If you read part one of our underwater power tools series, you may have noticed one important tool set missing from the list: Underwater Welding Equipment. These are one of the most utilized sets of equipment in commercial diving and deserve an introduction all their own. Commercial Diver’s use underwater welding equipment to repair pipelines, offshore oil drilling rigs, ships, dams, locks, sub-sea habitats, and nuclear power facilities. Wondering what kind of equipment commercial divers need to do something as counter-intuitive as welding in an underwater environment? Keep reading to find out more.

Essentially a welding machine is the power supply for a commercial divers welding equipment. The welding power supply is the most expensive part of underwater welding equipment. The good news is whether working as a standard employee or a private contractor, a majority of the time, commercial divers work for companies with at least one ship dedicated to housing the appropriate equipment, including the power supply.

While there are many different power types for welding machines, each suited to their own purpose, none are specific to underwater welding. In many cases, commercial divers must make minor modifications to topside welding machines to make them safe and suitable to aquatic environments.

All that power from the machine needs to be made useable. The machine’s current is transferred through the leads and into an electrode to accomplish this. Stingers are the compact, handheld pieces of welding equipment that firmly grip the electrodes giving commercial divers control over the welding arc. Stingers get manufactured in many different grips for individual comfort and varied amperage ratings suitable to various projects. Underwater welding stingers are less commonly manufactured than topside stingers because they require significant testing and research before being considered safe for aquatic environments. While topside welders have many more stinger types to choose from, most commercial divers use “twist-style” stingers with thick insulation.

Commercial Divers should pay close attention to how strong and easily removable the parts for their stingers are since they receive the most wear and sometimes need quick service in low visibility environments.

An electrode, sometimes referred to as a rod due to its shape, is the part of the welding equipment that conducts electric current and binds two pieces of material together. Electrodes can be consumable, meaning they melt and become part of the weld binding itself, as in the case of gas or shielded metal arc welding. Electrodes can also be non-consumable, meaning they do not melt, such as in gas tungsten arc welding. Electrodes that work underwater need to be refined differently from topside welding electrodes. For safety and efficiency purposes, it’s essential to only use these specifically manufactured electrodes when wet welding.

Underwater welding electrodes get marked with ratings in tensile strength, yield strength, elongation, and amperage.

• • Tensile Strength- this rating tells the user how well the electrodes hold up during the welding process. It’s expressed in PSI or KSI on electrode boxes with their first two numbers. For instance, a rating of 30 means that its tensile strength is rated 30,000 psi. The higher the tensile strength, the more robust and reliable the electrode

• • Yield Strength- Yield strength measures how much material the electrode will produce per millimeter, also expressed in PSI or KSI. The higher the number, the more efficient the electrode burns.

• • Elongation- This rating measures how far the length of the electrode extends under high-stress conditions, measured in percentages.

• • Amperage Rating – This rating is essential for safety reasons. This rating must match the power of the welding machine you’re using. Explosive reactions will occur if this does not match your machine’s rating.

Underwater welding equipment is one of the most frequently utilized toolsets in a commercial diver’s arsenal. At Professional Diver Training Center, we train commercial divers for the real world, with real underwater welding equipment and real-life scenarios prepared by veterans of the military and commercial diving industries. Dive in, and start your journey into commercial diving today.

Want to see more tools of the trade? Part 3 of the Commercial Diving Tools Series is coming soon!