow

Even the most accurate electrode chart taped to your machine won’t keep defects out of every bead, which is why reading the puddle matters as much as reading your settings. The chart below links the usual SMAW culprits to the dial setting that fixes them and the hand movement that prevents them.

How to Use This Troubleshooting Chart

One golden rule comes first: if a defect shows up in every bead, suspect your setup before your hands. Polarity, welding connectors, machine calibration, rod condition, or your environment are more likely offenders than technique.

The Curse of Arc Blow (And How To Mitigate It)

Arc blow frustrates even veterans. Magnetic forces shove the arc off course, and it is worst on DC at high amperage, on odd part geometries, or with poor ground placement. The result is inconsistent penetration, porosity, and heavy spatter.

• Switch polarities: If the electrode allows, move from DC to AC; many AC rods exist for exactly this problem.
• Shorten your arc: A tight arc resists magnetic push far better than a long one.
• Adjust your ground: Move the work clamp opposite the joint or directly behind your weld path, a trick Miller Welds technicians recommend.
• Lower your amperage: Drop 5-15 amps while staying inside your chart range; less current means weaker magnetic force.
• Change your approach: Weld toward the clamp or break the run into shorter segments to interrupt the magnetic loop.
• Inspect your leads: Coiled leads generate their own field, so uncoil them fully before you strike.

Final Troubleshooting Advice

Change one variable at a time. Whether you’re running overhead stick welding or deciding between push or pull stick welding, that discipline stops you from trading one defect for another.

The core lesson: a defect that repeats on every bead is a settings problem, not a technique problem. Verify polarity, machine output, and rod condition first. After that, trust the puddle, because the chart gets you in the ballpark and your eyes get you home.

Building Your Own Wall Chart: Safety Rules, Shop Defaults, and a Practice Plan

Everything up to this point has been a generic chart. The version that will actually change your welding is the one you build for your own machine, your own rods, and your own shop air. A laminated one-pager taped next to your buzz box beats any article, because it contains numbers you personally measured rather than numbers you hoped were right.

Step 1: Measure Your Machine, Don’t Trust the Dial

Dials lie. Inexpensive machines commonly read 10-20% off from what the arc actually receives, so the first entry in your chart should never be a printed value. Buy or borrow a DC clamp meter, strike an arc on scrap, clamp the electrode lead, and record the real reading at three dial points: low, middle, and high. Repeat after a few minutes of running, since thermal drift moves the output on older transformers.

Step 2: Build the Consumables Log and Per-Rod Defaults

Keep a small notebook or spreadsheet next to the rod oven. Every time a setting works, log it. After a month you will have a shop-default table that looks something like this:

For the finer points of the two most common structural rods, our deep dives on 3/32 E7018 amperage and 5/32 E7018 settings will help you fill in the technique notes beside each number.

Step 3: Add the Safety Column

A wall chart without safety data is half a chart. Add these four lines where you can see them:

• Shade: ANSI Z49.1 recommends shade 10 for 60-160 A and up to shade 14 above 250 A, so a fixed shade 10 hood is not enough for heavy 3/16-inch rod work. An auto-darkening helmet with a wide range, plus leathers and a respirator for stainless or galvanized work, covers most jobs. See welding PPE for the full gear breakdown.
• Ventilation: OSHA requires general mechanical ventilation of at least 2,000 cfm of airflow per welder, or enough to keep exposure below the limits.
• Clearance: The rule everyone calls the 35-foot rule requires combustible materials within 35 feet (10.7 m) of the work to be moved or protected with fire-resistant guards, under OSHA 1910.252, plus a fire watch when hot work continues.
• Equipment: Ground clamp placement, lead condition, and holder insulation belong on the chart too — OSHA 1910.254 covers arc welding equipment and installation, and OSHA’s welding and cutting page collects the related requirements in one place.

Step 4: The Practice Plan

1. Weeks 1-2: Flat stringers on 1/4-inch scrap with E6013 or E7018. One variable at a time: travel speed one day, arc length the next.
2. Week 3: T-fillets in flat and horizontal. Chasing a consistent leg size teaches puddle control faster than any table.
3. Weeks 4-5: Vertical-up E7018 and overhead practice. The numbers here are forgiving, but the hands are not — our overhead stick welding guide covers the 4F and 4G adjustments.
4. After that: Open-root 6010 pipe, then code-level joints. Any certification work needs a real procedure, so use a written WPS and the applicable ASME standards rather than a laminated sheet.

Re-laminate the chart whenever you recalibrate, retire a rod, or discover a setting that works better than the one you wrote down. If stick still feels like a struggle at the start, our honest beginner’s guide sets realistic expectations.

The chart tells you where to start. The puddle tells you where to go. The code tells you what must be documented. Print those three lines at the top of your wall chart, and you will never chase a number past the point where your eyes should be doing the work.

Frequently Asked Questions

What amperage should I use for a 1/8-inch E7018 stick electrode?

Most 1/8-inch (3.2 mm) E7018 electrodes run best between about 90 and 150 amps on AC or DCEP. Start around 115-125 A on clean flat steel and adjust up for thick plate or downhill-free vertical-up work, and down for thin or poorly fitted joints. Read the puddle, not just the dial, because machine calibration varies.

Can I run E6010 on an AC welder?

No. E6010 has a high-cellulose sodium coating designed for DCEP only, and it will sputter, stick, and lose the arc on AC. Use E6011 instead, which uses a potassium coating so the same fast-freeze arc works on AC or DCEP. E6013 and E7018 are also AC-friendly.

What’s the difference between E6011 and E6013?

E6011 is a fast-freeze, deep-penetrating rod that handles rust, paint, and dirty metal, which makes it a favorite for repairs. E6013 has a softer arc, shallower penetration, lighter spatter, and a smooth appearance, so it’s better on clean sheet metal and light fabrication. Neither is a low-hydrogen rod.

What polarity do I use for stick welding?

It depends on the electrode. E6010 requires DCEP, E7018 runs on AC or DCEP, and E6013 runs on AC or DC either polarity. DCEP puts more heat into the electrode and gives deeper penetration, while DCEN puts more heat into the plate and suits thinner material or certain iron-powder rods.

How should I store E7018 electrodes?

Keep E7018 in a sealed, hermetically closed container until use, then hold opened rods in a heated rod oven at roughly 250-300 F (120-150 C). AWS D1.1 limits open-air exposure of low-hydrogen electrodes to about 4 hours before they need to be redried at roughly 700 F (370 C) for one to two hours.

What is the best stick electrode for a complete beginner?

E6013 is usually the easiest to strike and restrike, and it produces a smooth bead with light spatter on clean mild steel, which builds confidence fast. Once you can run consistent beads, move to E7018 for structural-quality practice or E6011 if you want to learn deep-penetration repair work.

Can you stick weld thin sheet metal?

Yes, but with limits. Below about 18 gauge (0.048 inch) stick welding becomes very difficult because arc heat and rod diameter overwhelm the material. Use a 5/64 or 3/32-inch E6013 at low amperage, run short stringers, and let the part cool between beads to avoid warping or burn-through.

Why does my weld look fine but crack a day later?

That is typically hydrogen-induced cracking. Moisture in the electrode coating, the wrong polarity on a low-hydrogen rod, a fast-cooling thick section, or a highly restrained joint all push hydrogen into the weld. Dry your rods, use E7018 correctly, and preheat thick or high-carbon steel to slow cooling.