Cougartron's guide to choosing the right weld cleaner for your production.

Effective treatment and cleaning of metal surfaces after welding requires a great deal of effort.

Regardless of your skill level, using the right equipment plays a huge role in the entire process and can give you tremendous advantage over the competition.

In addition to increasing the overall quality of your work, the right equipment will minimize your downtime and increase your efficiency. Needless to say, all this greatly contributes to your profitability.

On the other hand, using the wrong equipment increases your risk of losing money, time, and other vital resources.

Designing the production process and finding the equipment for its optimization is a painstaking task.

Therefore, we decided to introduce some of Cougartron’s weld cleaning solutions suitable for various manufacturing situations. This will, hopefully, make your decision-making a bit easier.

So, let’s begin.

HOBBY WELDING AND DIY PROJECTS

Art and craft projects involving welding and other types of metal fabrication share a large number of challenges and similarities with industrial production.

If the metal surface is damaged through cutting and welding, it quickly becomes highly susceptible to atmospheric elements and degradation.

Therefore, it has to be restored and protected against rust and other abnormalities. When it comes to stainless steel, maintaining its attractive appearance is another important factor to consider.

Sculpting, knife making, furniture building, and similar garage projects all require a thorough post weld procedure as a measure of protection against corrosion and other impurities.

Until recently, professional weld cleaning solutions were quite expensive and inaccessible to a wider population. For this reason, many hobbyists resorted (and still do) to dangerous chemicals (commercial and DIY) and messy manual methods such as grinding. We also encountered dangerous experimentation with car batteries to further enhance the effect of these chemicals.

Although these methods can be somewhat effective in removing impurities, they do not guarantee (re)passivation of the surface which is a prerequisite for effective and long-term protection against corrosion.

Considering all the nuances between different types of garage metalworking projects, we can recommend several weld cleaner models to suit your production habits.

If your projects involve occasional treatment of simpler stainless steel TIG welds, Cougartron InoxPower will provide consistent results and successfully solve all your problems with discoloration and rusting.

If you add a couple of useful accessories, the machine can also be used for marking which is particularly useful if you want to brand your handcrafts as well. However, InoxPower cannot be used for polishing or working with aluminum.

If you need these two additional benefits, Cougartron ProPlus is one of the most advanced solutions you can get. You can also use it to treat MIG welds, which opens up a whole new range of crafting possibilities.

RECOMMENDED MACHINES:

COUGARTRON INOX POWER – Occasional TIG weld cleaning on thinner stainless steel plates

COUGARTRON PROPLUS – Frequent and more demanding tasks with stainless steel TIG & MIG welds

LOW-SCALE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION

Metal processing within smaller production environments requires a lot of flexibility. Non-serial production is always challenging due to non-standardized output and a limited number of available resources.

When it comes to post weld activities, we mostly consider simple and occasional weld cleaning tasks. In these cases, the benefits of InoxPower are particularly pronounced. The system is designed to provide fast and effective results on stainless steel TIG welds.

However, although incredibly useful, InoxPower is not equipped with a polishing module which makes it somewhat impractical if weld aesthetics is an important aspect of your work.

In this case, you may want to consider InoxMuscle which is actually an upgraded version of InoxPower. In addition to cleaning and passivation, this machine has the ability to effectively polish TIG welds.

RECOMMENDED MACHINES:

COUGARTRON INOX POWER – low-scale TIG weld cleaning without the polishing functionality

COUGARTRON INOX MUSCLE – almost identical to InoxPower but can be used for electropolishing

HIGH-VOLUME INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION

Frequent post weld treatment of larger metal surfaces and structures requires strong equipment that can withstand intense routine and workload. The speed of the process is also an important factor as it directly affects your productivity and the bottom line.

An example of this type of production is the assembly of storage tanks and the construction of steel pipework.

Our Cougartron ProPlus traditionally offers outstanding results in this area. It is lightweight but powerful enough to clean different grades of stainless steel. Additionally, it is equally effective on TIG and MIG welds. ProPlus also provides the necessary versatility as it can be used for various types of tasks including weld cleaning, polishing, and even marking.

In fact, until recently, it was the most powerful weld cleaning system in our range. However, we still had a long way to go before meeting all needs of high-volume industrial production. We needed a machine that would be able to clean all types of welds (TIG, TAG, MIG, MAG, Stick, and other) – with improved speed and efficiency.

The development of InoxFURY was the right answer. As the most powerful weld cleaner on the market, it is suitable for the most demanding weld cleaning tasks. InoxFURY can utilize up to three weld cleaning brushes at the same time making it extremely fast and effective when used on large and long welds and surfaces. Thanks to its strength, it achieves flawless results on all types of stainless steel and aluminum.

If you struggle to achieve fast and consistent results when working with thicker and larger metal surfaces, Cougartron InoxFURY will surely provide an extra boost of efficiency for your production.

RECOMMENDED MACHINES:

COUGARTRON PROPLUS – Powerful system built for demanding TIG and MIG weld cleaning projects

COUGARTRON INOX FURY (contact us for info) – The strongest electric weld cleaner on the market capable of cleaning all types of welds

Brief overview of the machines

Need more help?

If you still have doubts about which machine best suits your production model, feel free to contact us at any time. We have helped customers Australia wide to find the right weld cleaning equipment and eliminate common problems associated with inadequate metal finishing methods.