Click Here for Ed's Resume

 

YOU CAN CONTACT ED AT 828 658 3574

Ed lives in Asheville. North Carolina. (Eastern Standard Time).

As a weld process and weld application engineer, Ed has used MIG and flux cored for thirty five years. He has provided weld process training and process control service to GM Chrysler and Ford plants, nuclear plants, ship yards, pressure vessel shops, pipe lines, power plants and in numerous light to heavy steel manufacturing plants.

Ed set robots to weld the Harley motorbike frames, he also set the robot car seat welds on the new VW Beetle for Johnson Controls. When Ford and ABB was in trouble at the Dearbone Frame plant Ed reset the frame lines and attained the highest quality ever attained on Ford trucks. When ESSO / Imperial Oil and Pennsylvania Power and Light wanted it's pipeline welders to stop using SMAW and use flux cored on the gas and steam pipelines they used Ed to train the union welders.

When Combustion Engineering wanted to weld boiler tubes to headers with robots and pulsed MIG, (traditional manual TIG application). Ed establish the complex robot pipe weld procedures that would pass x-rays examination. When ABB CE Services Inc decided to use robots for the complex task of welding Nickel overlay inside generating plants boiler furnaces they asked Ed to establish the nickel pulsed weld procedures. When MKS Instruments wanted to improve the quality of their micro inconel and stainless welds on their orbital and lathe equipment, Ed not only improved the quality he provided over a million dollars of weld cost reduction.

Ed has written three books on MIG and flux cored weld process controls, and produced a unique MIG manual / robot training video.

In the nineeteen eighties, Ed developed the "PocketWelder" the world’s first electronic hand size weld data unit.

For fourteen years, Ed has answered over a thousand weld questions in his welding QA column in the "Weld Design Fabrication" (40,000 readers) magazine. He has had more than 30 articles published
on the MIG process.

When you examine the new "Machinery Handbook", >25 edition in Barnes Noble, look at the way Ed wrote and simplified the weld parameter selection in the MIG welding section.

Perhaps you have read have the American Society Metal's book, Ninth Edition "Thermal Cutting Section" (laser-plasma-oxy fuel) you will note how Ed simplified this complex section.

Robot FCAW on Large Pipe.

1997. During 1997, Ed set this ABB robot to flux cored weld a 40 inch pipe line welds without weld defects. Thanks to the flexibility of the six axis robot and the speed it can attain between welds, in contrast to traditional automated, mechanized pipe weld equipment the robot reduced the total pipe weld cycle time by approx. 40%. Check out Ed's 1997 Robo Pipe Rig in the pipe and flux cored section.

 

Robots and MIG welding in the Power Industry:

 

1998. ABB Combustion Engineering. Ed acting as a consultant was the first person to successfully set a robot to pulsed MIG weld Boiler Tubes to the boiler header and consistently meet section 1X weld requirements. This application is typically carried out by highly skilled manual TIG welders.

2001 ABB Combustion Engineering. In a consulting role Ed was the first person to set robots to pulsed MIG weld Inconel clad overlays on boiler tubes, inside the boiler.

 

 

2006: Patent: In 2006 Ed changed the standard method utilized around the globe to apply Water Wall cladding using Inconel and austeniitic MIG consumables. His new MIG procedures on this automated weld application method reduced costly Inconel overlay clad weld consumable consumption by approx. 28%. In contrast to the standard industry weld practices, his new MIG weld method produced for a USA client will produce a far superior clad weld quality, less weld defects, lower stresses and much less tube distortion.

 

Replace Electro Slag Strip Cladding.
with Pulsed MIG Cladding.

 

2005. Patent: In the refinery industry, pressure vessels used in high temp, high pressure "hydrogen" surface such as hydrocracking and hydrotreating are usually constructed of low alloy high strength steels. To overcome corrosion areas, clad welds can be applied to the wasted areas. The most common cladding process utilized is the ESW process using strip E309 / E347 electrodes. The 309 electrode may be used for the first layer and typically the 347 or 347L is required as the clad surface layer. Typically a 347 clad surface with a specific chrome and ferrite content is required.

In 2005 Ed provided his client with a single pass MIG clad method that will provide the desired 347 clad weld quality and ferrite levels of 5 to 8% at only 30% the cost of the traditional, global ESW strip clad weld costs.

Replace Boiler Wall Insulation Stud Welds
with MIG spot Welds.

2006: Patent: When applying insulation to global boiler walls, the typical global approach is too attach costly studs to the boiler steel structures and the insulation blocks would have a steel bracket that attached to the studs. Ed developed and designed for a client, a MIG spot process method that welded the bracket eliminating the stud costs. This process was patented in 2006.

 

 

Provide A new flux cored solution for ship yards
welding large vee groove weld gap welds with ceramic backing.

