JTK Power has acquired a new submerged arc welding (SAW) tower. The investment is set to guarantee the even quality and delivery reliability of the company’s products for the upcoming years. The new machine is a replacement investment. At JTK, the new tower is accompanied by another SAW tower.

“The new SAW tower is absolutely crucial for our operations. The majority of the products we manufacture are submerged arc welded. At the moment, the machine is used in, for example, the welding of silencers and pipes”, says Mikko Hakoniemi, Supervisor and Welding Coordinator at JTK Power.

“Even though we are talking about quite a simple machine, wear parts need to be regularly replaced just like in all mechanical devices. The tower has been manufactured in Sweden and there is a strong supply of parts in Finland through distributors. Parts are therefore readily accessible”, Hakoniemi says.

With the SAW tower, manufacturing products becomes easier and more efficient, especially when welding thicker materials. The even quality and flawlessness of submerged arc welded welds is vital for JTK’s production, for example, with welds that require NDT inspection.

Welding parts of up to 4,5 m in length made possible

The new ESAB CaB 460 M 4,5 X 3 SAW tower enables the welding of parts of up to 4,5 meters in length. The minimum length for workpieces is 0,95 m. Horizontally, the machine enables the welding of 20-meter-long pieces. The tower itself is almost 7 meters tall. The system’s functions are remote controlled.

“The silencers we manufacture can be over 3 meters in diameter. With the new tower, we are able to weld pieces even larger than that. We acquired the SAW tower for the manufacturing of our current products, but now with the larger maximum diameter size, we are not overruling the possibility of manufacturing entirely new products”, says Production Manager Jussi Minni, who was in charge of the machine acquisition.