Before diving into a treatise of what it means to be welding cable, or what welding cable requires in order to be effective, it is necessary to understand what welding is and why it is useful. Only then can the requirements for welding cable be easily understood.

There are many different types of welding processes, and fundamentally they are all processes for joining materials together. While some of the processes by which some metals are joined, or welded, such as arc welding, are relatively well understood, it is less commonly known that materials like plastic and even wood can be joined through welding methods.

Basically, welding using heat generated by pressure or friction (sometimes both) to join parent materials together. Some forms of welding require an additional material known as a filler or consumable in order to complete the process. Sometimes a joint has all of the strength inherent to the parent materials.

Much of the time, a filler or consumable is used that is similar in composition to the parent material, although there are occasions wherein it becomes necessary to use a different consumable to add strength to the bond instead of weakening it. Some parent materials are not particularly strong, so welding them with a chemically or structurally similar consumable would be counterproductive. There are brittle metals, for example, that do better when a dissimilar consumable is advisable for use.

Joining Metals

Using different welding processes to join parent metals together is probably what most people think of when they hear the word “welding,” although as you will see shortly other materials can be joined using welding processes as well. For the most part, the processes that people think of as welding are restricted to joining metals, although as you will see shortly, there are other materials that can be welded too.

The original welding processes were developed in a forge by smiths, wherein the metals to be joined were both heated up to a suitable temperature and then forced together by pressure. This process is known as a forge weld, and when done properly by someone with the proper skills can be immensely strong - about to the point where a joint is indetectable.

Forge welding, effective though it is, takes a lot of time and even more skill to perfect and make practical. As years went by, however, newer technologies introduced other forms of welding. Arc welding uses a current to heat up the filler (and part of the parent material) past its melting point so that they can be resolidified and joined once cool.

Spot welding is another form of welding that uses a current to heat up metals to the point that they can be joined, except spot welding runs the current through the materials and heats them up using their resistance to electricity. For that reason, spot welding is classified as a type of welding known as resistance welding.

Other Materials

Lesser known than the processes by which metals can be joined by welding is the fact that other materials like plastic and wood can be welded together. It might seem obvious how heat can be used to make plastic more pliable and joinable, but it is not so obvious with a material like wood.

With plastic, as with metals, the parent materials are heated up until they reach or pass melting point, pressure is applied to force them together, and are then allowed to cool so that they are fused. The process is similar to joining some metals, although not exactly the same. It’s basically the same as a forge weld, except it is applied to plastics.

With wood, the process is a little less intuitive, although the principles are basically the same. In essence, two pieces of wood are pressed together with a great deal of force before having an additional amount of linear friction applied. This heats them up so rapidly that they are joined by the force of the friction and does not require adhesive or nails.

Welding Cables

Back to welding cables - since not every welding technique requires electricity, we’ll have to get back to those that do, namely those that apply to different forms of metal. 

In essence, a welding cable is a conductor that carries the current used in some different welding processes to make them possible. In order for a welding cable to be effective and practical for any given job, it has to possess a number of different characteristics. At a basic level, a welding cable should be properly sized for the job, as well as durable and as flexible as possible.

Size and Rating

One of the most important things to take into consideration before you even choose a welding cable for a job or a set of jobs is to ensure that you are looking for a cable that is rated to the correct voltage and to carry the current that you will be using in your welding processes.

This will vary by the task at hand and it will require you to develop a thorough understanding of the welding you will be performing, the power necessary and the rating associated with the welding cable. We can’t give any specifications on that because it will vary by the nature of the welding environment and the welding to be performed.

What we can say is that size and temperature rating can also affect the performance of a welding cable. They can both affect the degree to which any given cable can heat up during use, and it is important that cables do not overheat as it will affect both their performance and the safety of the setting.

All other things being equal, a shorter length of cable can carry more power than a longer one because it has to carry that current through a shorter length of copper. Copper is renowned for its low resistance, but it still offers some, so the more cable the electricity has to run through, the more the cable will heat it. Because of this you need to be mindful of the length of cable you use because as stated above, an overheated cable is at best inefficient and at worst a hazard.

