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Tools that unite two pieces into one by heat, pressure or adhesive: welding machines, brazing and soldering equipment, press-fitting and crimp tools for pipe, and glue applicators.

5 tools written

• MIG welderA welding power source with a motor-driven feeder that pushes a continuous wire electrode through a hand-held gun while shielding gas flows around the arc. The wire carries the current, melts into the joint as filler and is replaced as fast as it is used.
• Oxy-acetylene welding rigA pair of gas cylinders with pressure regulators, two hoses and a hand-held torch that mixes oxygen and acetylene and burns them at a small tip to melt metal at the joint. A rod of filler metal is melted into the pool by hand.
• Soldering ironA hand tool with a heated metal tip that melts solder and warms the parts to be joined, so that the solder wets the surfaces and bonds them on cooling. Early irons were heated in a fire or by a lamp, and later ones electrically.
• Stick welderAn electric power source, cables and an insulated electrode holder that carry current to a short, flux-covered metal rod. The arc struck between the rod and the work melts both, and the rod’s covering shields the molten metal as the rod is consumed.
• TIG welderA welding power source and hand-held torch in which an arc runs from a non-consumable tungsten electrode to the work inside a stream of inert gas, usually argon. The welder adds filler metal by hand from a separate rod and modulates the current with a foot pedal or a control on the torch.