I thought I knew rods and technique but I'm stumped on a project. Repairing a dozer blade/replacing the side plates. The blade face has been welded at the factory onto the blade sides. These sides are worn through. I'm trying to fit a side plate of half inch by 2 inch 'special alloy'. The alloy is a high manganese, phosphor steel with a high nickel content (its unsprung railcar leaf spring stock). I can weld the alloy fine with a 6011 AC or 7018 DCEP but I cant get either one to stick satisfactorly to the blade face which Im guessing is a very high carbon alloy thats fairly thin. The 6011 does fair but the 7018 just isnt getting it on the face metal.