5 Best Flux Cord Wires of 2023 – Top Picks & Reviews

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Hobart Fabshield E71T-11 is a 0.030 inch diameter flux cored wire with high tensile strength. This wire is suitable for multi-position welding and out-of-position welding, not straight horizontal welds. Even at 0.030 diameter, it requires more heat than other brands to achieve the same penetration. This is because Hobart chose to use a harder steel as the base metal for this wire.

There have been user complaints about excessive splashing, but an answer from Hobart tech support suggested a higher amperage for better penetration. Deeper penetration burns off splashed droplets more thoroughly. Another common complaint is that spools either come off the line when first unpacked, or don't unwind well when sent out of the machine. This is actually a common problem with all flux cored wire spools.

E71T-1 welding wire is the most versatile self-shielded flux cored wire you can buy. The wire Hobart designs for use in welders is high quality, and we chose the Hobart Fabshield E71T-11 .030 as our favorite pick.

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Forney E71T-GS is a self shielded flux cored welding wire. This particular model has a diameter of 0.030 inches. It is suitable for welding in all positions and is a high strength wire with a tensile strength of 79,000 PSI. Forney notes that this wire produces low to moderate spatter and recommends using an argon/CO2 gas mixture on MIG welders to reduce spatter. A higher amperage setting also helps with this.

There have been numerous reports from users that this wire may break or have excessive manufacturing coating. Some users have installed wire cleaners on their welders to solve this problem. There have also been some reports that this wire does not feed smoothly in Lincoln welders. As with most welding wire, complaints of tangled spools or improper unwinding are easy to spot, but these problems can often be traced to cheap or poorly adjusted feed mechanisms, dirty wire, or torch liners that need replacing.

Overall, this line has many satisfied users, especially the owners of Forney and Hobart. It also gives good results in Harbor Freight machines.

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Lincoln Innershield NR-211-MP Flux-Cored Wire is a 0.035 inch diameter wire capable of welding plates up to 5/16 inch thick with good penetration. This wire is designed to work well on coated, galvanized, painted or rusted metal. Like most flux cored wires, it's wind resistant, so it's a good choice for outdoor welding. This wire is more expensive than the others in this guide because it comes in 1 lb instead of 2 lb spools. Lincoln designed this flux cored wire for easy dross removal.

The quick-freezing properties of Lincoln Innershield flux-cored wire make it excellent for misalignment welding, vertical or overhead welding, and where poorly fitted joints need to be welded. Lincoln Innershield NR-211-MP Flux-Cored Wire is known for its excellent bead appearance and ease of wire feeding. Some users have reported broken wires, and there have been a few reports of wires splitting or kinking, but these problems don't seem to be common.

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Yeswelder E71T-GS is suitable for all position welding. Users report that this self-shielding flux-cored wire has less spatter and speak highly of its weld bead appearance. The Yeswelder E71T-GS is designed for multi-pass welding with easy slag removal making it ideal for beginners and production sheet metal work. One of the biggest problems when welding sheet metal is blowing through the metal.

This can be helped by tack welding along the seam at intervals, then going back and running more tack welds intermittently. This allows the original weld to cool down before returning to that area of the sheet metal. In fact, you can weld over the previous bead so that you can create a full bead by overlapping, one stitch at a time, and then sand it down. Users report that the wire also produces beads that are easy to grind, making it perfect for the job.

This is a mild steel wire with a diameter of 0.030 inches. One potential problem with the Yeswelder E71T-GS is that it is manufactured in Hong Kong and therefore cannot meet certification standards for US and EU government work.

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Blue Demon E71T-GS .035 Flux Cored Welding Wire is a self shielded mild steel wire for carbon and manganese steels. It is capable of single and multi-pass welding. It is suitable for jobs such as seam welding of sheet metal or filling gaps on poorly fitting components. It is easy to remove slag and is very suitable for multi-pass welding.

This wire provides single pass welding with good penetration in plate thicknesses up to 5/16 inch. Users report good looking weld beads and easy feed, but there are frequent complaints of feed problems with well-known welders such as Lincoln, Hobart, and Forney machines. This may be due to the precision solid wire feeder design based on MIG, which generally does not use the knurled feeder rolls on flux core machines. Many users have complained about the high spatter of this wire.

While the Blue Demon E71T-GS cable is of average quality, it cannot be used for US or European government work because it is made in China. Since performance varies between machines, it's recommended that you try them out before buying if you can.