Weld Resistant Materials

[winter39]

Can you recommend any materials that are more resistant to GMAW weld spatter? In the past we have used elkonite and brass but we are not sure if they are really any better then less expensive hot rolled or colled rolled materials. I am planning on doing an experiment but would like other material, treatments, etc. that people know work.
Thanks
Jeff

 

[strokersix]

Copper works well but is probably more expensive.

 

[Goahead]

There are proprietary materials (i.e. Spattershield, at

http://www.spattershield.com/index.asp)

that are meant to avoid spatter sticking to the material welded.
But one should first try to improve GMAW parameters to reduce drastically the amount of generated spatter.
See Ed Craig at

http://www.weldreality.com/discussion/

http://www.welding-advisers.com/

 

[winter39]

Thanks for the info.
I work for a weld machine integrator. Unfortunately we have situations where you cannot avoid spatter buildup on tooling simply due to the amount of weld volume and proximity to tooling. Optimizing parameters will definelty yield the best results but at the end of the day reality will dictate that some spatter is present and will likley stick to something we don't want. That is the reason I am investigating these materials. I have never heard of this spattershiled product but it appears intersting for reducing spatter in the gun.
Any other ideas for material that will make a good spatter guard that is cost effective?
Thanks Again

 

[StoneCold]

winter39
Believe it or not PAM, like you put in your skillet will do a lot to stop spatter from sticking to things.

StoneCold

 

[dkelly]

winter39 (It's spring time)
Stonecold is correct with the Pam spray preventing spatter. Most of the commercial anti spatter sprays are simlpy corn oil. The best plan is to optimize your weld parameters to prevent spatter, many of the new generation weld power supplies are light years ahead of the old motor/generator sets (don't laugh they are still out there) There are a couple of other little tricks that you can use. Spatter is cooling at a rate of about 1000 degrees per second so anything that you can do to prevent it from sticking while it is still molten will help. Can you re-position tooling? Another trick is to chrome plate tooling (not West Coast Chopper Quality) just send cleaned tooling to a plater and tell them you want a flash chrome no copper plating, no buffing, no nickel. The resulting shiny finish helps keep spatter from sticking. Last but not least a good preventative maintenance program for the tooling. Where your operator cleans tooling every shift, sprays anti spatter and prevents large build up.
good luck

dkelly