Things You'll Need:
- Welding machine with suitable cables
- Electricity source
- Electrode and electrode holder (a good beginning electrode is an E6011 or E6013)
- Safety equipment, including apron, leather gloves and helmet
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Step 1
Recognize that all arc welding methods use intense heat. Most often, an electrode or welding wire dispenses the heat. Most people prefer electrodes due to the ease of changing them by popping them out of the electrode holders; however, each arc welding process has its benefits.
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Step 2
Use a welding electrode in an electrode holder for shielded metal arc welding (SMAW), the most common and portable type of arc welding. Also called stick welding, welders use an electrode with a metal core. The flux around the core melts with the pieces you're working on to fuse metals.
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Step 3
Weld thin metals with gas metal arc welding (GMAW). This process uses a gaseous shield around the melted metal. With carbon dioxide or oxygen the most often used gases, another name for this arc welding process is metal inert gas or MIG welding.
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Step 4
Apply the arc between a tungsten electrode and the work pieces in gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW). Another name for it is tungsten inert gas or TIG welding, and it doesn't always require the use of a filler material.
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Step 5
Fuse metals together with an arc welding process known as flux cored arc welding (FCAW) by directing the high temperature arc between the filler metal electrode and the metals.
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Step 6
Heat metals with a plasma gas from a torch and, if needed, an additional shielding gas in plasma arc welding (PAW).
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Step 7
Produce fusion of metals with the submerged arc welding (SAW) process by heating metals between the arc and the work piece.
