New technology enhances ability

Josh Welton TIG welding.

I think complaining about whatever is new is kind of a rite of passage. Surely not limited to welding, welders, and welding machines, the march of progress thunders on no matter how we feel about the trending direction.

The welding industry will continue to advance; from the fire pits and hammers of early blacksmiths, to the discovery of acetylene, to torches, to battery-generated arcs and coated electrodes. Direct and alternating currents, transformers, inverters, submerged arc, friction stir, square wave, sine wave, triangular wave, and independent amperage control. Spray transfer and pulse and synergic capabilities. Robots.

I started welding almost 15 years ago, which is not that long ago, all things considered. I spent my first seven years TIG welding with a Synchrowave 350, a transformer-based machine.

I still remember when inverters started popping up in the classrooms of the UAW/Chrysler Training Center. Some old-timers would get flustered with the new buttons, the different variables, even the change in sound.

“I can weld aluminum just as well with the old machine; I don’t need frequency adjustment!” “Computer boards? Just more that can go wrong.”

One of the tinsmiths in the plant picked up a new Dynasty 200, and other guys in the shop literally got angry with him because of the high-pitched buzzing sound created when the machine was cranked way up past the tried-and-true 60 Hz.

Eventually the new becomes the normal, and we either learn how to best take advantage of it or we get passed by. All the adjustability in the world won’t make a bad welder good, but it can definitely enhance a deft operator’s skill set.

Just because you have years of experience reading a puddle and developing hand/eye coordination doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from the ability to dial in an arc on aluminum via independent amperage and high-frequency tuning. At the user level, welding innovation enhances ability; it does not replace it.

I think George Lucas said it most excellently: “The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.”

All images courtesy of Brown Dog Welding.

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