Micro Welding In Mold Maintenance

Micro welding is one of the most important aspects of mold maintenance, and mold making in general. The number of jobs that have been "saved" by the skill of the micro welder cannot be counted.

If you have never seen the work of a highly skilled micro welder, you will be amazed when you see items such as a razor blade with a clean bead of weld across the cutting edge. Or a stick pin with a dot of weld on the tip.

A good micro welder can accurately place the minimum amount of weld in the exact location, while avoiding surrounding details and keeping sink as little as possible.

How can micro welding save money?

• Less downtime. If your mold is worn out, or damaged, you can build it up and machine it back to spec very quickly. This is usuallly much easier than inserting new steel and often can be finished by hand.
• Saves your new components from becoming scrap. What it the EDM forgets the overhang on an electrode and now you have a nicely finished burn right in the middle of a critical detail? You can usually get it micro welded, re-edm'd and almost like new very quickly. Instead of a srapped cavity block, you have one 99% as good as new.
• Some shops use micro welding to build up steel instead of machining around a protruding detail. Rather than constantly having to avoid a tiny standing detail above the main machined area, it sometimes makes sense to machine it and then add the protruding detail by welding.