My grandfather (who is 93) has a ton of welding and brazing rods in his various "shop buildings". Unfortunately, there is no way to know which rods are what.

Are there any suggestions you have to help figure out what rods go with which types of metal?

 

Do the electrodes have any #s on them?
I can't remember and it's raining way too hard to run out to the shop and look

 

One way would be to burn some of them on mild steel plate.

Assuming that you have some experience with stick welding, here are the things that you are looking for:

- contact rod? Can you drag it along without much sticking
- penetration? is the arc forceful , moderately forceful or fairly soft at cutting into the metal
- ease of striking? hard to start or works better on DC while not really working on AC at all
- finished appearance after slag is removed? 6010 is so penetrating that there's almost nothing on the surface while 7014 is beautifully smooth.
- fast freezing? How well does it work in vertical or horizontal grooves at appropriate heat levels.
- burning the flux covering? At what amperage does the flux covering turn brown and burn back?

Start on DCEP at 120 amps for a 1/8" rod and see what happens. Just lay a straight stringer bead and see what you get. Don't do any critical work with old unknown rod.

 

Were the electrodes stored in sealed containers? If they've been exposed to air for too long the flux coating can absorb humidity. Some electrodes can be recovered by literally baking them in an oven (wait until the wife is gone for the day) but others cannot be recovered by this method because it removes hydrogen from the coating, making the rod useless.

It all depends on the type of rod, which determines the type of coating.

 

One way to tell if you have an iron rod or not is to put a magnet to it. Then usually a rod with a thicker flux will have less penetration, but have a greater deposit.(7018) Also if you have rod that sparks alot and has a lot of penetration then it will most likely not have little or no iron in the flux and the flux will be thinner (6010) And yes DCEP Electode positive to start.

Brazing rods are usually brass and look like brass.

Hope we have helped.

Jim