Profession spot welder

Spot welders set up and tend spot welding machines designed to press and join metal workpieces together. The metal resistance to the passage of electrical current and the subsequent heat created in the process allows for the local melting and joining of the parts.  

Personality Type

• Realistic / Conventional

Knowledge

• Types of metal

  Qualities, specifications, applications and reactions to different fabricating processes of various types of metal, such as steel, aluminium, brass, copper and others.

• Electric current

  Flow of electric charge, carried by electrons or ions in a medium such as an electrolyte or a plasma.

• Quality standards

  The national and international requirements, specifications and guidelines to ensure that products, services and processes are of good quality and fit for purpose.

• Spot welding machine parts

  Parts of a machine designed to perform spot welding practices on metal workpieces, such as the air or hydraulic cylinder, welding head, spot welding electrodes, upper platen, lower platen, flexible bands, knee, and others.

Skills

• Remove processed workpiece

  Remove individual workpieces after processing, from the manufacturing machine or the machine tool. In case of a conveyor belt this involves quick, continuous movement.

• Wear appropriate protective gear

  Wear relevant and necessary protective gear, such as protective goggles or other eye protection, hard hats, safety gloves.

• Ensure correct metal temperature

  Ensure the necessary, usually constant, temperature of processed metal workpieces during metal fabrication processes.

• Prepare pieces for joining

  Prepare metal or other material workpieces for joining processes by cleaning the workpieces, checking their measurements with the technical plan and marking on the pieces where they'll be joined.

• Apply spot welding techniques

  Apply and work with a variety of techniques in the process of welding metal workpieces under pressure exercised by electrodes, such as projection welding, radius style electrodes spot welding and eccentric electrodes spot welding.

• Ensure equipment availability

  Ensure that the necessary equipment is provided, ready and available for use before start of procedures.

• Apply precision metalworking techniques

  Comply with precision standards specific to an organisation or product in metalworking, involved in processes such as engraving, precise cutting, welding.

• Troubleshoot

  Identify operating problems, decide what to do about it and report accordingly.

• Monitor gauge

  Oversee the data presented by a gauge concerning the measurement of pressure, temperature, thickness of a material, and others.

• Spot metal imperfections

  Observe and identify various kinds of imperfections in metal workpieces or finished products. Recognise the best fitted manner of fixing the problem, which could be caused by corrosion, rust, fractures, leaks, and other signs of wear.

• Supply machine

  Ensure the machine is fed the necessary and adequate materials and control the placement or automatic feed and retrieval of work pieces in the machines or machine tools on the production line.

• Remove inadequate workpieces

  Evaluate which deficient processed workpieces do not meet the set-up standard and should be removed and sort the waste according to regulations.

• Perform test run

  Perform tests putting a system, machine, tool or other equipment through a series of actions under actual operating conditions in order to assess its reliability and suitability to realise its tasks, and adjust settings accordingly.

• Set up the controller of a machine

  Set up and give commands to a machine by dispatching the appropriate data and input into the (computer) controller corresponding with the desired processed product.

Optional knowledge and skills

Source: Sisyphus ODB