Alan,
Sorry to be ambiguous about Hard-Facing rods.
You need about 130-150A to melt a Hard Facing rod, not exactly the thing for a DIY welding set, at any sort of duty cycle.
As I said above the normal rutile rod takes little current and you can work with a short arc, not so with a H/F rod.
Bank on a 1/2" arc at the least, with a very slow travel, penetration is what counts, that is the most part of Hard facing.
If you don't have the penetration, you might as well be using hot glue, it'll fall off like it too.
