As discussed in our previous article, and many times in the last 50 or so, preheat is necessary in steel welding to control the cooling rate. More specifically, preheat is used to slow the cooling rate down in order to prevent excessive hardness in the heat affected zone (HAZ) which can lead to cracking. Before […]
If you own or work at a job shop you may have noticed an increase in the number of customers that require the use of qualified welding procedures to build their products. Some fabricators are even getting this request from long time customers who never required them in the past. So why is this? The […]
In a perfect world parts would fit together perfectly every time. However, as we all know, this isn’t the case. We mostly think of poor fit up as something that annoys welders but which they can compensate for. But the reality is it can have tremendous impact on your bottom line. Or, in many cases, […]
We received a large number of email responses and comments to our article from two weeks ago pertaining to weld quality standards. The main question was how to do you determine the minimum level of quality for your products, but also how do you verify you are reaching or exceeding that quality level. Responses […]
Certain industries that involve welding of their products have very strict quality standards to ensure the production of sound welds. Many others however, do not. They simply weld and unless one of their products fails they don’t pay special attention to welding procedures, detailed inspection of welds or testing the skill (performance) of their welders. […]
In our previous article we mentioned that a customer was inquiring about running their 98% argon / 2% carbon dioxide (98/2) shielding gas on mild steel. This gas is used on stainless as it maintains the amount of reactive gas (in this case CO2) under 3%. Our quick answer was “yes, you can weld carbon […]
In our many years of working in the welding industry we have come across some phenomenal welders. We continue to be impressed by the level of skill of many of these men and women. Unfortunately, many business owners and managers allow this skilled labor to go underutilized. Welder efficiency, which also goes by other names […]
Our previous article discussed the importance of having a specification for weld quality. In this article we’re talking about the importance of one of its basic components: Welding Procedure Specifications (WPSs). Many fabricators don’t have WPSs. They rely in the experience of their welders to select the right parameters. As much as we want every […]
When bidding jobs several fabricators end up calculating their costs associated with welding and then double that number to be safe. In some cases, that isn’t even enough. It is important to have a clear understating of how to translate the amount of welding to be done to actual manufacturing costs. One of the biggest […]
If you own or run a business in which welding is an integral part of the manufacturing process you know one of your recurrent expenses is your shielding gas. Very few manufacturing facilities, big or small, have excellent control of gas usage. Most end up using twice as much than necessary, and in some cases […]
