Wilton Engineering trusts innovative solutions from Böhler Welding

Wilton Engineering is a heavy engineering company based in Teesside in the North East of the UK. The company specialises in complicated structures for the offshore oil and gas, subsea, marine, decommissioning and offshore wind industries. Due to the size of the projects undertaken and its first-class reputation for quality and client base, the company is considered to be highly reputable globally. After being awarded a large defence contract, Wilton Engineering needed a way in which to increase weld output. The welds to be done were mainly butt welds on 15mm plates and fillet welds on 20mm plates.

The challenges for Wilton Engineering ranged from a lack of available manpower to rising operating costs. A closer look at reliability also reveals shortcomings: equipment no longer met current requirements and spare parts were not always available.

Another problem: the use of step-change machines with solid wire meant that spatter was a major problem. A lot of time had to be post weld cleaning. Wilton Engineering turned to voestalpine Böhler Welding UK for initial support with welding consumables. The excellent technical support with the welding consumables was so successful that the intention was expressed by the customer to start trials with the equipment.

The welders appreciated the easy-to-use process - single wire, comfortable to weld - and the efficiency showed for the management a high deposition rate, longer life of wear parts and less rework.

The demonstration machine had been configured according to the customer’s requirements (water cooled, L.10m joints) and came with a training day for the welders testing the machine.

The customer achieved an application rate of 10 kg/hour (WFS 19 mpm/ 408A), which far exceeded its original capabilities.

The ease of use, the on-demand retrieval of preset welding parameters and excellent welding results left nothing to be desired by the customer.