Stick Welding Amperage

Set a stick welder too hot and you burn through or undercut; too cold and the rod sticks and the bead piles up without fusing. The right amperage starts with the electrode: its diameter and type set a working range. This gives you a starting amperage and that range for your rod, the polarity to run it on, and a check that the rod suits your metal.

Amps follow the electrode

A stick rod has a window of current it likes, set mostly by its diameter: thicker rod, more amps. A rough rule many welders carry is about one amp per thousandth of an inch of electrode diameter, so an eighth-inch rod at 125 thousandths lands near 125 amps at the top of its range. The ranges here follow that, then nudge for the rod type. Start in the middle of the range and adjust from there by how the arc and the bead behave.

The rod type shifts it

The number on the rod is more than a code. A 6010 or 6011 digs deep and runs a touch cooler, great over rust and gaps; a 7018 is a low-hydrogen rod for clean, strong welds and likes a steady, slightly higher heat; a 7024 is a fast-fill iron-powder rod that runs hot and flat. Each also wants a certain polarity, which is why this gives you that too. Same diameter, different rod, a different sweet spot within the range.

Position and thickness pull the heat

The range is for flat work on metal thick enough to take it. Weld vertical or overhead and you drop the amps, often ten to twenty percent, so the puddle does not sag or fall. Weld thin sheet and you drop them more, or switch to a smaller rod, to keep from blowing through. Thick plate flat can take the top of the range. So read the starting number as a middle you move from, down for hard positions and thin steel, up for flat and heavy.

Prove it on scrap, every time

No chart replaces a test bead. Set the starting amperage, run a short bead on a scrap of the same metal and thickness, and read it: a hissing, cutting arc and a bead that wets out flat is right; a stubbing rod and a tall ropey bead is too cold; burn-through, heavy spatter and undercut is too hot. Nudge the dial and run another. Match the polarity the rod wants, keep low-hydrogen rods dry, and follow the amperage on the box when it gives one.

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