Don’t let welders chip away profits
September 1st 2004 Productivity in welding is a major issue. A recent survey demonstrated that 20% of a welder's time is wasted spent cleaning the weld they have just made.
This is money being literally chipped away according to Graham Stevens of Steven Industrial Services
There are few welding operations that do not create spatter. These often tiny droplets of metal create unsightly finishes to products and in many cases can lead to premature rusting or corrosion. To remove the spatter is time consuming, counter productive and wasteful. In the worst cases welders spend more time fettling and de-spattering than welding. Yet, with a simple, effective, pretreatment, spatter can be removed at the conclusion of a weld with a single wipe.
This begs the question why spatter removal remains such a drain on the welder's time. The answer lies in a number of factors: denial; lack of evaluation; lack of co-operation; and health and safety.
While this seems an odd combination when considering a process as fundamental as applying a spray before welding, as this article explains, it's never quite that simple.
The first impediment is denial. Many companies still fail to recognise the damaging effect of spatter.
A good illustration in point is earthmoving equipment.
Huge, rugged machines that are covered in mud almost from the day they're delivered surely need little consideration to the aesthetic effect of their paint finish. But, the evidence shows that on delivery, unsightly spatter can lead the customer to perceive that if so little attention is paid to the finish, then equally slapdash care may be paid to the mechanics. More seriously, when the drops of spatter come off, as they inevitably do, then bare metal is left exposed to rust and eventually requires remedial maintenance.
Second, is a lack of evaluation.
Assuming the manufacturer has recognised the need to remove spatter, little or no attention is paid to the effectiveness of the treatment being applied. Most pre-weld treatments do not work very well - even those that contain the health damaging dichloromethane don't. However, even poorly performing pre-weld anti-spatter treatments are accepted as being as good as it gets.
More about the horrors of dichloromethane will follow.
Third comes a lack of co-operation.
Effective welding pre-treatment is dependent upon the acceptance by the welders that the pre-weld is a good idea.
One company, that as will become obvious, has to remain nameless, carried out a survey to assess the efficiency of its substantial welding operation. A typical welding cycle at this company's factory took about 45 minutes. It then took 10-15 minutes to remove the spatter using chisels and grinders. A trial using Stevens' The Works anti-spatter treatment enabled all the spatter to be removed in a minute.
The potential saving was assessed by the customer to be in the order of £750,000 a year. It was a no brainer to use the treatment, but the company did not place a single order. The welders, refused to hand back the 10-15 minutes fettling time!
Finally, there is the thorny issue of health and safety. The most effective anti-spatter welding treatments historically used dichloromethane. This is a carcinogenic substance that has a number of equally unpleasant side effects. The chemical is not outlawed in the welding industry, but frankly no right-minded business that understands its effects would ever condone subjecting its employees to it. As a chlorinated solvent, dichloromethane treatments, if still wet at the time of the weld, thermally decompose to give off phosgene (mustard gas) and hydrogen chloride. A measure of the hazard imposed here is that the HSE gives a short term exposure limit (STEL) of 15 minutes in the presence of just 0.06 parts per million (that is 0.000006%) of phosgene and 5ppm (0.0005%) of hydrogen chloride. Yet, dichloromethane based pre-weld treatments were once commonly used when welding inside pressure vessels.
Alternatives to dichloromethane based products did not work as effectively; hence the dangerous pre-treatments can still be found in some places.
So much for the negative issues, there is now an effective alternative that has come about as the result of years spent addressing both the efficacy and safety of anti-spatter. The Works range of spatter control treatments, the best example of which is Pre-Weld, contains no dichloromethane. The product is applied as a fine spray delivered from air-pressurised cans that do not damage the ozone and can be disposed of in standard refuse.
Most significantly, the product works much better than its hazardous counterparts.
One compelling case study comes from an earth moving equipment maker in Northern Ireland, where over two and half years since adopting The Works antispatter, savings of £127 000 a year have been recorded.
For further information contact: Graham Stevens, Stevens Industrial Services Unit 4, Littleburn Industrial Estate Langley Moor, Durham, DH7 8JE Telephone: 0191 378 1786 Fax: 0191 378 2190 e-mail: sales@theworks-works.com www: www.theworks-works.com More articles from Stevens Industrial Services: | 
