Hillbillysmith Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 I keep seeing job postings for "carbide welders" but, to my knowledge, carbide (tungsten carbide) is not a readily weldable material.... Unless it is performed by some sort of induction process or even a brazing process. Tig brazing maybe, could this perhaps be the confusion of where they get the "welding" from??? Seems to me (if my memory serves me well) on carbide tipped tooling, there seems to be a definitive line between the tip and the tooling body itself. Maybe some sort of transitioning material even? Maybe there is a material that readily bonds to both steel and carbide where as steel and carbide won't bond to each other? If so what would it be? Cobalt or a nickel alloy possibly? -Hillbilly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John McPherson Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 You are thinking of the way saw teeth or masonry drill bits are induction brazed onto a steel body, an automated factory process. A carbide weldor is a specialized repair technician, mostly working on drilling and mining tools. Which is where the money is for young turks, eager to travel these days. I also have a lot of students going into shipyards after CC, since structural work is slow. Only the crazy ones want to be underwater weldors. It is just another form of hardfacing work, usually SMAW or more often these days, FCAW applications. (Remember starting out with bead on plate? Padding, grinding, padding? A lot of that.) Go take a look at the Stoody website, they have a bunch of different products. For example, HB-Ti is a FCAW wire that leaves tungsten carbides embedded in a martensitic matrix. (Think of it like fruitcake, or pecans in jello salad.) The iron wears away, leaving the carbide granules exposed, which then slows down the surface erosion due to contact. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JNewman Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 One of my customers makes wearing parts for mining equipment. Many of the teeth they make have carbide hardfacing factory applied. While this is done with robots I assume many of their customers replace the carbide hardfacing as it wears. The robots apply a bead that is about an 1 1/4" wide, that is not weaving it is a single bead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hillbillysmith Posted August 31, 2012 Author Share Posted August 31, 2012 I knew that the job postings were for large, industrial applications. These particular one mainly being on- and offshore drilling.... If the job is primarily just surfacing with a hard facing consumable, then my question is; are there surfacing electrodes that contain carbide? Or is the job title just a generic field term??? -Hillbilly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Yates Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Hey Hillbilly, Check these folks out http://www.lfdc.com/equipment.asp Co Name Long Foundation Drilling they use Carbide and Diamond casein tubes and they have to do build up all the time , I have seen them use a rose bud the size of your fist with a rod the size 1/2 inch made of cobalt and Carbide and/or Diamond to re-surface the cutting edges of their bits /augers & tubes only a few guys that worked for them did it for the Company flying all over the US as the bits /augers & tubes cost a mint to replace if they are damaged by heat . So some one that knows how to make it flow and stick to the base metal with out over heating and damaging the base metal yet add the Surface hardening material properly is well paid and will have a job for years to come . Sam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Turley Posted September 2, 2012 Share Posted September 2, 2012 For hand held tools, silver, copper, or bronze foil can be used to braze the carbide bit to a steel holder. When I was horseshoeing, we used to apply "Borium" to the ground surface of the shoes as an anti wear and traction providing method. The Borium came in about 1/4" mild steel tubes (the matrix) which encased small nuggets of tungsten carbide. This was simply oxy-torch welded to portions of the horseshoe ground surface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Yates Posted September 2, 2012 Share Posted September 2, 2012 You are correct Frank, same process just a very larger scale for Long Co. and much Harder materials for their equipment . Sam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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