RM Online - What you need to know about Welders

Would you feel safe following a trailer doing 70 miles per hour on the interstate that had an axle welded by one of your customers with your welding equipment?

Before you buy a welding unit for your store, Joe Colella, vice president-marketing, Burco Welding & Cutting Products, High Point, N.C., suggests you should be able to answer that question in the affirmative.

Colella says there is a good market for welding units for everything from hobby work to assembling structural steel if you know how to properly match equipment to specific jobs and successfully market it. The sheer variety of machines often makes these objectives difficult.

"You can divide market requirements into two types of welders: electrical and gas-drives," he says.

"One of the biggest problems I've found with the do-it-yourselfer is with the plug-in machines. They tend to draw lots of current. When a customer rents a 15-amp machine, it will draw 15 amps out of the circuit. The only problem is, the shop or garage outlet isn't dedicated. Usually it includes a microwave oven, a toaster and other appliances throughout the house. When the customer plugs the welder into the outlet and turns it on, the fuse blows," he says.

"You can't turn down the current too low or you won't have enough power to get a decent weld. Then the machine gets returned to the store for a rebate."

One of the first questions you should ask a customer is: How much amperage and volts will your electrical system supply?

Colella's solution to blowing fuses is to offer gasoline engine-driven units, especially for the do-it-yourselfer: "The engine-powered type is good for a job on a boat dock at a resort lake where there is no current or very little current," he says.

Free-standing engine-powered units rent quickly as a source of electrical power in the aftermath of a natural disaster such as the ice storm that hit the East Coast in January.

"Engine-powered units tend to be a little heavier than the plug-in types," he says. "You need to know how the unit will be transported before you rent it. Some of them won't fit in the trunk or back seat of a Civic.

"Basic welding processes used in the plug-in and engine-powered units are stick and MIG," says Colella. "MIG can be used to do about anything in the homeowner rental market. It's easier to use for the non-professional than the stick."

MIG is a solid-wire weld unit; the electrode, a continuous bare-metal filler wire, is sent through the handle of the unit and fed into the arc made by the electrical current. Usually carbon dioxide is used as a shielding gas that forms around the weld, keeps out atmospheric impurities and helps create a strong, clean fusion.

"Automotive restoration always deals with thin-gauge metal and poor fit-up - that's why it is the biggest market for the 110-volt MIG welder. It also can be rented to people who want to weld things like patio furniture. The MIG unit when it was developed was better than sliced bread."

A stick (also called shielded metal arc welding) system sends an electrical AC or DC current down an electrode. The current melts the edges of the metal and the electrode adds metal to the weld area. The result is a weld as strong as the original part, if the job is done properly. It is used to repair or join mild steel, alloy steels, stainless steels, aluminum and cast iron. Some of these metals demand special skills and experience, however.

Matching the amp output to the metal type and thickness also is critical. If the customer is going to do the best job possible, he or she will need equipment for the specific job.

"Stick is used primarily for structural steel, the thicker materials," adds Colella. "I'd use it to weld an axle on a trailer, for example, because of the base-metal thickness, the corroded surface and the paint. But theoretically, everything you can do with a stick you can do with a MIG unit if you have enough power and you have the skill."

Eric Snyder, product manager for engine-driven units at The Lincoln Electric Co., Cleveland, says stick machines are gaining market share with rental customers. "With general-purpose stick electrodes, you can use the unit for fabrication and maintenance welding. It works great for sheet metal when superior bead appearance and easy operation are important.

"In the time I've spent in talking to rental customers, I've found most of the questions and interest has been in stick welding," says Snyder. "It's probably the least-cost system to set up for construction and repair work. There's also a lot of products on the market that make it useful for lots of applications.

"MIG is best for carbon and stainless steels and aluminum," says Snyder. "It gives excellent welding characteristics and a good finished appearance. Our L-56 MIG wire is recommended for general-purpose welding. It's also ideal for applications where the steel to be welded is dirty or contaminated."

