Ed has 40 years experience with the MIG process controls and has provided weld process improvement and process control training to over a thousand manufactures in ten different countries.

For 18 years Ed wrote the Weld QA section in Weld Design Fabrication, he also wrote the weld and cutting sections in the Machinery Handbook > 24 Editions. Ed rewrote the Thermal Cutting Section" on Laser-Plasma-Oxy Fuel cutting in the ASM Handbook Ninth Edition 1988. Ed has had over 35 articles published on Manual and Robot Weld Process Controls. Ed has written five books on the subject of process controls and he was one of the AWS Committee members that developed the USA AWS MIG Gas Specifications.

This discussion and MIG Welding Advice group is intended for legitimate weld related questions and content. This is not a location for welding industry sales persons to tout their weld products, generate sales leads or saturate the welding industry with more biased weld product advice.

If you frequently ask a Lincoln, Miller or ESAB rep
a welding question, are you a weld professional?

For decades, global MIG / flux cored weld process confusion has distracted the welding industry from the establishment of fundamental Best Weld Practices and the implementation of cost effective Weld Process Controls. 1988: From a speech provided by Ed at a seminar to the Brazilian Engineering Society. Rio.

Your value to your wife is how quickly
you apologize and say "Yes Dear"

The Global Missing Link from Weld Education: Many global weld educational facilities offer weld diplomas and degrees, however in the last three decades, the majority have failed to educate their potential engineers, technicians and weld personnel on the fundamentals necessary to establish effective MIG and flux cored Best Weld Practices and Weld Process Controls.


The global welding industry needs Engineers and technicians that are Process Control experts in the bread and butter processes.

[] Weld decision makers that can "without playing around" instantly produce cost effective, optimum quality, MIG / FCAW manual / robot welds.

[] Engineers and technicians that can optimize manual MIG and flux cored robot weld production efficiency.

[] Engineers and technicians that can cut through the costly bells, whistles and salesmanship that saturates the global weld industry.

[] Engineers and technicians that have the ability to establish cost effective
Weld Best Practices and Weld Process Controls.

It takes less than two weeks to train a "none welder" to be able to MIG or flux cored weld any application to meet any weld specification, yet the weld educational facilities will spend months or years and the finished product is too often weld personnel that "play around" with their weld controls and too frequently rely on salesmen for weld advice.

Weld educational facilities should examine the value of their welding programs. The typical tight budget, education facilities often have to rely on weld equipment vendors for charitable weld equipment donations, (no bias in their weld programs?). Many of these institutions have made minimal changes to their stick / oxy fuel weld programs that were developed in the nineteen sixties. It's time weld educators understood the value of "process controls" and responded to an industry that looses hundreds of millions of dollars daily from weld rework, weld rejects and poor weld productivity.

INSTEAD OF PROVIDING A STICK WELD AND OXY FUEL WELD EDUCATION BASED ON 1960s CURRICULUM, WELD EDUCATION FACILITIES SHOULD GIVE THE GLOBAL WELD INDUSTRY SOMETHING IT REALLY NEEDS:

With weld educational and training focus on the MIG and flux cored requirements for Best Weld Practices and Weld Process Controls, community Colleges and Universities would then realize that the contribution they would offer industry would provide them with a logical reason to ask for more funds for their programs. Properly trained weld engineers, technicians and weld personnel will have the unique ability to generate hundreds of millions of dollars daily through improved manual and robot MIG / flux cored weld productivity and quality.

MIG WELDING ADVICE

Please keep your weld or cutting questions and answers to the point. If looking for weld or steel data first look in the web site, or in this section using key words in the Search Discussion.

The Search Discussion will bring up the
history of hundreds of the weld questions used.

WELD QUESTIONS: If asking a weld question, when relevant please provide the robot, manual or automated weld transfer mode, the material type, the weld surface conditions, the part thickness, the weld consumable type and size, the weld gas, the wire feed speed, travel speed, amps and the voltage.

Again I remind the readers at this site, don't get angry at the messenger, examine the message, recognize the issues, understand the human, process and equipment root cause of the issues and then use your process control knowledge to provide cost effective, practical solutions.