GMAW-SC weld cost

by Kasi Lea Edwards
(Paulding Ohio)

My class is currently learning GMAW and we are to find out how much you would charge someone if you used .035 wire, 75-25 argon and CO2 mixture. it would be a 1/4" weld that is 3" long on a 1/4" plate and your IPM would be 225 i have to know how much it would cost for an inch of that weld. If i could get a quick answer that would be awesome or at least teach me how to get the answer so i can get these in the future would be even better. please hurry and thank you alot!


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I am probably late with this..

what I do is charge a buck per inch.

but that is probably what the instructor is looking for.

things you need to know to figure this out are..

your travel speed

cost per cubic feet of gas

cost per inch of filler wire.


it could be a very detailed and complicated formula .

example...

if the weld is 3 inches long and travel speed is 12 inches per minute, than welding time is only .25 of a minute.

if a flow rate of 25 cfh of gas is used for 15 seconds,.. that is a tiny cost because 15 seconds is 0.0041666666666667 of an hour.

in my area gas is roughly 40 cents per cubic foot.

so .0041666666666667 x 40 cents is not even a penny.

not worth figuring unless thousands of these 3 inch welds would be done...but your instructor might just want you to figure it anyway for the sake of understanding how to calculate costs.

Filler metal is another story, you would need to know how much an inch of wire costs.

then you could use travel speed to figure how long the wire fed at 225 imp

no easy answer....thats why I use a buck per inch plus a buck per tack weld. and adjust from there.