GMAW · Carbon steel
ER70S-3
The middle of the road carbon steel wire, deoxidised enough for clean plate and light scale but leaner than the high silicon wire that dominates general fabrication.
What the designation means
Point at any character to see what it claims. The classification is a sentence written in fields, not a product name.
- ERClassified as both an electrode and a hand fed rod.
- 7070,000 psi minimum tensile strength of the deposit.
- SSolid wire rather than a tubular product.
- -3A chemistry class with moderate silicon and manganese, intended for clean or lightly scaled steel.
At a glance
- Process
- GMAW
- Family
- Carbon steel
- Positions
- All positions with short circuit or pulsed transfer; spray transfer is flat and horizontal only
- Polarity
- DCEP
- Shielding
- Argon-carbon dioxide blends, or 100 percent carbon dioxide for short circuit work
- Minimum tensile
- 70ksi
Typical uses
- General fabrication on clean or lightly scaled carbon steel
- Sheet metal and light plate production welding
- Applications where a leaner silicon deposit is preferred for subsequent coating
How it runs
- Smooth, stable arc with moderate wetting
- Less silicon glass on the bead face than the highest silicon wire
- Requires cleaner base metal than the triple deoxidised or high silicon wires
- Bead profile is slightly more convex than the high silicon equivalent
Storage and handling
Keep spools bagged with desiccant in a dry, heated store; once a spool rusts, feeding and arc stability both suffer.
Compare with
GMAWER70S-6The most widely used carbon steel wire feed consumable, with enough silicon and manganese to weld through light rust and scale while wetting out into a flat bead.GMAWER70S-2The most heavily deoxidised of the common carbon steel wires, which is why it tolerates rust and mill scale and is the standard pick for open root passes.GMAWER80S-D2A molybdenum-bearing solid wire for higher strength steels, combining an 80 ksi deposit with better impact toughness than simply pushing a carbon steel wire hotter.