title: James Marsters

text: Marsters moved to Chicago, where his first professional acting role was Ferdinand in "The Tempest" at the Goodman Theatre in 1987. In this production, he was rolled onto the stage strapped naked to a wheel. He talks about this experience and his other theatrical roles at length in a 2020 interview with Michael Rosenbaum on the podcast 'Inside of You'. He also appeared with well-known Chicago companies such as the Northlight and the Bailiwick and with his own group, the Genesis Theatre Company. Marsters was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for his performance of the lead role of Robespierre in the six-hour drama "Incorruptible: The Life, Death and Dreams of Maximilian de Robespierre" in 1989.


title: James Marsters

text: In 1990, He moved to Seattle and, with Liane Davidson and Greg Musick, formed the New Mercury Theatre. In this and other companies, Marsters was involved in a wide range of plays, including "Teechers" (a British play by John Godber), Anouilh's "Antigone", an original work based on the Dr. Seuss books, and Shaw's "Misalliance".


title: James Marsters

text: In 1992, He got his first TV acting job on "Northern Exposure", in which he appeared for two episodes as a bellboy and a church minister. He has made guest appearances on television series including "Andromeda", as well as the independent films "Chance" (2002), "Winding Roads" (1999), and the USA Network movie "Cool Money" (2005). In 1999, he had a small role in the remake of "House on Haunted Hill" as a TV cameraman.


title: James Marsters

text: He attracted the attention of the general public for his appearance as villain (and later anti-hero) Spike on the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (first appearing in season 2). For the role, he put on a London accent and he received informal coaching from English co-star Anthony Head.


title: James Marsters

text: Spike had been intended as a short role by creator Joss Whedon, who originally resisted Spike's popularity. "He made it very clear he did not want the show to be taken over by another romantic vampire," Marsters told "411Mania", adding: "to Joss, vampires were supposed to be ugly, evil, and quick to be killed... when I was cast Joss did not imagine me to be popular; Spike was supposed to be dirty and evil, punk rock, and then dead." The massive fan response prevented his character from being killed off, allowing him a presence throughout the second season. There were no plans to bring him back as a regular until the character Cordelia Chase was moved to the spin-off show, "Angel", and, as Marsters told "411Mania", "they needed someone to tell Buffy she was stupid and about to die, and they decided to bring me back". He thought he would not last as, being a vampire, he was restricted to night-time scenes and could not feasibly interact with the characters as often as Cordelia. Instead, Spike would last until the very end of the show and become a romantic partner for Buffy.


title: James Marsters

text: After the conclusion of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Marsters carried Spike over to its spinoff, "Angel", as a series regular in the fifth and final season of the show. Marsters was asked to keep quiet about this, as his return was intended to be a surprise, but the network promoted Spike's return as soon as it could in order to attract advertising. In April 2004, following the end of "Angel", Marsters had Spike's trademark bleached hair shaved off for charity live on television during an episode of "On Air with Ryan Seacrest".


title: James Marsters

text: When the show was cancelled, there were plans for several TV movies. Talk of a Spike movie began in 2004 and Whedon still had plans into 2006, before it was formally abandoned. Marsters had said he would only return to play Spike if the project took place within five years, feeling he would become too old to play the character (an immortal) after that:


title: James Marsters

text: Aside from playing the character, Marsters co-wrote a comic book one-shot for Dark Horse Comics, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spike and Dru".


title: James Marsters

text: After both "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" ended, Marsters became active with the canonical comic book series of both shows on stories centering around his character. A canonical graphic novel set during the seventh season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Spike: Into the Light," written by Marsters himself, was released by Dark Horse Comics on July 16, 2014.


title: James Marsters

text: Marsters has narrated the audiobooks for "The Dresden Files", a series of detective novels with a supernatural bent and the side short story collection in the same universe, "Side Jobs", were also recorded by Marsters. He did not originally record the Dresden book "Ghost Story" due to a scheduling conflict, leaving fellow "Smallville" alumnus and actor John Glover to record it; this caused a fairly noteworthy public outcry by audiobook listeners. He returned for the following book "Cold Days". On March 24, 2015, Jim Butcher announced that a new version of the "Ghost Story" audiobook was to be released on April 21, 2015, with Marsters returning as the narrator in response to fan demands.


