The Financial Advantages of MIG Welding for High Production Fabrication

Chances are if your business is involved in manufacturing metal products or does custom metal fabrication then you are always looking for more efficient ways of increasing production. In this article you will discovered the financial advantages of MIG welding and why is may be the best process for your businesses, shop or manufacturing plant.

What is MIG Welding?

MIG welding is a semi-automated welding process that allows the welder to use their discretion as to when and where to weld while the machine continually keeps feeding a welding electrode to the weld joint. This process is technically called Gas Metal Arc Welding or GMAW but most people today have accepted the term "MIG Welding".

Advantages for Production Welding

MIG has many advantages over other processes for production welding. Some of the advantages may not seem to be much but over time they will save your company money in material cost and labor. Some of the advantages are:

Fast welds
Joins almost any metal
Requires very little cleaning

This process produces fast weld when compared to Stick or TIG welding. The production speed is excellent because MIG welders use a spool of wire that continually feeds the electrode to the joint. This saves time and money on electrode replacement down time while keeping stub waste to the bare minimum. The electrodes come is spools as small as 1 lb that are made for small production runs and cab be as large as 100lbs or more. This keeps production flowing without many interruptions for electrode replacement. MIG also allows welding of different metal thicknesses with a single diameter electrode. This is where production can be increased based on the machine settings. The electrode speeds are regulated in IPM or inches per minute and that means that production rates can increase based on machine settings.

MIG welding is a process that can weld almost any metal out there. The weld quality is excellent compared to most other types of processes with the ability to weld different metal thicknesses with a single diameter electrode. Some of the metals that it can weld are:

Carbon Steel
Stainless Steel
Aluminum
Nickel Alloys
Copper
Titanium

Another benefit of MIG welding is that the welds are clean and there is not much slag to clean (if any). The electrodes use a shielding gas to keep the atmosphere out of the weld area and that translates to saving time and labor costs on cleaning welds. Unlike Stick or Flux cored arc welding there is no flux on the electrode that requires the weld to be cleaned and dressed. The most cleaning that may be required can be done with a wire wheel.

In the end MIG welding is a great welding process for companies that need fast, clean, quality and low cost welds for their production needs.