How to Use an ARC Welder

Video Transcript

"How to use an ARC welder. Let's talk briefly about what an ARC welder is. An ARC welder uses an electrical charge between what's called an electrode and the material that you're welding. The electrode looks like a... sort of looks like a sparkler, if you've ever seen the fourth of July sparklers, you have a rough idea of what a welding electrode looks like. And by applying an electrical impulse through that electrode and grounding the material that you're welding, you touch that to the material and it creates that arc which actually melts the metal and the material in the electrode and fuses them together as one material thereby essentially gluing together two pieces of metal. If you're going to try ARC welding for yourself, you're doing some home repairs or maybe you're making a bracket for something, it's probably the least expensive way to get into welding. Once you've set up your area that you're going to weld in, make sure there's no flammable materials around 'cause sparks get thrown at very very high temperature and can start fires very easily. Probably seen some stories in the news about how welding caused a fire in a building. So make sure you're out of the way any flammable materials and you want to practice on some scrap material before you start trying to build something because it can be a little tricky. You want to maintain about a quarter of an inch of distance once you've struck your ARC. And by striking your ARC I mean you've taken that electrode, you've clamped into your welding... It's a clamp. I don't know how else to say it. You clamp your electrode in and you touch that material and strike that ARC. And you've got to maintain a distance of about a quarter of an inch and feed it through nice and easy and once you've practiced on some scrap material and feel comfortable with it, then try putting together two pieces of metal."