Jerry Mathison is a senior sales application engineer with ESAB Cutting & Welding Products, 411 South Ebenezer Road, Florence, SC 29501, 843-664-4473, www.esabna.com, jmathison@esab.com. He is also a columnist for Melting Point, a welding e-newsletter published each quarter by Fabricating & Metalworking.
If only the cost of the wire and shielding gas are considered, metal cored electrodes are rarely selected, but if you consider the total cost per pound of deposited weld metal, cored wires may actually save you money. Jerry Mathison of ESAB explains why.