Marty Rice is a welding instructor at a high school career center in Texas and an honorary member of the Ironworkers Local 263. In this article from The Fabricator.Com Marty shares safety tips, answers to commonly asked questions, books and online resources for welding hobbyists and those just getting into MIG welding. This may also be a helpful review for those of you in advanced welding.

Photo courtesy of AlcoTec Wire Corp.

MIG welding tips and resources

By Marty Rice, Contributing Writer
April 11, 2005

Motorcycle- and hot rod-building shows on TV have put welding in a very positive light lately. In fact, Jesse James, the star of Discovery Channel’s “Monster Garage,” was named the American Welding Society (AWS) Welder of the Year because of his contributions to the trade. It’s nice to see welding in a good light after seeing it maligned for so long.

Over the years I’ve had a love/hate relationship with welding. I loved it when work and money were plentiful and the weather was nice. I hated it when there was no work to be found, I was broke, and when I was freezing or sweating my tail off.

Welding gets into your blood. It’s fun for both professional and hobby welders, and being a welder is like belonging to a club.

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And be sure to check out the ever-growing MIG welding section over at Arc-Zone.com:

MIG Guns, MIG gun replacement parts (and more!)

MIG Nozzle cleaning stations, and

MIG Wire feeders and drive roll kits

I found another great free resource for you. The Welders Lens is an educational welding website created by Michael D. Treadway, an experienced boilermaker, ironworker, and welder. The site features free articles and a video welding course on everything from stick welding to TIG welding. Here’s an example of one of the instructional videos:

Arc Zone also offers free educational welding videos which can be viewed here.

I can’t even count the number of posts we’ve made on this site about welding helmets, but I will drive home the point again.  They’re important, and can be quite stylish too, but that’s beside the point.

What one really needs to know about welding helmets (apart from the fact that you need them to protect your beautiful eyes), is how to pick them.  That’s important too.

I just found this article online over at Welding Magazine:

Welding Helmets – What you need to know before you buy

By Caleb Krisher, Product Manager for Hobart Welding Products | Aug 1, 2008 12:00 PM

On the job or in the garage, every welder needs protection to prevent eye damage.

As a general rule, spending more on a welding helmet will increase comfort, improve your welding ability, result in higher quality welds and ensure your safety.

Unfortunately, selecting a helmet can be confusing if you’re not familiar with the latest auto-darkening lens technology and national safety standards.

This article will help you sort through the clutter and point out the most important things to consider before investing in this important piece of safety gear, while showcasing some of the industry’s top trends and designs.

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… then you should buy a new Titanium Elite™ Auto-Darkening Helmet with an “innovative aluminum heat shield protects the analog lens in most high-amperage (300+ amp) applications”.

Oh.  You thought I was going to say, “… get out of the kitchen”.  Joke’s on you then.

From MillerWelds.com:

APPLETON, Wis., April 15, 2009—In response to customer demand for a welding helmet that can better withstand high-amperage, high-heat applications, Miller Electric Mfg. Co. created the Titanium Elite™ auto-darkening helmet, a new addition to the Arc Armor™ line of welding safety products. Introduced today, the Titanium Elite directly addresses the problem of heat build-up in welding applications that require 300 amps or more, conditions that can affect the lens performance of standard auto-darkening helmets and make it uncomfortable for the welder. The Titanium Elite—the newest member of Miller’s Elite Series of auto-darkening helmets—reflects the heat away from the operator and features an aluminum heat shield to protect the auto-darkening lens. A shock-absorbing gasket, which adds durability and protection from drop impact in hard welding environments, also surrounds the lens.

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We’ve modified the common saying a bit in order to adequately describe the following press release.

Lincoln Electric is helping to guard your eyes and lungs better than ever with these new products:

Lincoln Electric Introduces New Modular Fume Extraction Hood and Statiflex® Filter Banks

Modular extraction hood and filter banks provide solution for weld fume control

Cleveland – Lincoln Electric has introduced a new modular extraction hood and filter bank system, designed for the removal of welding fume and grinding particulate during welding, cutting, arc gouging, grinding, plasma cutting and finishing operations in manufacturing plants, job shops and training environments.

These units may be adapted to most applications, including robotic welding, hard automation welding, semi-automatic and manual welding.

The system’s modularity makes it easy for users to assemble, with the option to hang the hood in place from the ceiling or deploy as a free standing unit with the support of optional leg mounting kits. The sleek and lightweight design of the system makes it easy to mount and set up, and it’s available in a variety of sizes to fit your work station footprint.