2007:When a ship yard wanted to reduce the four plus million dollars it spent per-ship on flux cored weld rework they asked Ed to develop an all position flux cored process control program to minimize the common lack of weld fusion, slag entrapment and porosity associated with vee groove welds. His unique, eight hour training program focussed on process control settings and technique requirements necessary for optimum, all position weld quality / productivity optimization. In a six month period, the weld rework improvements associated with the training program were remarkable, achieving a saving of approx. three million dollars per ship.

To reduce the tremendous flux cored weld and weld rework costs associated with vee groove weld joints on plates 12 to 25 mm thick, with ceramic backed weld gaps 8 to 25 mm, Ed and his good buddy Tom O'Malley took five days to produce new, all position weld procedures that resulted in approx. a 50% decrease in the typical labor and consumable costs required for the over sized vee groove applications.

 

 

Ed cut through the USA MIG gas confusion.

 

1980s to early 90s: In his role as a technical product manager with two of the largest weld distributors in North America. Airgas and AGA, Ed knew the major gas companies such as Air Products, Linde, Carbonic and Liquid Air in their process ignorance or greed, were marketing three part MIG gas mixes that simply provided no real world weld benefits. With Airgas and AGA Ed tried to cut the extensive salesmanship from the MIG gas selection and introduced and introduced to the market place three very practical, easy to identify, two component gas mixes. SteelMix, StainlessMix and AlumMix.

Ed developed and introduced to the North American MIG welding market the following three important MIG gas mixes.

1] The multi-purpose argon - 15% CO2 mix for all carbon steel applications.

2] The multi-purpose argon - 2 to 3% CO2 mix for all MIG spray, short circuit and pulsed stainless applications.

3] The argon - 1% CO2 mix for all MIG spray and pulsed nickel alloy applications.

Today some of you will be using these gas mixes, however the majority of you are still caught up in the salesmanship game of MIG gas selection.

 

 

Ed has spent a life time solving Miller, Lincoln, Hobart, ESAB,
and Panasonic MIG equipment problems.

 

Perhaps the biggest contribution Ed made to the welding industry from 1987 to 2007 is the fact that in that time period he assisted over 1000 companies in North America. The companies had purchased pulsed MIG equipment or Inverters for either their manual or robot cells. These weld shops had one thing in common, the weld shops could not produce consistent, stable arcs on carbon steel welds. The MIG equipment manufactures who sold the pulsed equipment provided no solutions and when I visited the weld shops I would turn the pulsed modes "off" and reset the welds with either the traditional CV short circuit or spray transfer modes.

Accountability 1.1: 2007. Microsoft takes responsibility for it's manufacturing problems and plans a recall that will cost them 1.5 billion for their X box electronic issues.

Accountability 1.2: From 1987 to 2007, I cannot recall Lincoln, Miller, Hobart, ESAB or Panasonic providing a single recall of their less than durable, highly erratic pulsed MIG equipment. I also cannot recall getting a thank you note from these MIG equipment manufactures for my solutions (switched the pulsed mode off) to "their customers" and for rectifying the numerous, global, pulsed weld problems caused by their faulty electronic pulsed equipment.

The following are a few of the typical applications Ed Worked on.

[] Ed convinced the GM engineers in charge, that robots using the MIG process could do a better job on the Corvette than the manual workers using the ridiculous self shielded flux cored wires. He first trained the Corvette manual welders on the MIG process and then established the required robot MIG weld data for the Corvette.



[] ABB Power company was the first company in the world to utilize miniature robots inside power station boilers. The robots ran along a gantry attached to the boiler walls. The robots were required to MIG clad weld the water wall pipe using either austenitic or Inconel consumables. ABB requested that I establish the pulsed MIG robot weld procedures for this highly unique application. I set the welds and received a great tan from the robot weld rays as they reflected of the boiler walls.





[]When Caterpillar decided to weld the world's largest truck with robots, I was asked by ABB to establish the multi-robot spray transfer weld procedures. A job like this can be made with three weld procedures, do you know what the are?

 

[] When Harley redesigned it's bike frames for its ever increasing girth customers in the late nineties, with the assistance of a highly qualified ABB programmer, I established the new robot frame welds. THe welds had over 200 robot program points. We did this project from scratch in approx. five hours. We gave Harley the potential for great weld productivity and weld quality they had never achieved before.

[] When Volvo required MIG welding robots to weld it's giant, difficullt to weld truck cabs, I set the robot MIG data.

[] When Case had issues with it's robot welded tractor cabs they requested my service. The numerous robot weld problems were an easy fix after working with the much larger Volvo cabs.