title: James Marsters

text: In 2005, Marsters filmed a thriller, "Shadow Puppets", with Jolene Blalock. Late that year, Marsters appeared on the television series "Smallville" playing Dr. Milton Fine—the popular "Superman" villain Brainiac—in eight episodes throughout the show's fifth season. He reprised his role as Brainiac in a four-episode arc in the seventh season, and did a cameo voice-over in season eight. He returned for one episode in the show's final season. On October 29, 2005, Marsters presented two performances of his own abridged adaptation of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" with American actress Cheryl Puente as Lady Macbeth, followed by question and answer sessions with the audience and acoustic concerts in London.


title: James Marsters

text: In September 2006, Marsters' interpretation of Godber's "Teechers" was performed on the Queen Mary with two other actors in Los Angeles. This is a play he had received critical acclaim for as a stage actor prior to his television work. Marsters co-starred in the 2007 cinematic release of "P.S. I Love You" alongside Kathy Bates, Hilary Swank, and Gerard Butler. Released in September 2007, Marsters starred in the direct-to-DVD animated movie, "", providing the voice of iconic villain Lex Luthor. The film received mostly positive reviews.


title: James Marsters

text: In 2008, he guest-starred in "Torchwood", a spin-off of the popular British science fiction television series "Doctor Who", first appearing in the episode "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang", as the nefarious omnisexual time traveller Captain John Hart. He reprised the role in the last two episodes of the second season.


title: James Marsters

text: He portrayed "Piccolo Daimao" in the live-action film adaptation of the popular "Dragon Ball" manga and anime, directed by James Wong and produced by Stephen Chow, which was released worldwide on April 10, 2009.


title: James Marsters

text: On July 20, 2009, the film "Moonshot" aired on the History Channel in celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the 1969 moon landing. In this film, Marsters portrays Buzz Aldrin. On August 19, 2009, it was announced that he signed on for a role in "Caprica" as the terrorist leader Barnabas Greeley.


title: James Marsters

text: Also in August 2009, Marsters' science fiction western, "High Plains Invaders" aired on the Syfy Channel. In this alien invasion flick, Marsters portrays Sam Danville. It was announced in August 2010 that Marsters would be joining the cast of Syfy Channel series "Three Inches" as a series regular portraying Troy Hamilton, a former government agent who now leads a team of superheroes.


title: James Marsters

text: On June 24, 2011, Marsters appeared in an L.A. Theatre Works radio production of "The Importance of Being Earnest", in the part of Sir John Worthing, which aired on June 25, 2011.


title: James Marsters

text: He has appeared on "Supernatural" in the episode "Shut Up, Dr. Phil", which aired October 21, 2011, alongside fellow Buffyverse co-star Charisma Carpenter. He also appeared in "Warehouse 13" as Bennett Sutton, which aired in 2013.


title: James Marsters

text: In 2018, some sources speculated that Marsters is the voice actor of "Dragon Ball Super" character Zamasu. In October 2021, at Fan Expo Canada, both Marsters and "Dragon Ball Super" voice director Christopher Sabat publicly confirmed that he voiced Zamasu under the pseudonym of David Gray. As a fan of the "Dragon Ball" franchise, Marsters agreed to play the role of Zamasu in "Dragon Ball Super" at the suggestion of Sabat himself and Sean Schemmel when they met during a convention. Marsters did so entirely for free in order to "redeem himself with the "Dragon Ball Z" community" after his appearance in the critically-panned film "Dragon Ball: Evolution".


title: James Marsters

text: Marsters had played in bands and solo in bars and clubs for many years and enjoyed several successful sell-out solo gigs at Los Angeles clubs before forming a band. For these solo gigs he mainly performed covers of classic folk and rock musicians such as Tom Waits, Neil Young, James Taylor, and Bruce Springsteen. He sang in "Once More, with Feeling", a musical episode of "Buffy": solo parts in "Walk Through the Fire" and "Something To Sing About", and "Rest in Peace" completely on his own.