The Modular Extraction Hood features semi-transparent welding strips (non-transparent curtain strips are also available), which keep the area contained to prevent cross drafts and control airflow direction to maximize extraction effectiveness. The hood’s unique double panel roof configuration acts as an in-line baffle, deflection plate and spark arrestor to prevent sparks from entering the duct work. Lincoln perimeter pull technology maximizes fume extraction efficiency at lower airflow rates for reduced energy consumption and equipment costs while enhancing overall safety performance.

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Confused?  Bothered?  Bewildered?

These words may not just be strangely reminiscent of a certain song from the 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical Pal Joey.  Instead, they may also be descriptive of your mental state concerning a few welding procedures.

If you are in fact, “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” by either of the following:

Welding Fume Control

Automation System Selection

You’re in luck, for Lincoln Electric, as usual, has just the answer for you.  They have released two different handy-dandy reference guides for your perusal about each of these topics and both can be purchased online at www.lincolnelectric.com or by calling (888) 355-3213.

Happy learning!

Welding Fume Control FAQ booklet

Automation System Selection Guide

No one’s really sure how you pronounce it.  Is it “one aught” or “one naught”?  And furthermore, is it “one aught” or “one aut”?  Google’s not even sure (gasp!), though “naught” comes in first by popularity.  But the question at hand is not how to pronounce the cable sizes!  It’s to determine which cable size you need for the job, a query even more confusing.

Cables, Tables, Gages and sizes Or, Watts it all about?

By AUGUST F. MANZ, AWS Fellow | Jan 1, 2009 12:00 PM

The question that welders face on many jobs is : What size welding cable do I need for XX amperes when I am YY feet away from the power source?  This article — and the corrected sizes shown in Table 7 — will help you to select the right size cables for your welding or cutting job.

…

Cable Numbers

Small diameter cables have high gage numbers, and the numbers get smaller as the cables get larger.  After AWG #1 is reached, the next larger size is 0, then 00, then 000, up to 0000.  The 0 to 0000 cables are sometimes referred to as 1/0, 2/0, 3/0 and 4/0, spoken as “one naught” or “one aut”, “two naught” or “two aut” and so on.  After that, larger sizes are described in “circular-mil” areas.  Welding cable sizes usually run from AWG #2 through 4/0. It is interesting to note, that in the AWG system, a change of three sizes will double or halve the resistance. For example, a #6 cable has a cross section of about 0.0206 in2 and a #3 cable has about 0.0413 in2, while a 1/0 cable has 0.0829 in2.

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One should never get tired of watching welding videos.  Or, at least, I don’t.  So, if you’re like me and you need more welding footage in your life, check out this Welding Theatre website I found.

It’s amazing and it has videos from nearly every company that you can think of; you can even submit your own.

Actually, it has videos for everyone except Arc-Zone.com, but we all know you can just go to our website to see those.

thefabricator.com has just launched its own online TV series to accompany its magazine Practical WeldingToday.  The television series will go by the name Practical Welding TV and will be airing a new episode every two months.  For a full line-up of this season’s webisodes and to view their first one (How to Properly Set Up Equipment Before Welding), go to their website HERE ->

Come back here afterwards if you’re intrigued by all that safety information and check out Arc-Zone.com’s selection of welding gear packages including (but not limited to) welding jackets, gloves, doo rags, HellRaiser™ glasses, and much more.

And for all you excited student learners out there, check out our Arc-Zone.com’s student discount (10% – woohoo!) and SAVE.

If you’re looking for a fixed shade welding helmet that looks good, Hobart has introduced some slick new helmets you may want to check out.

New Fixed-Shade Welding Helmets Feature Edgy Graphics at an Affordable Price

• Two new styles: U.S. Flag and Tribal Flame designs
• MSRP $35; most affordable graphic welding helmets on the market
• Hobart durability; meets ANSI, CSA and CE standards

APPLETON, Wis., June 9, 2008—Hobart Welding Products introduces the most affordable graphic welding helmets on the market with the debut of the U.S. Flag and Tribal Flame designs. Both styles are a part of Hobart’s Fixed-Shade Non-Auto Darkening helmet line, which features a #10 fixed-shade lens measuring 4.5- x 5.25-in. This large window is ideal for hobbyists, farmers and home mechanics who occasionally Stick, MIG, Flux Cored and TIG weld.

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