TIG-welding trailing shield

Huntingdon Fusion Techniques (HFT) supplies a range of weld purging equipment to enable high-quality TIG-welding of stainless steel and titanium. This includes trailing shields–these trail behind the TIG torch as it moves along the circumference of a pipe to keep the fresh weld zone under inert gas as it cools. They had always resold trailing shields from one of their suppliers but were looking to bring their manufacture in-house.

To effectively maintain the inert gas shield over the weld zone, trailing shields are specific to the diameter of the pipe to be welded. Though functionally simple products, key was the ability to supply a range of shields covering different diameters of pipes in-house, cost-effectively at low volumes.

We were asked to create updated  designs for a range of trailing shields suitable for in-house production to client order. So apart from designing the product range, we also needed to create HFT’s manufacturing infrastructure.