Learning Welding Symbols: Groove Welds

The ability to write and/or interpret welding symbols is essential for many welding industry professionals including welders, supervisors, CWIs, welding engineers, estimators, QC personnel and more.  Yet, less than 5% of the customers we consult with have at least a basic understanding of welding symbols.   Welding symbols communicate vital information to the welder.  It allows […]

Why demand for aluminum welding is increasing

The ability to develop welding procedures for aluminum and aluminum alloys coupled with the ability to weld these alloys is becoming even more important for fabricators. Whether it is a job shop producing different products every day or a firm that specializes in a single product, the ability to fabricate out of aluminum is necessary. […]

Basics of Pressure Vessel Design

The design of pressure vessels is quite interesting.  At first it may appear extremely complicated.  Then, you learn the basics of pressure vessel design and realize it is not that big of a deal.  But, then you get into all variations of vessel heads and shells, the different kinds of loading conditions (it’s not just […]

What Causes Welding Spatter

17 reasons why you are getting spatter in your welding operations

Spatter is present in welding.  It’s all over welding.  But it doesn’t have to be.  Spatter costs fabricators millions of dollars every year.  Its removal constitutes rework that significantly and negatively impacts productivity.  Many fabricators work under the assumption that spatter is a necessary evil, a part of welding.  However, this couldn’t be further from […]

How To Qualify A Welding Procedure

Whenever you hear that a welding procedure needs to be qualified it simply means that its suitability for use in a welded structure needs to be proven by testing. This means that the welding procedure must be capable of producing sound welds.  But what are sound welds?  Sound welds are welds that will perform in […]

4 Mistakes Made Welding 6061-T6 Aluminum

and other aluminum alloys

Welding aluminum and aluminum alloys does not need to be complicated. However, to successfully weld this metal there are a few things you need to know. First, you need to know how the properties of aluminum affect its weldability.    There are four key characteristics of aluminum that make it quite different from carbon steel […]

7 Things to Consider When Choosing the Best Welding Process for your Welding Procedure

Selecting the best welding process is a critical step in developing a welding procedure that attains the desired quality and optimizes productivity.  Many times we look for the welding process that can give us the highest deposition rate to optimize productivity. However, every welding process has limitations. For example, submerged arc welding (SAW) has extremely […]

6 Levels of Welding Quality Standards

Which one do you fall under?

A question we often ask of our customer is “how to do you determine the minimum level of quality for your welded product and how do you verify you are reaching or exceeding that quality level?” Responses included comments such as: We just weld and know our welds will hold because we know our trade […]

Yield Strength vs Tensile Strength of Steel and Other Metals

And why should we know the difference in welding

If you work with metals, whether you are a business owner, a design engineer, an inspector or a welder, you have heard the terms yield strength and tensile strength.  In welding, we seem to focus more on tensile strength than on yield strength.  When we match a filler metal to a base metal we do […]

Are Concave Fillet Welds Bad?

You may be surprised to know that sometimes they are desired

The following is an exerpt from:  TROUBLESHOOTING FOR NON-WELDING ENGINEERS There is nothing wrong with concave welds so long as they attain the desired throat dimension. AWS D1.1/D1.1M:2020 Structural Welding Code (Steel) states that “there is no restriction on concavity as long as minimum weld size (considering both leg and throat) is achieved.” Concave welds […]