title: James Marsters

text: In 2003–04, Marsters was the lead singer for the rock band Ghost of the Robot. Their debut album "Mad Brilliant" was released on February 2, 2003. The band played its first gigs in Los Angeles and Paris. They went on to play successful dates in and around Los Angeles and two sold-out tours of Europe in 2003 and 2004. In addition to "Mad Brilliant", they released three singles ("Valerie", "David Letterman" and "New Man") and one mid-length EP, "It's Nothing". All these releases carried tracks written and co-written by Marsters. Several of Ghost of the Robot's earlier songs were loosely based on the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" characters Buffy, Dawn, and Faith.


title: James Marsters

text: Marsters' solo musical career was launched in October 2004, in London. His solo acoustic tour of the United Kingdom in April 2005 sold out. A new solo album "Civilized Man" produced by Chris Rhyne and Andrew Rosenthal was released on April 15, 2005. It includes several new songs as well as the popular "Katie" and "Smile". He has played songs from the album live in Detroit, Houston, and Sacramento. Ten of the eleven songs are written by Marsters.


title: James Marsters

text: New solo songs not included on the album but sung at live solo concerts include "Birth of the Blues", "Finer than Gold", "Louise", and "London City". "Finer than Gold", "London City", and "Louise" were composed while on tour in the UK in April 2005. "Birth of the Blues" was composed by Marsters in Amsterdam in 2004 while touring with his now-defunct band. During his October 2005 mini-tour of the UK, Marsters introduced other new songs to his sets: "Button Down Vandals", "Up On Me", and "All That She Wanted". These songs were available only as part of his recently released "Words and Music" DVD, which has his abridged version of "Macbeth" as well as a full-length solo music performance.


title: James Marsters

text: During his September 2006 convention, James Marsters & Friends, he debuted several new songs including "The Truth Is Heavy", "Fall of Night", "Jealous Man", and "Not A Millionaire". All these songs reflect his new blues music and folk sound. He also performed a cover version of Keb Mo's classic "Baby Blue". In 2007, he performed live several times in the UK and debuted two new songs written in Cardiff. "Layabout" and "Looking at You" reflect a more upbeat light folk move in Marsters' music. These songs as well as some of his previously unrecorded work were released on Marsters' second solo album, formally launched in Los Angeles and Cardiff in October and November 2007 respectively. This album, "Like A Waterfall", includes twelve songs, all written by Marsters. Most had been performed and recorded live but not in the studio. An exception is "When I Was A Baby", a song never previously performed in public.


title: James Marsters

text: "Like A Waterfall" was produced by Ryan Shore and features several other musicians including Blair Sinta, who has drummed for Alanis Morissette, and Five for Fighting bass player Curt Schneider. In 2008, Marsters' Waterfall Tour came to the UK. He played the first three dates across London and performed for three consecutive days in Milton Keynes. The concert at the packed Union Chapel in Islington was an acoustic set featuring material from his album—"Like A Waterfall".


title: James Marsters

text: On May 1, 2009, he returned to the Union Chapel, followed by a "Marstersclass" event at The Drill Hall, in London on May 2. The sell-out event included a concert, Q&A session plus opportunities to get autographs and photos. On May 3, 2009, he performed at London's 100 Club.


title: James Marsters

text: In 2010 James' music career continued when the band Ghost of the Robot reformed: they have since released the album "B-Sider" which is available on iTunes. Afterwards, in 2011, the album "Murphy's Law" was released which is also available for download in iTunes. There are also multiple other EPs available on the iTunes Store.


title: James Marsters

text: Marsters is divorced from Liane Davidson, with whom he has one son, born May 1996. Since 2002, Marsters agreed to raise his niece and regards her as his daughter. In an interview in 2020, Marsters said that his daughter declines to be mentioned in his interviews, and that she has no interest in acting or show business. He stated that she is undertaking a PhD in Mathematics and that he is very proud of her.


title: James Marsters

text: It was announced on May 21, 2010, that Marsters had proposed to girlfriend Patricia Rahman in Trier, Germany. On January 14, 2011, they married in a private civil ceremony in Los Angeles. In February 2021, the couple filed for divorce after nearly 10 years of marriage.


