The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has increased interest in buying American-made filler metals. Did you know that ESAB has offered one of the largest selections of filler metals on the market today for many years, and most of these products are manufactured in ESAB’s U.S. plants located in Hanover, Pennsylvania, and Ashtabula, Ohio? All our aluminum wires are manufactured by AlcoTec in Traverse City, Michigan. The majority of our green rod sources for Stick, SAW and MIG products come from domestically produced steel and 100% of our Dual Shield, Coreshield, Alloy Shield and Coreweld products are made from domestically produced steel.

Our filler metal plants in Hanover and Ashtabula have produced many well-known filler metal brands since 1940, and, with a dedicated staff of world-class research engineers and scientists, continues to pioneer new processes and products to meet the needs of our customers. All ESAB electrodes are produced and tested in accordance with AWS specifications and conform to the standards of the military as well as agencies such as the American Bureau of Shipping, Lloyds Register of Shipping and Det Norske Veritas. Both filler metal manufacturing plants have recently expanded and improved their facilities to ensure continued excellence in quality and availability.

Two new wire drawing lines have been added at Ashtabula, designed to produce wire with a cleaner and more consistent surface. These new lines produce wire for high production submerged arc welding (SAW) applications. This addition has significantly increased ESAB’s SAW wire capacity. The new lines descale, clean and draw the wire to the proper diameter, coat it with copper and package the product. The wire from the new lines is used in coil and drum packages, including ESAB’s newest package, the 2200-lb EcoCoil. According to Dan Gerbec, product manager for submerged arc consumables, the new manufacturing capabilities have increased ESAB’s productivity and allow the company to better serve its customers with faster delivery and more consistent product.

ESAB also recently added an additional flux plant to its filler metal manufacturing facility in Hanover, providing the company with a significant upgrade in manufacturing capacity. The addition of this new, larger flux plant allows ESAB to produce many of its bonded subarc fluxes in North America. “This facility will enable ESAB to improve management of its flux product line and maintain better control of inventory and delivery, as well as control costs, particularly freight costs,” said Chris Depew, product business manager for the flux product line. According to Depew, the plant features the latest technology, including lean manufacturing, and will produce a broad range of products for a variety of market segments including shipbuilding, wind towers, structural steel construction and general fabrication. “This plant complements our solid wire manufacturing plant in Ashtabula, Ohio,” Depew said.

The new plant went through extensive engineering, quality and applications testing to validate that the quality of the flux produced at the new plant was identical to what customers were receiving previously from Europe. “The product went through full process and quality validation, in-house testing, and extensive testing at our customers’ facilities to ensure that there is no difference from fluxes produced at our other facilities,” Depew said.

ESAB has recently introduced a number of new wire and flux products:

▪ Alloy Shield® 70S metal-cored wire is designed to weld over light mill scale and rust while still producing quality welds. Alloy Shield also offers high deposition rates and can increase travel speed by 15-20% or more.

▪ New packaging for subarc wire and flux include the new 2200 lb. EcoCoil™ packaging for high production applications. This can be teamed with the BigBag, a new economical way to deliver flux for high production submerged arc welding applications. The BigBag contains 2200 lbs of flux and consists of a woven polypropylene bag with a polyethylene inlay to prevent moisture pick-up from the surrounding atmosphere.

▪ New Dual Shield® X flux cored wires are designed to be more forgiving than traditional flux cored wires, especially for less experienced welders, with an easily controlled arc and improved operation at both lower and higher current levels. Dual Shield X wires also offer high deposition rates, fast travel speeds, flat bead profile, limited spatter and extremely easy slag removal for overall productivity, ease of use and outstanding operator appeal.

▪ Coreshield® self-shielded flux core wires range from formulations for single pass welding of thin gauge steel to all-position, multipass welding and applications demanding high impact toughness. Coreshield wires are popular for use in general fabrication, robotic applications, bridge construction and offshore welding.

▪ Coreweld® metal-cored wires offer advantages over their solid wire counterparts, including high current densities, high deposition rates, faster travel speeds, superior ability to bridge gaps with reduced tendency for burn-through, high arc stability, excellent penetration and minimal slag and spatter.

▪ A number of ESAB products are Seismic-Certified® to meet the demands of structural steel contractors.

Of course, ESAB continues to produce popular favorites such as Atom Arc and Sureweld electrodes, Spoolarc solid wires, and a complete line of products for stainless steel, cast iron repair and hardsurfacing products. ESAB also offers a wide range of packaging options from small spools to 1000 lb. Marathon Pac® and Endless Drum™ packaging that have helped many customers improve their productivity by decreasing the number of interruptions needed to change to a new package of wire.