Equipment marketed to the rental industry by The Lincoln Electric Co. can handle 14-gauge metals and thicker with stick units, and 24-gauge and higher with MIG units.

Don Clouthier, rental manager, Miller Electric Manufacturing Co., Appleton, Wis., divides rental customers into three potentially strong categories.

"For us, gas and diesel engine-driven units are the most popular rental for large and small contractors as well as some homeowners," says Clouthier. "Two-man portable units weighing around 230 pounds that generate 180 amps are especially good for repair jobs and for generating portable power. The 115-volt wire-fed MIG welders fit into this category. They are normally the machines rented out to the homeowner.

"The next area is contractor rental," he says. "Here you are looking at 225 amps from a 600-pound unit. This type of unit produces an AC output in the 8,000-watt range.

"Third, we have a 250- to 400-amp unit that is a diesel-powered, tow-behind. It's a stick-process unit mounted on a two-wheel trailer for the larger mechanical contractor. Another system becoming very popular is the multiple-operator package. It offers six to eight simultaneous welding arcs and is site-powered or large generator-powered.

"If you really understand the contractor base in your market, you might have real potential for rentals in this area," says Clouthier. "Another way you can rent is to pay attention to the other types of equipment a customer is renting. Anyone who wants cutting or forming tools such as heavy-duty grinders will probably need a weld unit."

"If I could pick 10 rentals for my store, six would be gas-powered arc welders (stick), two would be wire-fed welders, and two would be oxyacetylene units," says Don Brown, owner of Action Rental & Sales, Harrisonville, Mo. The store's inventory is 30 percent construction, 60 percent general tool and 10 percent party.

Brown, Region Three director and past A.R.A. General Tool and Equipment Special Interest Group chairman, says one of the best welding units in the rental store is the portable oxyacetylene.

"It's certainly the best known," he adds. "The tanks of oxygen and gas used to be 4 feet high. A contractor would come in and you'd tell them to stand the tanks upright, but they always would throw them in the back of their pickup truck - they'd be carrying two torpedoes. Now they are much easier to transport."

Ray Blew, national sales manager for Thermadyne Industries, St. Louis, which makes the portable oxyacetylene unit in Brown's store, says the oxyacetylene welder has an almost unlimited market potential and can be used for a wide range of applications: "Basically, the design of oxyacetylene welders hasn't changed in about 100 years - almost everyone has used one in shop class or their uncle's garage. We're not talking rocket science."

Blew explains that a welding unit with a 10-cubic-foot acetylene and a 20-cubic-foot oxygen tank weighs in at 35 pounds. "It can be pulled up a ladder to work on the air-conditioning unit on the roof of a building and dragged through the crawl space under the building to work on the piping.

"We've found that the portable units can be equipped with an extra set of tanks that can be filled while the unit is out of the store so you can have a set of full tanks and keep the unit on rent continuously. We also have found that most rental stores will charge the same price for someone who uses the equipment for 10 minutes as someone who drains the tank. That way, tanks are always filled up after they are returned and a set of full tanks are ready for each customer for a continuous rental."

Oxyacetylene is also a good cutting process. "You can use it to cut the floor boards out of your '57 Chevy pickup truck, too," Blew says. "Portability and the ability to use it in cutting and brazing makes it very versatile."

The primary point to consider in any weld-unit rental is safety. Either the customer is going to be handling and controlling highly volatile gases or high electrical current. Add-on safety gear for the eyes, feet, hands and body is required in differing degrees depending upon the application and the process.

It's also important to use the right consumables, such as electrodes, for the job. "It's probably a good idea for the rental store to make sure the weld units are in good shape," Clouthier says. "There are so many combinations of consumables for the job it's probably beyond the scope of some rental stores to keep the right material in stock. The store should work closely with a local welding distributor to get the right supplies. And always send an operator's manual out with the unit."