The Welding Fixture

The welding fixture, is maybe, the most important part of any welding operation.

A poorly designed fixture, will never give satisfactory performance and will forever be a thorn, in the side of production.

The first task to undertake, when designing a fixture (for welding or assembly) is to produce an accurate drawing of the part, in the same format as will be used for designing the balance of the project.

Material selection should take into account cost, wear resistance, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and thermal expansion.

Spatter adherence, to critical fixture areas, must be addressed. The use of a more expensive shielding gas, usually containing Argon, should be seriously considered - such gas mixes produce far less spatter than 100% CO2.

The welding electrical circuit must be optimized. Start of weld, direction of weld and grounding must all be considered.

The orientation of the part, to maximize deposition rates and minimize weld faults, has to be optimized. (No welding on the ceiling please!)

The four golden words apply here, as in all good machine design-

ACCESSIBILITY, REPEATABILITY, SIMPLICITY, DEPENDABILITY.



In a good welding fixture, standard components, such as those manufactured by CarrLane (click here) are utilized as much as possible.
 

Please note that the above listed companies are by no means the only manufacturers, nor the only ones we have used, over the years, but they do make an excellent product, THAT IN THE CORRECT APPLICATION, should give years of trouble free service.

To find out more about this component, please feel free to contact us.

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