I have used stick welders for over 60 years, but never came across this problem.

I had been busy welding up some more track for my 5″ loco when the next rod refused to “strike”.  I assumed the welder had got too hot and it needed time to cool off a bit – even though it had not been hard pressed in service or the over heat light on !

I made a cup of tea, and returned to the welder but it still wouldn’t strike.  The over heat lamp was not on, so I took the cover off to investigate.  It’s a simple welder (no electronics) and both sides of the thermal cutout were live (OK).  Nothing else seemed out of place, and there were some volts coming out of the electrode grip. So that wasn’t the problem (I could have tested that first – silly me!)

For some reason, I changed the electrode and it was all working fine, so I used the original electrode and it would not strike.  On bending the electrode it snapped in half showing a very poor joint in the electrode wire, just enough to hold it all together.  Never seen that before !

Bob

The electrode at fault is marked with three white dots!