OK, some of you folks familiar with the pipe people used to use for cattle corrals and such, see if you can tell me what kind of pipe I was trying to weld on today. A friend wanted to weld one of those cattle grabber things, the kind that locks around their neck and holds them in place while you do whatever you need to do to them, to the end of a corral that was made from some kind of pipe that I have never seen before. It was about 4" outside diameter with about 3/16" to 1/4" wall thickness, and rusted like ****.

The guys brother had tried to weld this thing to the end of the corral posts with a piece of thin, less than 1/8", galvanized angle iron bolted to the grabber. He had only been able to get a thick blob to stick between the angle and the pipe. When the cow hit the grabber, it broke loose. So did all ****, but that's another story, LOL. It looked like the weld metal held together and jerked a chunk out of the end of the pipe. It almost looked like cast iron.

The guy said someone told them when they bought the place that the corral was made from some kind of oilfield pipe and he says he thinks the guy said it was "magnetized" pipe. That doesn't make sense so it must be another term besides "magnetized". It certainly isn't "galvanized", so any other terms sound like this?

I managed to get a pretty good bead between the pieces using 6011 at 100 amps on his ancient Lincoln buzz box with it's electrode holder that came over on the Mayflower. No insulation on the top of the holder and it stuck to the work twice when I accidentally hit it while trying to weld in a tight place.

Anyway, any help would be appreciated because I certainly don't have any faith in the strength of what I did today.

Shammy