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: Cartoon Network Studios is an American animation studio owned by the Warner Bros. Television Studios division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. The studio is the production arm of Cartoon Network, and started operating on October 21, 1994, as a division of Hanna-Barbera until the latter absorbed into Warner Bros. Animation in 2001. Turner Entertainment Co. did not include the current library from the studio's Hanna-Barbera era, including "What a Cartoon!" and the first season of "Dexter's Laboratory".


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: Located in Burbank, California, the studio primarily produces and develops animated programs and shorts for Cartoon Network and Cartoonito. Recently, the studio has also developed programs for Adult Swim, TBS, and HBO Max. The studio has also produced its sole theatrically released film, "The Powerpuff Girls Movie", distributed by its sister company, Warner Bros. Pictures.


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: Cartoon Network Studios originated as a division of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. that focused on producing original programming for Cartoon Network, including "What a Cartoon!", "Dexter's Laboratory", "Johnny Bravo", and "The Powerpuff Girls". Following the 1996 merger of Hanna-Barbera's parent, Turner Broadcasting System with Time Warner, and after being located on Cahuenga Boulevard in Los Angeles since 1963, the Hanna-Barbera studio, its archives, and its extensive animation art collection, were relocated in 1998 to Sherman Oaks Galleria in Sherman Oaks, California, where Warner Bros. Animation was located. This relocation was executed by its chief executive, Jean MacCurdy. On July 21, 1999, Cartoon Network officially started the studio to separate itself from the complete folding of Hanna-Barbera into Warner Bros. Animation that started after the Time Warner merger. Following the death of the studio's co-founder William Hanna in 2001, Cartoon Network Studios took over the animation function of Hanna-Barbera.


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: In 2000, Cartoon Network Studios transferred its production offices to a new facility located at 300 N 3rd St. in Burbank, California, which was the location of a former Pacific Bell telephone exchange. Former DiC and Nickelodeon employees Brian A. Miller and Jennifer Pelphrey have managed the company since it began production in the same year. The current headquarters of the animation studio was christened on May 22, 2000, by veteran animator and animation advisor Joseph Barbera with a bottle of champagne.


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: In 2002, the studio produced two television pilots for Cartoon Network's late night programming block Adult Swim: "Welcome to Eltingville" and "The Groovenians". Neither of them were picked as full series. Also, the studio released this year its only theatrical film to date: "The Powerpuff Girls Movie", based on "The Powerpuff Girls", which received positive reviews from critics but performed poorly at the box office. In 2006, Cartoon Network Studios collaborated with sister studio Williams Street for the first time for "Korgoth of Barbaria", a television pilot made for Adult Swim, which was also not green-lit as a series.


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: In 2007, Cartoon Network Studios began its first foray into live-action with the hybrid series "Out of Jimmy's Head", and then its first fully live-action project, "" and its sequel, "", along with the television pilots "Locker 514", "Siblings" and "Stan the Man". The studio's first live-action series "Tower Prep" would arrive in 2010. Former New Line Television producer Mark Costa was hired to oversee the projects and Cartoon Network Studios' live-action production company Alive and Kicking, Inc.. "Incredible Crew" was the last series in that genre the studio produced for Cartoon Network. Despite the failure of live-action on the channel, the studio's infrastructure was retained to produce live-action fare for sibling programming block Adult Swim, identifying on-air as Alive and Kicking, along with two other companies (Rent Now Productions and Factual Productions), instead of using the Cartoon Network Studios banner.


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: In 2010, "Adventure Time" premiered on Cartoon Network. It began life as a short featured on Nicktoons' "Random! Cartoons" that was ultimately not green-lit as a series by that channel. Cartoon Network picked it up later. The show ran until 2018 with 10 seasons and 283 episodes. A film was announced in 2015, but in 2018 Adam Muto said that the film was never officially announced. In 2019, a continuation, titled "", was announced for HBO Max with a release in 2020. Also this year, "The Cartoonstitute", an incubator series similar to "What a Cartoon!", debuted on Cartoon Network Video. The pilots of "Regular Show" and "Uncle Grandpa" were presented here among with other shorts, with the "Uncle Grandpa" pilot also serving as a basis for "Secret Mountain Fort Awesome", which preceded the actual series.


