Cattle pen questions

[greybeard]

Welds break on sucker rod most often because it's magnetized and a mild steel rod (like 6011) won't do.
Use low hydrogen rods (7018 for instance) if you're stick welding and it won't break.

 

[Brute 23]

Welds break on sucker rod most often because it's magnetized and a mild steel rod (like 6011) won't do.
Use low hydrogen rods (7018 for instance) if you're stick welding and it won't break.

Thank you sir. Most your farm and ranch guys live and die by 6010 6011 rods. They don't know any different. I'll spare y'all the speech I got when I grabbed for some 6011 when I was getting started. In short my dad said learn to use a 7018 or find some where else to weld.

The next most common complaint is about welding panels and how they break.

 

[greybeard]

I learned the hard way several decades ago on a 2 7/8" oilfield pipe fence. I already knew how to weld low H but the guy I was working for had "farm rod". I'd weld a horizontal piece on to the posts, move down, weld another. Wasn't long, I started hearing those little "TINK!s" back behind me, didn't know what it was and directly one of the rails just fell clean off.The TINKS was the weld cracking when it cooled. I try to use 7018 on everything nowdays if the steel isn't too rusty.
Sucker rod and oilfield pipe get magnetized from moving up and down or rotating inside another pipe--like production or drill casing.

And just an aside, make sure any oilfiled pipe you get isn't radioactive. Not too bad now, but back pre-80s, it was a common problem, cuz the industry just didn't understand that Radium 226-Radium 228 (and others) was present in the scale the precipitates out as the well produces hydrocarbons and salt water. Scrap yards and pipe yards are supposed to check each joint now (by law but I doubt they all do) Those two nuclides are bone seekers--they migrate to the bones in humans, concentrate there, and 'can' cause cancers. I suspect there are many hundreds of miles of old pipe fence and corrals still around from the 50s,60s,70s that are contaminated, but as long as one doesn't do much cutting on the pipe, they are reasonably safe. (Cutting with a torch and then welding releases Radon gas.) I used to work in the Rad remediation industry as a radiation safety officer.)

 

[Brute 23]

You are going to see an abundance of oilfield pipe on the market in the near future. All these eagle ford wells are going to put a lot of pipe on the market. Most of these wells have high amounts of C02, H2S, and have rods in them. Be aware... it will not last.