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Hi Big Dka,
ESAB is originally from Sweden although most if not all of their equipment in North America is built in Florence, SC where the former Linde Union Carbide/L-Tech factory is located...
As far as their consumables are concerned, your guess is as good as mine...
They do make decent welding and cutting equipment but, I was told that their European equipment is of better quality... Then again, Europeans almost always say or imply this...
I don't know if they're still using that Monster Garage guy - Jesse James to sell some of their lower end equipment here in the states, but a few years ago that was part of their sales strategy in North America...
I agree that they do have a decent education page and what they call ESAB university and I have referred it to many students since it's inception a few moons ago...
This is the Global EASB site and then below it is the north American website:
http://www.esab.com/global/en/index.cfmhttp://www.esabna.com/us/en/index.cfmFor anyone who's interested, here's the link to ESAB University:
http://www.esabna.com/us/en/education/esab-university.cfmAs far as everything else goes, it's not so much a problem that there's a banner link to ESAB and more about objecting to posting one, then two and so on and pretty soon just about every page in the forum will be saturated with advertisement banners and pop-ups and commercializing the crap out of the forum which to me and others is the only place in the AWS web site that was free of any advertisements... having a forum that's free of advertisements gives the participant or visitor the ability to better focus on the queries and topics being discussed and by populating all of the pages with advertisements would only cause a whole bunch of distraction and confusion amongst most of the folks that come here for discussions of the subjects sectioned, information exchange and to see if they can be helpful to other folks who are looking for some guidance also...
So I personally would find it very distracting if these pages become saturated with advertisements and some with fat fingers and also not having the best control of their cursor's would be more vulnerable to being misdirected to the advertisements link and wondering how they got there in the first place and end up becoming so frustrated with the forum that they wouldn't return... Chit happens...
As far as the AWS and CWI is concerned, I share and agree with most, if not all of your comments and I personally can no longer work because of my multiple illnesses...
So I don't have the need to be certified any longer also... Good thread to start Big Dka... Thanks for your sage input and advice here in the forum.
Respectfully,
Henry
P.S. Here's a link to ESAB's magazine and it's archives:
http://www.esab.com/global/en/news/Svetsaren.cfm