Advantages of AC Welding, presented by Westinghouse and produced by B.K. Blake Productions, is a short film from 1951 promoting the advantages of AC output welding. The film opens with a shot of welding equipment (00:22) and men welding (01:14) as the narrator reviews the ability to weld all kinds of steel with AC welding. AC welding allows for high quality work whether it is vertical welding (01:45), overhead welding, horizontal welding, or flat welding. AC welding accommodates light and heavy fabrication, interior and exterior construction, and many other welding operation needs. According to the film, there are six main advantages to AC welding. The first is the virtual elimination of arc blow (02:48). The film shows the absence of arc blow while welding heavy plates together (03:38), and what arc blow looks like (04:04). The second is faster welding. A man welds a massive piece of steel (05:22). Someone using DC welding (06:02) must do a number of things that take up time. With an AC welder (06:37), jobs go much faster, such as at Lukenweld Inc. in Coatesville, PA (06:57) and Penn Boiler and Burner in Lancaster, PA (07:23), where AC welding is much faster than DC welding. The third reason is AC welding provides high weld quality (07:48). Smooth welds both internally and externally are achieved. Arc blow impairs welding, such as arc draft (08:33), leading to “plastered” weld metal. Poor quality DC weld is eliminated with the switch to AC welding. Slow motion arc pictures taken with a special camera at the Reed-Avery Company at Dundalk, MA (09:21) show arc with AC welding. The fourth is ease of operation—a modern AC welder simply needs to connect to the welder (10:20), set the ampage, strike the arc and begin welding. The AC unit has a hand crank (10:55) for setting the welding current. An illustration of the AC welding machine (12:04) reveals how the design makes for a consistently stable arc. The film then shows footage of the AC welding machine with its protective cover removed. The fifth reason is the economy of operation. A transformer-type AC welder and a similar DC unit sit side by side (13:13). AC uses 1/3 less power because of greater electrical efficiency. A chart (13:55) shows the economy of operation comparison between AC and DC welding. The AC unit has built-in power factor correction to further the economy of operation. The sixth and final advantage of AC welding is its minimum maintenance. The film shows an AC rotating design with the unit’s protective cover removed (15:03). The film then provides several case histories that show that AC welding has less maintenance than other welding units: a shop at the Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Co, Des Moines, IA (15:36) where AC welding units are used to weld steel drums; at the Treadwell Construction Co. of Beaver, PA (16:05), weekly DC maintenance is being done whereas the AC units are virtually maintenance-free; Baldwin Locomotive Works (16:32) uses 50% AC-welding and plans to replace its remaining DC units with AC ones because of high costs of maintaining DC units. The film concludes with scenes of men welding, welded metal, AC units, and AC electrodes (17:54).

We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com