Pros And Cons Of Shielded Metal Arc Welding

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What Is Shielded Metal Arc Welding

Shielded metal arc welding is a manually operated welding process in which an electric arc is used to generate the heat required for welding. Shilded metal arc welding (SMAW) also known as stick welding, is a method used to join various material in a variety of applications and job locations. “SMAW is one of the oldest and most popular methods of joining metal. Moderate quality welds can be made at low speed with good uniformity” (“Welding”). It is one of the most basic and versatile welding process. “Companies rely upon its portability while veteran welders trust in its reliability” (Carlson). The basic idea of shielded metal arc welding is to join two pieces of metal by mixing a filler metal with your base metal. It is a very flexible, portable, and versatile welding process. It is very flexible on how thick of materials it can work with. Additionally, it is very portable because it only requires a generator for power. “Finally, it’s quite versatile because it can weld many different types of metals, including cast iron, steel, nickel and aluminum” (“Welding”).

In other welding processes you must use a shielding gas to protect the weld zone from the surrounding atmosphere. When using shielded

Shielded metal arc welding is one of the most widely used welding processes due to its versatility, portability, and low cost equipment. Using this process, you will not have to purchase any type of shielding gas. Shielded metal arc welding can be used in any of the welding positions as long as your rod can reach the area to be welded. If there is a difficult or hard to reach spot you can bend your rod so you can reach the spot better. “The process leads itself to welding in confined spaces and various positions with few problems” (Austin). For example, if I wanted to weld a pipe that was close to a wall I could bend my rod to reach in between the wall and the