Durability and Resistance

Since a large number of welding jobs need to be performed in situ, another big consideration that has to be taken when shopping for welding cables is their level of durability. Pause a second to reflect on some of the conditions that a welding cable might have to endure, especially if the welding is done in situ in inhospitable environments.

A welding cable doesn’t just have to be able to put up with the rigors of delivering the current to perform the weld. The cable can have to put up with such factors as extremes of workplace temperature that can vary by the day, along with wet conditions, muddy conditions and conditions exposing them to dirt, grime, oil and potentially even other dangerous chemicals.

For those reasons it is equally imperative that a welding cable is not only well insulated against physical stressors but against other contaminants like water, oil and potentially certain corrosives. Their presence in the workplace can not only make welding difficult or impossible, but they can also damage your equipment, including your welding cables. Therefore, it is best to find the most durable welding cable that you can, with some extra features tacked on if you can find them.

Flexibility

This is another thing that cannot be stated enough, but before we dive into detail on it, think about the wiring that you have seen in the past. It could be tray cabling carried over long distances or the internal wiring in a house or building or even on a ship. What do they all have in common?

They all will vary by material and insulation and they will probably all be rated to handle different voltages and currents. Truthfully, it might be fairly difficult to identify more than one thing that they all have in common, and we’re not looking for the answer that they ‘conduct electricity.’ They do, but so does welding cable, and welding cable is different from these.

The main thing that all of those other forms of wiring have in common is that for the most part, once they are installed they are static. They are not generally designed to move. Marine cable, for example, is intended to be flexible, but that is generally to enable it to navigate the tight recesses aboard boats and to handle a tumultuous sea, not because people on board the boat will be manipulating them with any frequency. By that token, most forms of wiring are not developed with flexibility in mind because it doesn’t add anything to their performance or function.

Welding cable, by virtue of the fact that it has to be moved around to perform welds in situ as we mentioned earlier, must be as flexible as possible. There’s really no way around it, and truthfully, most welding cables are generally fairly stiff - but they are still engineered to provide the highest level of flexibility possible. This enables them to continue to perform their core function and to be moved effectively about the workplace to reach the parent materials.

Manufacturers achieve the highest level of flexibility possible in their welding cable by cabling together as many strands of individual copper conductors as possible. They minimize the diameter of each strand and add more strands to the cable to make it as flexible as they can. This gives welders the flexibility (no pun intended) to reach the materials they need to weld more easily. It is also important to note that engineering effective welding cable is difficult because balancing durability and flexibility is no easy feat. In fact, they are two opposite qualities. On the one hand, a single copper conductor would be very durable, but at the same time it would be entirely inflexible - just a bar of copper, essentially. Therefore you should do your homework when shopping and find cable that is both flexible and still very tough.

Our Welding Cables

In accordance with the conditions we set down as prerequisite to the search for a welding cable, we manufacture ours to the strictest of standards to ensure their serviceability and performance.

Many of our welding cables are resistant to temperatures ranging from negative 50 celsius to 105 Celsius, so they are developed to be able to withstand the harshest of worksite conditions. The number of strands will vary by the gauge, but we use 100% pure copper in their construction and use as many strands as practical for the gauge to ensure the highest level of flexibility as well. Our premium extra flexible welding cables are also EDPM insulated and are resistant to oil and gasoline to give you longer performance and better resistance to adverse environmental conditions. You can find our welding cables in gauges ranging from 6 gauge to 4/0 American Wire Gauge (AWG) and rated to 600 volts here on our website at EWCS Wire. Additionally, all of our welding cables are proudly made here in America.

More Than Welding Cable

Although you’re in the right place if you are shopping for welding cable in different gauges for any of your given jobs, EWCS Wire is your premier outlet for electrical wire and cable. Whether you need aluminum cable, tray cable, marine cable, or some other specialty wire and cable, we can set you up with it. Just take a look through our pages here on our website if you know what you’re looking for. Or, you can contact us at 800-262-1598. We can help you navigate through our products and help you settle on what you need. Just be sure to know the specifics of what your work will require.

We pride ourselves not only on the quality of our products but on our customer service, so if you need any help locating some specialty products - including but not limited to welding cable - contact us today.