Since we started this blog a few months ago, we’ve written about a lot of topics related to laser welding, which hopefully you’ve found useful. Now we’d like to turn your attention to another type of welding that’s a favorite of ours – electron beam welding.

Electron beam (EB) welding is an excellent choice for joining advanced materials used in industries such as aerospace, semiconductors, and medical devices.  Here are 10 advantages of EB welding. (I could come up with more, but 10 is a nice round number, isn’t it?)

Like the rest of the country, all of us at Joining Technologies were pretty excited to see the solar eclipse yesterday.  But not everyone was able to get their hands on eclipse glasses.  So, to avoid being "Blinded by the Light" (to steal a great song title from Bruce Springsteen), Scott Boynton rigged up a way for all of us to watch the big event safely.  Scott, President of Joining Technologies Automation, used mirrors to project the eclipse through our windows and onto the screen in our conference room.  Check out this short video to see how it worked.

So, we’ve talked about gaps a few times (here and here), and if you’re not sick of hearing about them, thanks for your patience.  Yes, there are other weld tolerance concerns, so let’s talk about one of the other common tolerances that can wreak havoc on a qualified welding process.

Thickness.  No, I’m not referring to anyone’s skull, rather the tolerance of the cross section of the material at the point of welding.  Depending on the weld joint configuration (assume autogenous for today), there may be 2 or more tolerances to consider. 

We’ve gone over some interesting topics in past blogs.  Hopefully you've read through them. This one is going to build on some of the tidbits previously mentioned.

Sometimes when it comes to product design, joining different materials becomes unavoidable.  We don’t need to cover ALL of the possible reasons, but the more common ones are thermal management and mechanical characteristics (strength, corrosion resistance, etc.).  Yes, those are very broad topics. 

Perhaps it would be best to look at two scenarios:

This blog is going to be slightly different from the others.  We’re going to talk about a weld process variable as the primary consideration and work backwards into effects on the work piece.  Rather than what directly affects you, I’d like to talk about what challenges us, the welders.

Today’s topic is shield gas.

What is it?  It is an integral part of most atmospheric weld processes (laser welding, TIG, MIG, plasma arc).  It is used to displace the reactive gasses found in the air we breathe.  Oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, to name a few.

“I can’t possibly assemble this product with a weld.  It’s too sensitive to heat.”

Really???  Tell me more.  This is probably not the problem you think it is.

It’s almost the Fourth of July, and before we all head out to celebrate with fireworks and barbecues, I thought we’d do something a little different to kick off our first video blog.  What’s the perfect song for Independence Day?  The “Star Spangled Banner” would be a pretty good choice, right?  Well, how about the “Star Spangled Banner” played by a high power industrial laser! Check out the video below:

Oh boy.  I’m sure I’ll get flak from someone for tackling this one, but here goes anyway.

Let’s talk about tolerances for welding.  For this post, we’ll focus only on the weld joint and follow the common theme of customer-vendor interaction.

Customer: “What kind of gap range can you tolerate in a weld?”

Vendor: “What kind of weld?  Process? How deep? How wide? Material?  Filler?”

Customer: “That doesn’t matter yet, I just need to know how big of a gap you can weld and how much it can vary.”

One of the most dreaded phrases we can hear on the welding job shop side is “Just weld it.”

This is a trap, no matter the good intentions behind it.  It's also a recipe for disappointment and hurt feelings. To avoid that disappointment and save some time, money, and aggravation on your welding project, let me explain.

(This post has been updated to include revised dates and locations for the workshop sessions.)

If you’re a woman in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math), how do you navigate a career with few role models or mentors?

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, women are 50 percent of the overall workforce but only 24 percent of the STEM workforce. Moreover, 50 percent of women in STEM careers drop out in the first 10 years.