Find new and used welding equipment (home)
Read our welding articles.|
Find new and used welding equipment (home) |
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Read our welding articles. |
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Welding Overview
Welding is a fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material (the weld puddle) that cools to become a strong joint, but sometimes pressure is used in conjunction with heat, or by itself, to produce the weld. This is in contrast with soldering and brazing, which involve melting a lower-melting-point material between the workpieces to form a bond between them, without melting the workpieces. Read More MIG / GMAW Welding Gas metal arc welding (GMAW), sometimes referred to by its subtypes, metal inert gas (MIG) welding or metal active gas (MAG) welding, is a semi-automatic or automatic arc welding process in which a continuous and consumable wire electrode and a shielding gas are fed through a welding gun. A constant voltage, direct current power source is most commonly used with GMAW, but constant current systems, as well as alternating current, can be used. Originally developed for welding aluminium and other non-ferrous materials in the 1940s, GMAW was soon applied to steels because it allowed for lower welding time compared to other welding processes. Read More TIG / GTAW Welding Gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), commonly known as tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding, is an arc welding process that uses a nonconsumable tungsten electrode to produce the weld. The weld area is protected from atmospheric contamination by a shielding gas (usually an inert gas such as argon), and a filler metal is normally used, though some welds, known as autogenous welds, do not require it. A constant current welding power supply produces energy which is conducted across the arc through a column of highly ionized gas and metal vapors known as a plasma. Read More Oxyacetylene Welding Oxy-fuel welding of metal is commonly called oxyacetylene welding since acetylene is the predominant choice for a fuel, or often simply gas welding. In gas welding and cutting, the heat needed to melt the metal comes from a fuel gas burning with oxygen in a torch. Read More Arc Welding Arc welding refers to a group of welding processes that use a welding power supply to create an electric arc between an electrode and the base material to melt the metals at the welding point. They can use either direct (DC) or alternating (AC) current, and consumable or non-consumable electrodes. The welding region is sometimes protected by some type of inert or semi-inert gas, known as a shielding gas, and/or filler material. Read More Brazing Brazing is a joining process whereby a non-ferrous filler metal and an alloy are heated to melting temperature (above 450°C; 800°F) and distributed between two or more close-fitting parts by capillary action. At its liquid temperature, the molten filler metal interacts with a thin layer of the base metal, cooling to form an exceptionally strong, sealed joint due to grain structure interaction. The brazed joint becomes a sandwich of different layers, each metallurgically linked to each other. Common brazements are about 1/3 as strong as the materials they join, because the metals partially dissolve each other at the interface, and usually the grain structure and joint alloy is uncontrolled. To create high-strength brazes, sometimes a brazement can be annealed, or cooled at a controlled rate, so that the joint's grain structure and alloying is controlled. Read More Plasma Cutting Plasma cutting is a process that is used to cut steel and other metals (or sometimes other materials) using a plasma torch. In this process, an inert gas (in some units, compressed air) is blown at high speed out of a nozzle; at the same time an electrical arc is formed through that gas from the nozzle to the surface being cut, turning some of that gas to plasma. The plasma is sufficiently hot to melt the metal being cut and moves sufficiently fast to blow molten metal away from the cut. Plasma can also be used for plasma arc welding and other things. Read More Soldering Soldering is a method of joining metal parts using an alloy of low melting point (solder) below 450 °C (800 °F). Heat is applied to the metal parts, and the alloy metal is pressed against the joint, melts, and is drawn into the joint by capillary action and around the materials to be joined by 'wetting action'. After the metal cools, the resulting joints are not as strong as the base metal, but have adequate strength, electrical conductivity, and water-tightness for many uses. Soldering is an ancient technique that has been used practically as long as humans have been making articles out of metal. Read More |