 

[] When Imperial Oil / Esso wanted to increase weld productivity on its natural gas pipe line welds, I trained the stick welders and established the flux cored automated pipe weld procedures for the 6 to 20 inch pipe. (See one million dollar savings in the pipe weld section)

[] When one of North Americas leading golf cart manufactures built the world's first fully automated, multi-robot MIG weld line for it's unique "aluminum" cart frames, it could not afford to have one robot go down with weld process issues. I set the pulsed aluminum MIG data for the four robots that worked together on this line. This line had less weld issues than a typical multi-robot line welding steel frames.




[] When Haynes Lemmerz, one of the world's largest producers of aluminum and steel wheels was having Miller Maxtron / Invision pulsed weld process issues on its automated welding lines, I provided the weld solutions necessary to optimize the weld quality and increase productivity

[] When the new VW Beetle prototype car seats were being built in Mexico by Johnson Controls there were extensive robot weld equipment problems. It took me four days ato eliminate the robot weld problems and increased the weld production by 30%. In 2005 when VW Mexico had problems with galvanized door components that were welded with Lincoln self shielded wires, Ed changed the process to MIG and reduced the rework from 55% to 5% and increased the productivity by 10%.

[] I set the world's first robot welds for a 48 inch pipe in the ABB Fort Collins weld lab during 1998.

From optimizing MIG and automated TIG / Plasma tube weld applications in the auto, electronics and medical industries to welding some of the worlds most complex alloy, aluminum and nickel applications, I have assisted over a thousand companies in attaining dramatic weld quality and productivity improvements.

THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXAMPLE
OF WHAT I DO BEST.

General Motors installed a new multi-million dollar, torque converter, MIG welding line at one of it's Midwest manufacturing facilities. The line was to produce approx. 1000 convertors daily.

After the line integrator had built and installed the torque converter MIG welding lines, I was asked by the GM engineer responsible for the project to address the automated, pulsed MIG weld quality issues caused by the new Lincoln, PowerWave weld equipment. The weld reject rate was daily in the 5 to 10 percent range, not bad, but 100 ruined torque convertors every day was costly.

In less than 16 hours at the plant, I switched the inconsistent pulsed mode off, and established more effective, traditional MIG spray transfer weld parameters for the torque converter welds.

The new weld procedures I generated, along with the weld process controls that I implemented, changed the daily weld reject rate to "zero" . As a bonus to GM, I also increased the daily mechanized weld production by twenty percent.

Note: The optimum weld results that I attained at the GM plant could have been achieved with traditional MIG equipment that would have cost GM one hundred percent less.

The weld process changes for the GM torque converters, saved GM millions annually. The cost to GM for Ed' s weld expertise and process control was less than fifty percent of the cost the over priced Lincoln PowerWave power source.

 

 

A sample of Ed's weld consultant application experiences: VAW. Eliminate extensive ABB robot, aluminum pulsed weld issues. Optimize weld productivity on aluminum Ford SUV car seats. Genie / Omniquip . Increased robot productivity and established robot process training programs construction (boom) equipment. AG Simpson. Canada. GM / Chrysler bumper parts, robot weld quality, training and productivity solutions. Resolved GM bumper issues. ABB Transformer Div. Improved robot transformer weld productivity on transformers. Chrysler. Ask to resolve Neon, robot cross member self shielded flux cored weld problems that were causing approx. one million dollars a month in weld rework. Due to Chryler corporate engineer cost reduction project was not allowed TRAK / Textron. Reorganize train and automate weld shop. New York Power Authority. Provide advice on robot welding stainless containers for spent fuel storage. Combustion Engineering. Established unique “MIG robot weld procedures” for robot boiler tube to header pulsed MIG welds. F&P America. Major Honda parts supplier. Provided weld process training for their robot operators. Mascotech Michigan. Established robot weld process control programs for 300/400 series stainless, robot welds, 98 Ford Mustang manifolds, Chrysler Jeep and Hummer manifolds. Johnson Controls Mexico. Solved robot weld issues and increased productivity by 20% on new 98 VW Beetle car seats. GM Bowling Green KY. Established MIG weld procedures for new robot welds, 98 Corvette frame.¨ Monroe. Consulted to establish training and global weld best practices and robot process controls for 5 plants. Citrogen Spain. Established robot weld process controls and training for car seats TRW provided robot improvements on steering parts. Club Car. Set robot weld data for worlds first robot line welding aluminum golf carts. Mascotec KY. Provide new plasma welding procedures to increase productivity on automated tube weld lines. Textron Trained Thailand Army on MIG and FCAW weld repairs on Textron 270k tensile armored tanks. General Electric. Provided GE Diesel Div facilities, with weld process and weld cost analysis. Caterpillar. Established robot weld procedures for the worlds largest trucks. Provided weld cost analysis for East coast Canadian Ship yard.

Click Here for Ed's Resume