[TowerTalk] FW: Cad Welding tips

[Matt]

Hi Bob,

I have been buying my Erico CAD supplies online from Gordon's Electric Supply because they seem to carry the full line of product, are reasonably priced, and have excellent customer service.  

A few tips...

- suggest to do the math to determine if it will be more economical to go with one-shots or buy a mold.  I seem to recall that the difference is about $6 per weld.  

- be sure to consider all the different types of connections you will need to make as you may need more than one mold shape.   I have also used a lot of silver solder too - especially for bonding ground wire to copper strap or bonding copper strap together.   An acetylene torch is needed to work with the silver solder.

- If you are working with #6 wire, I believe Erico sells a smaller mold which comes with handles that is about 60% of the cost of the regular size mold.

- the regular molds don't come with handles - they have to be purchased separately.   If you want to save some $$ look for a used pair of handles on ebay.

- Be aware that CAD molds do wear out and can also be damaged.  So beware if you buy used molds.   With TLC, they can last a very long time.  I have some that have produced well over 100 welds (I seem to recall that Erico says nominal life is 50??) and still don't leak at all.   

- The common mode of mold wear is that they can develop too much clearance around the wire and/or rod openings.   At some point, too much of the molten weld metal will leak out and leaving less than a full weld.   When the mold gets to this point, there are two options - use the CAD paste that you pack around the openings for each load or retire the molds.

- The molds have to be cleaned after every shot to remove the residual slag, soot, and splatter.  A medium soft bristle brush is great for cleaning molds.

- I have only used the flint ignitor gun and  can attest that they are reliable and last a long time - although they too need to be cleaned frequently or they will load up with splatter.  I doubt that a conventional striker would get the job done.

Hope this info is of use to you & good luck on your project!

73
Matt
KM5VI

-----Original Message-----
From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Bob K6UJ
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2016 7:12 PM
To: towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Cad Welding tips

I will be connecting no. 6 copper wire to 8 foot ground rods and plan to bury the connections.  I did my homework reading Tower Talk archives and have concluded that I will cad weld the connections.  I am a newbie at Cad Welding any advice,  and where is the best place to get cad welding supplies ?


Bob
K6UJ
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