Design and manufacture of manual electrode coating machine for small-scale arc welding electrode manufacture

Abstract

Local production of electrodes in Nigeria has always been by major manufacturers. The technical partners have maintained that there are no suitable substitutes for the raw materials locally in an attempt to continue to import from their home countries. Our effort at local sourcing required experimentation, which could not be carried out without a means of applying the coating to the wire. This was effected through a direct extruder, which was fabricated to coat electrodes under manual pressure built up through a plunger in an extrusion chamber. Once a wire was coated, the plunger was withdrawn to remove the pressure. The electrode-coating machine is expected to find application in research laboratories of tertiary institutions and small scale manufacturing outfits.