Reducing Spatter without Anti-Spatter?

By Lawrence (*****)

Date 05-04-2004 11:58

Probably super anti spatter gas has its place, especially in robotics. BUT. For most operations good *process control* is going to be the solution to any spatter condition.

By CHGuilford (****)

Date 05-04-2004 13:39

I whole heartedly agree with Lawrence. Process control is the best anti spatter solution that I have seen.

There are many tricks of the trade to reduce effort when you do get spatter. Spatter sticks worse to bare or blasted steel so leaving the mill scale on everywhere but the weld zone is one way; and some processes can weld right over mill scale. Anti-spatter spray helps a good deal. I've seen some people lay strips of scrap metal along side the weld to shield from spatter. One could even paint the surfaces with a "spray-bomb" so that spatter won't stick (it's best not to have paint in the weld joint itself but some have welded that way with no problems)

But the cheapest, fastest, and easiest way is to control weld parameters so as to avoid/reduce spatter in the first place. A little trial and error in parameters and technique is all it takes.
Chet Guilford

By jwright650 (*****)

Date 05-04-2004 12:34

Sean, Ed Craig promotes a book(his book) of welding parameters and process controls to accomplish exactly what you are describing. however he also has a lot of good info on his site free of charge. http://weldreality.com
John Wright

By Lawrence (*****)

Date 05-04-2004 14:36

Listen to John!

I milk Eds website often and also have purchased his books. The data (gained from real time experience) makes his textbooks of greater value than any other I have seen.

By Sean

Date 05-05-2004 02:08

My whole reason for this question was that in my training/experience it seems the basics (which are readily available from sites like Ed Craig's, AWS, ASTM Handbooks, etc.) are ignored a lot of the time and instead we rely on some new gizmo.

I was wondering if anti-spatter was another one of those cases or if I was missing something on the practical side.
-Sean

By billvanderhoof (****)

Date 05-05-2004 06:42

A damp paper towel or sheet of newspaper works well. Good for exposed hydraulic piston rods, Just wrap it on, it usually sticks to itself.
Bill

By Lawrence (*****)

Date 05-05-2004 09:50

Sean,

Your hitting the nail on the head.

Management and Supervisors often have insufficient understanding of those basics (process control). So when that old salt who put the pencil marks on the mig dials retires and the new welding machines come in, nobody can control the process.

With good process control the need for anti spatter stuff ought to be minimal.

However, in the roboitc production world, (especially in high detail work where spatter means extra cycle time) those products, especially the new in-line stuff is interesting.

I see tried and true parameters thrown aside often in industry simply because 75/25 with 035 wire 29 volts and 500 inches per minute will make a hot fast weld that is *strong enough*. Its hard to convince management to change operations on the floor to a slower feed rate or a gas mix that provides true spray transfer when they have been making welds for years the way they are doing it. (even tho it was never right according to the textbook) Unless there is a catostrophic failure or a costly reject rate people will as you say, "ignore the basics".

Sometimes the basics aren't ignored. Plenty of businesses are out there manufacturing componants and nobody in the entire facility has any process control knowledge. Now spatter compounds may lower the amount of cleanup, but if sidewall fusion is lacking due to the misguided notion that 500+ inches per minute and globular transfer boosts production, a spatter free heat affected zone will be of little comfort when the part fails.

Wow, there are a lot of sea stories that would come in here to bring home the point but thats too much typing for tonight.

So Yea, its mostly a Gizmo for folks looking for a fix to a problem that a little training would eliminate, but its also
a gizmo that has a legitimate nitch in the industry (robotics etc).

By billvanderhoof (****)

Date 05-08-2004 03:16

Another point would be that that spatter was welding wire a second ago. If you get the parameters right so that it never goes airborne it will wind up as part of the weld instead and that saves money.

Isn't it amazing how that stuff can find that little hole in your glove?
Bill

By matt1 Date 05-20-2004 16:41

I got to witness I new Lincoln machine yesterday with something called "constant power", not constant voltage, not constant current. I have no idea how it works, but the weld was sweet, and there was no spatter.