When making decisions that control welding costs, understanding the information and the economics behind the quality and productivity can be critical. Over welding itself is costly due to the extra labor, filler metal deposition and shielding gas consumption. And we haven’t even begun to get into the energy it takes to produce the weld. Today the welding systems specialists at Bancroft Engineering are going to walk you through 3 ways to control these and other costs related to over welding. Read on to learn more.
#1. Design Engineering
Does your welding team have a welding design engineer? According to American Welding Society, the welding design engineer is considered a duly designated individual who acts for, and on behalf of, the owner on all matters within the scope of the selected welding code. He or she will be able to help control costs by ensuring that complete information regarding base metal specification designation is clearly shown on the contract plans and specifications for all the following for all welds:
- Location
- Type
- Size
- Extent
- Electrode size
- Gas selection
- Position
Automated welding options will help ensure quality control and ease of supervision for your design engineer. Visit our website to explore some of our most popular automated welding systems which will be able to help you better control costs related to many aspects of your welding production.
#2. Welding Operator
A second option for controlling over weld cost is to assess the work of individual welding operators. It’s common for welders to go through some type of testing as part of their qualification process. Not only does the inspector check for the quality of the weld but the weld size is a critical check as well.
Some organizations will require weld sizes to be within a specified range. Undersized welds are not accepted beyond a certain allowable tolerance whereas oversized welds are sometimes not as much of a concern. (This is unless of course, it is cost-specific, or the weld is concerning a major structural defect.) Most welders over time can get a good feel for the weld size, but there should also be some sort of self-inspection process in place to ensure it is correct.
#3. Parts Fitup
The third possible cause of over welding is fitup. Parts not fitting correctly before welding can be a major cause due to extra root openings. As an example, if there is a 1/16 root opening on a T-Joint for a fillet weld when the joint should be tight. The welding operator now must add extra filler metal to be able to reach the correct size of weld specified by the engineer. The same goes for a groove.
Example: Sizes
A 3/16-in. fillet weld volume per inch length is .0175in.³. At the same time a1/4-in. fillet weld volume per inch of length is .031in.³.
.031in.³ – .0175in.³ = .0135in.³ of weld metal deposited savings.
.0135in.³/.0175in.³ = 23% volume savings
This 23% savings occurs when the weld size is kept to the required 3/16in. Instead of over welding to 1/4in.
 Example: Arc-On Time
Arc-Time is defined as the actual time spent depositing the weld. For instance, a welder is required to make a 3/16in. fillet weld 1ft. Long would require 36 seconds.
If the same required 3/16in. fillet weld is made to 5/16in. Using the same parameters would require 1 minute 39 seconds to complete.
Arc-Time is greatly impacted by the size of the weld being made. Add all these possible variables and scenarios together and a company could be losing a lot of valuable consumables and time.
Automated Welding
Each one of the three or a combination of more than one may need to be applied to help control costs to your organization’s bottom line. There are many sub-causes within each over welding situation and being able to find the correct root cause can be challenging.
Bancroft Engineering’s team would be more than happy to guide you through developing a monitoring plan to help reduce the cost of your over welding concerns. Get in touch today to learn more about how we can help.
