Benefits of Investing in a Longitudinal Seam Welder Today.

Why Upgrade to a Longitudinal Seam Welder?

In Short:
In seam welding, a continuous weld is created along the weld joint.

If you manually carry out linear welding, this will give you a few benefits to consider upgrading to a longitudinal seam welder.

This video shows a bespoke system we supplied to a customer after carrying out some sample welds before they invested in the equipment.
Our Engineers fitted a new ProArc seam welder with a Lincoln Electric submerged arc set up to to meet both spec and budget.

Longitudinal seam welding is a process used to produce welds along the length of your workpiece on a wide variety of parts.  For many industrial applications it is necessary to form the material into a desired shape, e.g. a cylinder or rectangular tube, and then weld the edges to form a rigid structure.

This procedure can be performed for both flat and corner welds. Seam welding is almost always performed whenever pipes and tubes must be joined. Seam welds are more durable and stronger than stitch welds since they cover the entire length of the weld joint.

The tradition method of doing this is to manually hold the edges in alignment, tack weld them and them complete the linear weld.  This is done manually or by use of a simple carriage carrying the welding torch.  This type of procedure is costly and time-consuming for the following reasons:

• Holding the edges accurately in alignment is difficult for the full length of the part.
• Tack welding takes time and leads to defects in the are of the tack weld
• There is little effective chilling of the weld joint area leading to distortion and oxidation of the weld and surround area
• Maintaining the dimensional accuracy of the part is difficult

Longitudinal seam welders provide a solution to these problems.

They optimise the welding process, reduce welding costs and improve the quality of the weld.  They are designed for the straight line welding of all weldable material in varying thicknesses. A mandrel can adjust to accommodate the thicker materials.

The longitudinal seam welder clamps the material to be welded firmly in alignment giving uniform chill to the weld.  It also provides the facility to move the welding equipment accurately along the weld seam.  This produces a butt weld free of melt-through, burn-back and extreme shrinkage or distortion.

So many options:
These can be external or internal welding applications.  Various welding process can be added; mig/mag, tig/gtaw or plasma welding.

Simplified controls reduce the operator’s fatigue.

External style seam welders are used in the making cryogenic tanks and exhausts.

Internal style seam welders are designed for the welding of tanks and vessels and an example of the industry would be the oil and gases by road transportation.

Stainless steel manufacturers who are involved in making vessels and tanks for the Food and Beverage industry would benefit from the semi automatic seam welding procedure.

Extras:
Riser Block allow the customer to increase the OD of the weld.

These semi automated seamers are produced by a number of leading manufacturers we highly recommend; Bode, the British leaders in positioning machinery, ProArc and Jetline and Weldlogic the US competition.

If you would like to know more about this welding process, the equipment or are looking for a welding and fabrication firm to our source your longitudinal welding requirements, please get in touch and mention this Blog. We are sure we can help you.

Not sure it is the application for you? Send your material to us and we can carry out some sample welds to ensure before you invest the equipment can do what it says.

Westermans are buyers and sellers of new, second-hand and refurbished Longitudinal seam welders.  View here the current list of seamers  available today.

All are bespoke and can have various welding processes added or use your existing equipment to save costs – plasma welding, sub-arc or GTAW welding applications.