Spatter. It seems so minor, so insignificant when you look at all your business costs. Yet, these small bits of molten metal stuck on your final welded piece can create quite a price tag when you need to remove it. Do you consider spatter to be of little concern to your business? When evaluating cost reduction areas along a production line – often times more “serious” issues are raised. Has spatter ever been brought up as a cost issue?

Spatter causes production costs like: cost of operator time spent applying pre-weld spatter sprays and the time spent removing spatter after welding? Re-work is also costly. How many of your parts need to be grinded and re-welded because of spatter?

There are also material costs – spatter causes build-up in the gun nozzle. How many nozzles are changed out per week at your plant? And, what about all that anti-spatter spray? It’s not only costly, but messy and time consuming. Most importantly though, spatter decreases the strength of welds. It causes imperfect welds and reduces quality, many times to the point of having to re-do the weld. Has spatter affected your weld quality?

Post a comment regarding spatter. Is it an issue or not? And, let’s also discuss the best ways to eliminate spatter.

Check out these links to learn how companies are dealing with spatter: http://www.millerwelds.com/results/manfab/articleSummary.php?id=12
http://millerwelds.com/results/manfab/articleSummary.php?id=31