Welding Services
Winward Engineering is one of the UK’s welding companies and performs a number of welding processes. These being, MIG, TIG, Spot, Soldering and Brazing. The two most common welding processes we use include TIG, an acronym for Tungsten Inert Gas welding and MIG, an acronym for Metal Inert Gas welding. TIG is also referred to as GTAW (Gas Tungsten Arc Welding) and Heliarc.
MIG also is referred to as GMAW (Gas Metal Arc Welding). We also provide spot welding.
Characteristics of the MIG Welding process
- Uses a consumable wire electrode during the welding process that is fed from a spool,
- Provides a uniform weld bead,
- Produces a slag-free weld bead,
- Uses a shielding gas, usually – argon, argon – 1 to 5% oxygen, argon – 3 to 25% CO2 and a combination
argon/helium gas, - Is considered a semi-automatic welding process,
- Allows welding in all positions,
- Requires less operator skill than TIG welding,
- Allows long welds to be made without starts or stops,
- Needs little cleanup.
The illustration above provides a look at a typical MIG welding process showing an arc that is formed between the wire electrode and the workpiece. During the MIG welding process, the electrode melts within the arc and becomes deposited as filler material. The shielding gas that is used prevents atmospheric contamination from atmospheric contamination and protects the weld during solidification. The shielding gas also assists with stabilizing the arc which provides a smooth transfer of metal from the weld wire to the molten weld pool.
Soldering and brazing is also undertaken here in house at Winward.
Soldering is a process in which two or more metal items are joined together by melting and flowing a filler metal (solder) into the joint, the filler metal having a lower melting point than the workpiece. Soldering differs from welding in that soldering does not involve melting the work pieces. In brazing, the filler metal melts at a higher temperature, but the workpiece metal does not melt.
Formerly nearly all solders contained lead, but environmental concerns have increasingly dictated use of lead-free alloys.
We currently solder a variety of things for our stock range of bezels for clocks, gauges and the like. This can be seen here in the photo. After we have either soldered or brazed the two metals the complete component is polished or painted in house.
