Hey guys. As a way to thank you for being here during our website launch, we decided to start a series called “How To Heat Weld For Beginners.” We’re really excited about this and hope this ends up helping you somehow. This is going to end up being two posts and in the end; we’re going to combine them to make for one downloadable guide for your convenience! Our goal is to teach you the basics of heat welding, the steps you need to take to become a professional, and to answer any of your questions.
In today’s post, we’re going to focus on how to become a professional and the very beginnings of the welding process.
Heat welding, like most trades, is perfected over time with experience and practice. A great way to get into the trade is to go through an apprenticeship program in a union or flooring associating. Most of the programs take around 4 years and work by teaching you everything you need to know and setting you up as an apprentice for the last year.
Unions to check out:
International Union of Painters and Allied Trades United Brotherhood of Carpenters Armstrong Training Forbo Tri-West TarkettIf you’re interested in learning more about each program, feel free to check out the websites and read more information on their training programs.
As for the actual welding process, there are essentially three parts to floor heat welding after laying the sheet flooring down. Today, we’re going into detail on the first part only.
1. Cutting the groove into the seam you are going to weld.
2. Welding the groove, dependent on the material
3. Skiving the welding rod
1. Cutting the groove into the seam you are going to weld.
Keeping in mind the angle of the blade when you cut the groove
Your blade should be 45 degrees when cutting to make sure you are grooving uniformly and at the right depth. The depth of the groove that you are cutting
The groove should be two thirds the depth of the material. You should not be cutting all the way through to the ground because your weld will not hold very well and your blades will dull.
If you are grooving organic materials with a jute backing (linoleum, marmoleum) you should be grooving all the way to the jute backing to ensure that the weld has something to hold on to (pictured below.)
The straightness of the groove when you cut
You should groove as straight as possible. This ensures that when you groove you are grooving over the seam and you won't have to come back and do a repair job. To ensure an absolute straight groove use either the Master Turbo Groover or the Marmo Turbo Groover with groove guiding wheels.
That’s all for Part 1 of Turbo’s “How To Weld For Beginners” Guide. In the coming days, we’re going to post details about the rest of the heat welding process and conclude our series. If you have any questions or details you would like us to include, be sure to email us at info@turboheatweldingtools.com and we will do everything in our power to add it to the guide. Of course, you can just comment below as well, we'll be sure to respond as best as we can. Until next time guys!