Direction of Travel for Arc Welding

Video Transcript

" Hello! My name is Mac. On behalf of expertvillage.com, I am here to continue our discussion on shielded metal arc welding or stick welding as it is commonly referred to. In previous episodes, we have discussed striking an arc and running a bead of weld. We touched briefly on direction of travel and I will explain a little bit more about that, what I mean. If you are a right-handed person like me, a beginning student would strike an arc on the left hand side of the plate and run a bead of weld to the right hand side of the plate. Angle the electrode somewhat like that and make a nice smooth even bead of weld. The reason why we do this for students is they need to be able to see the puddle at all times. We don’t want them to get it in behind the electrode holder where they cannot see it. So hold the electrode like that and proceed it at an angle like that, a nice even smooth speed of travel, the appropriate angle on the electrode and we will proceed to make multiple passes on the plate, fill it and make nice cosmetically good looking weld. It is very important."