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James Dakota Campen

R. Petre
English IV
5 December 2016
Welding
The first person to mass produce acetylene gas for welding and torching purposes,
produced it right here in North Carolina (The Home for a History of Thermal Joining).
Welding is the art and process of combining two pieces of metal by heating and melting the
metals by adding a filler metal. Welding is very dangerous so it is always important to make sure
to wear personal protection equipment (ppe). Even though times have changed, the equipment,
applications and kinds of welders as technology has advanced an although dangers still remain,
safety precautions remain an important aspect of welding.
The first recorded welding process was by the Egyptians in 3000 B.C. The Egyptians
welded using the process called pressure welding or solid-phase welding. Pressure welding
was the first welding process, people did this by heating up the metals and hammering them
together. Between 1000-1500 B.C. four gold boxes were found in Ireland that were pressure
welded together. Between 1774 and 1791 the elements Oxygen, Zirconium, and Titanium were
discovered. Sir Davy Humphrey is an important figure to welding in the early 1800s by
demonstration the arc of two carbon electrodes using a battery in 1801; in 1808 he discovered the
chemical element of magnesium and proved the existence of aluminum. In 1862 a German,
Friedrich Wohler (Woeler), produced acetylene gas from calcium carbide. In 1863 2.5 miles of
oil line was laid and connected by screw couplings and hammered since welding for pipe joining
hadnt been invented. 30 years after Acetylene gas was invented, John Motley Morehead started

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mass producing it in Spray, North Carolina, by heating slacked lime mixed with coal tar and
immersed in water. In 1950 E.O. Paton Welding Institute developed Electroslag Welding. In
1954 Lincoln Electric introduces a cored wire without the outer shielding gas (no-gas welding)
but the shielding is provided by the flux within the core wire. In addition to traditional methods
Russia invents a solid-state joining method called Friction Welding in 1956. In 1991 TWI of
Cambridge England Develops Friction Stir Weld the first metals successfully welded included
the 2xxx, 6xxx and 7xxx series aluminum. In 2015, Ohio State University created a kind of
welding that joins different metals called Vaporizing Foil Actuator Welding. ("The Home for A
History of Thermal Joining").
There are several types of welders and the most popular in the fabrication world are MIG
(metal inert gas) and TIG (tungsten inert gas). Stick welding is popular in the oil pipe industry
for welding the pipes together. There is a lot of different kinds of welders used in the medical
equipment field, robotics field, under water welding field and in a lot of other fields of welding.
A welder is composed of a welding machine, the stinger or torch head, the wire and on some
have a gas bottle that provides the shielding gas. The Thermal Arc Fabricator 181i system is a
MIG, Stick and TIG welder that only weighs 33 pounds. The operator can move from job to job
as easy as he/she can change between the three different types of welding (MIG, Stick and TIG
welding System). A MIG welder is a welder where the wire is automatically fed through the
stinger (the thing fabricators hold) as they weld (look to illustration 2 on page 6). Some MIG
welders have gas bottles on them that feed the shielding gas through the stinger as well. Other
MIG welders have flux core wire which has the gas made inside the wire so as it arcs, it releases
the shielding gas. On a MIG welder the shielding gas is usually 75/25 which is 75 percent Argon
and 25 percent of CO2 (Carbon Dioxide). Stick welders have a wire that looks like a giant

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battery charger wire that clamps on to the welding stick to supply the electricity. Welding sticks
are like flux core wire were the shielding gas is made into the stick and does not have a gas tank
attached to welder. TIG welds you have to manually feed the filler wire while the torch head
provides the electricity (look to illustration 1 on page 6). TIG welders usually use Argon as a
shielding gas that is going through the torch head with the electricity.
There is a lot of different applications of welding. Can weld thicker metals like steel or go
to thinner metals like aluminum, copper, brass. Titanium and Magnesium welding is a unique
and intricate kind of welding. There are also applications where people in the medical field have
special welders that weld plastic medical tools together. When welding steel fabricators can use
MIG, Stick, or TIG welders to combine two different pieces of metal. On steel there is so many
applications of welding; like welding on high rise towers, large ships, small pieces of metal,
vehicles, etc. There are just so many applications of welding with steel. When welding with
Aluminum a spool gun on a MIG machine or a TIG machine with aluminum rods can be used.
Aluminum is another metal where there are just so many different applications of welding using
this material. Parts on spaceships, new cars using aluminum bodies and subframes, military,
vehicle accessories, etc. Aluminum is typically a significantly thinner metal, but with it being a
lighter and less dense metal for them to make something out of aluminum that fabricators would
normally make out of steel and get the same strength out of the aluminum as the steel; because of
the integrity of the metal the aluminum has to be twice as thick as steel. Until the new F-150
came out ER 5554 Aluminum wire was not commonly used but now it is used to do repairs on
the new F-150s other full aluminum vehicles and on certain structural situations on Honda 1500
MPa parts (Coppes).