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: In 2014, Cartoon Network Studios produced its first miniseries, "Over the Garden Wall". The following year, "Long Live the Royals" was also premiered.


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: In 2016, the studio produced two reboots based on "The Powerpuff Girls" and "Ben 10" respectively. Also, the studio produced its first television series based on a series of online shorts, "Mighty Magiswords".


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: In 2017, after plans as old as 2002 for a film failed to work, "Samurai Jack" was revived for a fifth and final season, which the studio returned to produce for Adult Swim, to critical acclaim, concluding the series after its cancellation from Cartoon Network in 2004. Also this year, it was announced that Cartoon Network Studios, in collaboration with Studio T, would produce the adult animated series "Close Enough" for TBS, created by "Regular Show" creator J. G. Quintel.


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: In 2019, after handling a few episodes of "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law", the second season of "Black Dynamite", the above-mentioned fifth season of "Samurai Jack" and producing the above-mentioned television pilots "Welcome to Eltingville", "The Groovenians" and "Korgoth of Barbaria", Cartoon Network Studios produced its first full program for Adult Swim: "Primal", an adult animated series from Genndy Tartakovsky. The first five episodes were also packaged for a limited theatrical release as a feature film titled "Primal: Tales of Savagery".


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: Cartoon Network Studios also began to produce content for parent company WarnerMedia's upcoming streaming service HBO Max, including "." After the failure of its planned animation block, "Close Enough" was also shifted from TBS to HBO Max.


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: In August 2020, Warner Bros. Animation president Sam Register was appointed head of the studio. Amy Friedman was named head of programming for Cartoon Network after Rob Sorcher resigned his roles as head of the studio and chief content officer, and switching to Warner Bros. Television Group for an overall production deal.


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: In 2021, Jason DeMarco was named SVP for Anime & Action Series/Longform for Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios, and Cartoon Network Studios Europe was renamed Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe as a tribute to the original Hanna-Barbera studio.


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: On May 11, 2022, after Tom Ascheim exited his role as president and departed, the Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics division was dissolved as part of a restructuring by new owner Warner Bros. Discovery, with its studios—including Cartoon Network Studios—moved directly under Warner Bros. Television.


title: Cartoon Network Studios

text: On October 11, 2022, Cartoon Network Studios and Warner Bros. Animation consolidated their development and production teams as part of a restructuring by Warner Bros. Television, with Audrey Diehl overseeing kids and family, Peter Girardi overseeing adult animation, and Sammy Perlmutter overseeing animated longform productions. The merger will not impact their output as labels, with Cartoon Network Studios continuing to focus on original content, and Warner Bros. Animation used for classic franchises.


title: The Counselor

text: The Counselor (known as The Counsellor in countries that use British English) is a 2013 crime thriller film directed by Ridley Scott and written by Cormac McCarthy. It stars Michael Fassbender as the eponymous Counselor as well as Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem and Brad Pitt. The film deals with themes such as greed, mortality, love, and trust in the context of the Mexican drug trade. The extremely violent and bloodthirsty activities of drug cartels are depicted as the Counselor, a high-level lawyer, gets involved in a drug deal around the troubled Ciudad Juarez, Mexico/Texas border area.


title: The Counselor

text: "The Counselor" was chosen as the closing film at the 2013 Morelia Film Festival and also played the Cork Film Festival. The film was theatrically released on October 25, 2013 and is dedicated to Scott's brother, Tony Scott, who died in 2012. It received mixed reviews and grossed $71 million worldwide against a budget of $25 million.


title: The Counselor

text: In Mexico, cocaine is packaged in barrels and concealed in a sewage truck, and driven across the border to the United States where it's stored at a sewage treatment plant.


title: The Counselor

text: A lawyer from Texas who is known only as "The Counselor" goes to Amsterdam to meet with a diamond dealer to purchase an engagement ring for his girlfriend, Laura. Returning to the United States, The Counselor attends a party back in Texas thrown by drug dealer Reiner and his girlfriend Malkina. He discusses an upcoming drug deal he is going in on with Reiner, which would be The Counselor's first. Their discussion ends with Reiner describing a device called "the "bolito"" which after being pulled around one’s neck, self-constricts and decapitates the victim. Afterwards, at a dinner with Laura, The Counselor proposes marriage to her and she accepts.


