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Hi Mark,
it's a mess by just having a minute for the forums but I stumbled directly into your great statement:
Maybe it's time to get the AWS, CWB, EN, and all other worldly welding bodies together to form the world welding alliance and have a code that could be used/ applied anywhere in the world? It's a long shot to say the least, but it could be done?
I entirely agree since I guess it's time to perfom this!
Admittedly there exists somewhat towards a general standard which is the ISO 4063 (Welding and allied processes - Nomenclature of processes and reference numbers). There's the whole bunch of all known welding or joining processes to be seen inside this paper. Well-known even as exotic ones :-).
By the way and to agree with Shane and some others. Here in Europe - under the valid European Standard's (EN = Euronorm) influence, we summarize the processes of "your" Gas Shielded Metal Arc Welding Processes by using the term: MSG (Metall-Schutzgas-Schweißen) and differentiate subsequently the respective characters of shielding gases used "Inert" = MIG (Metall Inert Gas) and "Active" = MAG (Metall Aktiv Gas).
Best regards,
Stephan
P.S. To reply on the thread initiator's question by quoting Prof. John Norrish from his famous book "Advanced Welding Processes":
"The SMAW process is also known as MMA (manual metal arc welding) in Europe and is still referred to as "Stick" welding in the UK fabrication industry".