When he’s not TIG welding at his “normal” job, career welder and metal artist Roger King uses his skills with a TIG torch to create metal sculptures.

Shielding gases do more than just protect the weld from atmospheric contamination. The gas and gas blends you use also influence the weld profile and the weld bead shape. Also, for an arc to occur in gas metal arc welding (GMAW), an ionized gas must be present to carry the charge.

For a project involving structural columns made of 4-in. plate, Owen Steel Co. Inc., Columbia, S.C., had two choices when it came to cutting difficult transition bevels. First, it could use a manually guided track torch system and bevel one side of the plate at a time, which would open the door to distortion. Or second, it could find a mechanized cutting system that would allow both sides of the plate to be beveled simultaneously.