title: The Counselor

text: The Counselor meets with Westray, a business associate of Reiner's, to deliver his investment for the upcoming drug deal. Westray informs the Counselor of the deal's 4000% return rate, but cautions the Counselor about becoming involved, saying that Mexican cartels are merciless. Despite this, the Counselor remains outwardly confident and unconcerned. Following the conversation with Westray, The Counselor visits a prison inmate named Ruth, a court-appointed client of his who is on trial for murder. Ruth explains that her son is a biker who was recently arrested for speeding and cannot post bail. She asks the Counselor for help and he agrees to bail Ruth's son out for her as a favor.


title: The Counselor

text: Malkina senses an opportunity to undermine the Counselor's upcoming deal and to profit for herself. To that end, she employs "the Wireman" to help her steal the drugs. After discovering that the biker is working for the cartels and has plans to pick up a truck with a drug shipment, the Wireman executes a plan to steal the component needed to start the truck by decapitating the biker with a wire stretched across an empty desert road. With the component in his possession, the Wireman steals the truck containing the cocaine.


title: The Counselor

text: Learning of the theft, Westray meets with the Counselor to notify him of the biker's true identity, a valued drug cartel member known as "the Green Hornet". He explains that the biker is now dead, with the cocaine also being stolen, bleakly intoning the Counselor's culpability in the eyes of the cartel. Westray says he is leaving town immediately and suggests the Counselor do the same. Westray explains that the cartel's ruthlessness extends to creating "snuff films" where kidnapping victims are filmed being decapitated. The Counselor makes an urgent call to Laura, arranging to meet her in another state, where he will explain the situation to her.


title: The Counselor

text: While transporting the drugs, the Wireman is pulled over by two cartel members pretending to be police officers. A gunfight ensues, resulting in the death of the Wireman, his accomplice, one of the cartel members, and an innocent bystander. The surviving cartel member repossesses the truck with the drugs and gets it delivered to its final destination. Reiner is accidentally killed by cartel members while they are attempting to capture him. The cartel then kidnaps Laura.


title: The Counselor

text: In a last-ditch effort, the Counselor contacts "Jefe", a high-ranking cartel member, for suggestions on what to do next and to plead to spare Laura's life. Jefe begins speaking philosophically, citing the life and poetry of Antonio Machado to underline his advice. Jefe darkly and mordantly advises the Counselor to resign himself to his fate that was created by the choices he made long beforehand. He explains that despite the Counselor's willingness to exchange his life for Laura's, it is too late.


title: The Counselor

text: The Counselor remains in Mexico, defeated and in mourning. A package is slipped under the door of his hotel room and in it he finds a DVD with ""Hola!"" written on it. Realizing that the disc likely contains a snuff film of Laura sent by the cartel, he breaks down. In an unnamed location, Laura's headless body is dumped into a landfill.


title: The Counselor

text: Malkina's failed effort to steal the drugs does not deter her. She tracks Westray to London, where she hires a woman to seduce him and steal his bank codes. She then has accomplices steal Westray's laptop, and he is killed with the ""bolito"" device that Reiner had previously described. Malkina then meets her banker at a restaurant, coolly explaining how she wants her profits and accounts to be handled and plans to move to Hong Kong.


title: The Counselor

text: In the second half of the film, "Jefe" recites directly from the poem "Campos de Castilla" by Spanish poet Antonio Machado. ""Caminante, no hay camino. Se hace camino al andar"," which translates in its original context as: "Wanderer, there is no road; the road is made as you go along". Jefe shares this line from the poem as well as details about Machado's reflections regarding the prospects of his own life after learning of his wife being diagnosed with terminal tuberculosis. Jefe concludes by telling the Counselor, "You are the world you have created. And when you cease to exist, that world you have created will also cease to exist."


