I read on another site that you can cut down #7018 welding rods to be used as shear pins for Minn Kota motors after you remove the flux.  I think I could make a life-time supply of pins out of a dollar's worth of rods.   Has anyone tried this?  Any welders on here who can tell me how to cut a welding rod?

Yes, I have. Use to carry one for a backup pin, but never intended to use it as a permanent pin though. 

Do you break a lot of pins? In 30 years and 3 trolling motors, I've yet to break my first one.

I used a brass welding rod to make shear pins for the 3hp Johnson i use on my tin boat...

Didn't realize MK shear pins were such an expensive commodity. 

6 hours ago, Scott F said:

Do you break a lot of pins? In 30 years and 3 trolling motors, I've yet to break my first one.

same here 30 years of Minn Kotas and not one sheared pin.

I carry a spare prop, because I have shredded a few of them.

My lake is very shallow and full of stumps.  When the management lowers the dam, new obstacles pop up from time to time.  I  go through a half dozen pins a summer.

I have made them from steel dowel rod as spares. In fact I had to take the prop off while out on the water and the factory shear pin fell in the lake so I have been running on one I made for some time.

 

Personally, I don't use nothing but OEM shear pins in anything that runs one.  As the name implies, they are basically your "fuse" that keeps from doing other damage when that moving prop comes in contact with an immovable object.  Throw something in there with a higher shear strength, and the cost to repair the collateral damage, would buy a boat load of OEM pins.