Word: welder
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Commonest form of welding used today is arc welding. An arc welder has for his tool a device that holds a pencil-sized metal rod carrying a heavy (around 200 amps) electric current of low voltage. When he brings the rod close to the metal to be welded, the current leaps across the near-contact, forming a blinding arc whose temperature-some 6,500° F.-melts both the rod and the metal being welded into tiny molten pools which quickly cool into solid metal. Since the welder's rod (called an electrode) melts down like a candle...
...welding arc that if it is held more than an instant on one spot, it will eat a hole through a thick steel plate. With his brilliant sputtering arc always in motion, a masked welder "knits" a seam by laying molten steel deposits endlessly atop each other...
...Ingalls will have to build many more ships to make good its boast that its new methods will revolutionize U. S. shipbuilding. In contrast with the machine-gun clamor of most shipyards, Pascagoula's noises are a sibilant hiss. Biggest plug for welding is the fact that one welder can do the job of a four-man riveting team-a big saving in labor (40% of shipyard cost). Ingalls welds complete stern assemblies, bow sections, etc. up to 75 tons on platforms in the yard, swings them into place with big gantry cranes. It reverses old-line shipbuilding techniques...