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Welding in the medical field is actually laser welding. Laser welding in the medical field
uses a hot laser to melt the plastic and rejoin it and leaves no particulate behind. With clear on
clear plastics apply thin-film deposition of laser absorber to the weld area with a .5mm-wide line
to join the two pieces of clear plastics. One thing that is laser welded together for medical
purposes are stents for when someone has a heart attack (Clear-on-Clear Welding for Medical
Devices ).
There are a lot of dangers involved in welding as in; touching hot metal, loss of vision
over time, hearing issues, skin cancer, and other diseases that can be developed from inhaling the
fumes from welding ("UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR."). From long period of
looking at the UV light from the welding arc the fabricator can start to lose their vision because
the welding helmet/ shield only blocks out so much and can not block out all the bad UV light.
Prolonged exposure of bare skin to the UV light coming from the welding arc and lead to skin
cancer and skin burns. The manganese fumes from the welding process have be known to cause
Parkinson disease (Welding Companies Prevail in Liability Lawsuit). There has been a lot of
lawsuits were the welder has sued companies that make welding rods because they did not put
out enough warnings to consumers on the dangers and diseases you can get from the fumes of
manganese ( Welding-disease link testimony allowed).
Safety is the most important thing in anything a person does. Welding personal protective
equipment (ppe) is a welding helmet or shield, gloves, leather jacket or apron, respirator, ear
muffs or plugs, and rubber soled boots. The helmet is to protect eyes from the bright harmful UV
lights that can blind the welder or people looking at the welder. Gloves are what protects hands
from burning when the metal gets hot from the welding. The leather jacket or apron is to protects
bare skin from getting burnt from the hot sparks and the harmful UV light that can cause skin

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cancer. It is also to protects clothes from getting holes in them from the sparks that can cause
them to catch fire. The respirator protects the welder from inhaling the manganese fumes that can
be put off by welding rods that can cause Parkinson's Disease. Earmuffs protect the operator's
ears and hearing from the harmful high pitch sounds caused by the arc during the welding
process. Most welders have to wear some sort of boots unless they work for themselves and the
boots protect from crushing toes if the welder drops a piece of metal and they keep from the
welders foot burning from the hot sparks ("OSH Answers Fact Sheets").
As shown above welding has changed a lot since 3000 B.C. It is still the best method to
connect two pieces of metal. Even though times have changed, the equipment, applications, and
kinds of welders as technology has advanced. The dangers are still the same today and safety
precautions are still important aspects of welding. Welding, even though it has been around since
3000 B.C. it will still be around for a long time because it is used in almost everything that
involves metal from buildings down to school desks.

Illustration 1: Rutland Gutter Supply.

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Illustration 2: Schmidt

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Work Cited
Clear-on-clear welding for medical devices. Plastics Technology Aug. 2016: 60. Vocations
and Career Collection. Web. 21 Sept. 2016.
Coppes, Jeff. What is your weld telling you? Listening and Learning from it can make you
better at the skill. Auto body Repair Network Aug. 2016: 40+. Vocations and Career
Collection. Web. 21 Sept. 2016
Schmidt, Ed. "MIG Welding Diagram." Putnam County High School. N.p., n.d. Web.
MIG, Stick and TIG Welding System. Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration News Oct.
2011: 8. Vocations and Career Collection. Web. 21 Sept. 2016
"OSH Answers Fact Sheets." Government of Canada, Canadian Centre for Occupational Health
and Safety. N.p., 23 Sept. 2016. Web. 23 Sept. 2016
"Http://www.rutlandguttersupply.com/blog/2011/09/01/TIGWeldingArchitecturalMetalWork.asp
x." Rutland Gutter Supply. N.p., 13 Apr. 2014. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.
"The Home for A History of Thermal Joining." A History of Welding Web Site. N.p., n.d. Web.
26 Sept. 2016.
"UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR." Safety and Health Topics | Welding,
Cutting, and Brazing - Hazards and Solutions | Occupational Safety and Health
Administration. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2016.
Welding companies prevail in liability lawsuit. Occupational Hazards Aug. 2006: 12. Student
Edition. Web. 20 Sept. 2016
Welding-disease link testimony allowed UPI NewsTrack 26 July 2005. Student Edition. Web.
20 Sept. 2016.