That $40 flux I laughed at turned out to be the real deal

I bought cheap borax-based flux for years and thought the expensive paste stuff was just marketing hype, but after a failed forge weld on a railroad spike knife last Tuesday I grabbed a tub of the fancy flux from the local shop out of desperation. It flowed cleaner, kept the scale off way better, and I got a solid weld on my second try without any of the popping or spatter I usually fight. Has anyone else switched flux brands and noticed a night and day difference, or was I just doing something stupid the whole time?

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david_reed221mo ago

Yeah the popping and spatter thing really hit home for me, I dealt with that for way too long before I tried a better flux. It's wild how much of a difference the good stuff makes once you actually use it side by side with the cheap stuff. I mean, it sounds like you weren't doing anything dumb, just working with worse tools than you needed to.

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