Spot Welding
Questions and Answers
The proper electrode material can be determined from published weld schedules based on the work pieces being spot welded. These weld schedules can be found in AWS Standard C1.1, Recommended Practices For Resistance Welding and RWMA The Resistance Welding Manual. Your electrode supplier is another source. Spot welding requires a few initial decisions to be made to set up a good welding process. Most of these evolve around pressure, current and time.
Dressing an electrode means mechanically machining or forming the face of the worn electrode back to its original geometry. All resistance welding electrodes wear during use. In the case of spot welding this appears in the form of what is referred to as mushrooming. The weld face of the electrode begins to spread out perpendicular to the length of the electrode.
All electrodes wear and in the case of spot welding they mushroom. Therefor the face must be dressed back to original shape to maintain weld quality. If the weld face size is not controlled within some reasonable parameters there will be insufficient current to maintained the required weld nugget.
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