title: The Counselor

text: On January 18, 2012, it was reported that novelist Cormac McCarthy had sold his first spec script, "The Counselor", to Nick Wechsler, Steve Schwartz and Paula Mae Schwartz, who had previously produced the film adaptation of McCarthy's novel "The Road". On January 31, it was reported that Ridley Scott was currently considering several directorial projects, but that there was a strong possibility that "The Counselor" would be his next film and his follow-up to "Prometheus". On February 9, it was confirmed that Scott would direct. Scott also became a producer. Cormac McCarthy, Mark Huffam, Michael Schaefer and Michael Costigan are executive producers.


title: The Counselor

text: Principal photography began on July 27, 2012 in London. The film was also shot in Spain and the United States. On August 20, 2012, Scott halted production of the film due to his brother Tony's death. He canceled that week's shoot in order to travel to Los Angeles to be with his brother's family. Scott returned to London to resume production on September 3.


title: The Counselor

text: The film was dedicated to the memory of Tony Scott, and Matt Baker, the second assistant director on the film who had since died.


title: The Counselor

text: Costume designer Janty Yates collaborated with Giorgio Armani on the film as a part of a new partnership between Armani and 20th Century Fox that also extends into retail and digital initiatives. Armani was enlisted to create the wardrobes for the characters portrayed by Michael Fassbender and Penélope Cruz. In addition to Armani, designer Paula Thomas also contributed to the film's wardrobe by dressing Cameron Diaz's character, Malkina, with roughly 15 different outfits. "[It wasn't until] I read the script that I realized why [Scott] called upon me," said Thomas. "[Cameron's] character has a lot of elements of a Thomas Wylde (her own design label) woman. [She's] bold, edgy, modern. She's about wanting to be seen, as opposed to blending into the background."


title: The Counselor

text: For Javier Bardem's character, Yates applied a widely colorful wardrobe that was mostly made up of pieces of Versace. As for Bardem's hair, the idea was the actor's own and inspired by film producer Brian Grazer's hairdo.


title: The Counselor

text: The film score to "The Counselor" was composed by Daniel Pemberton. Pemberton recorded the score with a full orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in addition to integrating home-recorded guitar noises and textures. "Ridley responds really well to interesting and unusual sounds," explained Pemberton on the composer-director relationship. "So as a composer who likes making unusual sounds, that's exciting. It was daunting but he was great to work with and up for experimenting. [...] He made the process a lot less scary than it should have been."


title: The Counselor

text: A soundtrack album was released digitally on October 22 and in physical forms on November 11, 2013 by Milan Records.


title: The Counselor

text: "The Counselor" grossed $17 million in the United States and Canada, and $54 million in other territories, for a total of $71 million, against a production budget of $25 million.


title: The Counselor

text: Preliminary reports had "The Counselor" tracking for an $8–13 million debut in North America. The film opened to $3.2 million in 3,336 locations on Friday and opened at #4 in the box office with just a $7.8 million over the weekend.


title: The Counselor

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 34% based on 221 reviews, with an average rating of 5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""The Counselor" raises expectations with its talented cast and creative crew—then subverts them with a wordy and clumsy suspense thriller that's mercilessly short on suspense or thrills." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". A 2017 data analysis of Metacritic reviews by Gizmodo UK found "The Counselor" to be the second most critically divisive film of recent years. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Counselor

text: Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" gave a negative review, calling it "not a very likable or gratifying film", adding that "one is left with a very bleak ending and an only slightly less depressing sense of the waste of a lot of fine talent both behind and in front of the camera." Mark Kermode listed it as number two on his "Ten Worst Films of 2013". "Los Angeles Times" critic Kenneth Turan stated, "As cold, precise and soulless as the diamonds that figure briefly in its plot, "The Counselor" is an extremely unpleasant piece of business." Peter Debruge of "Variety" criticized Cormac McCarthy's script, saying that his "first original script is nearly all dialogue, but it's a lousy story, ineptly constructed and rendered far too difficult to follow."


title: The Counselor

text: Conversely, Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film four stars out of four, saying,"Director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Cormac McCarthy have fashioned a sexy, sometimes shockingly violent, literate and richly textured tale of the Shakespearean consequences of one man's irrevocable act of avarice" and called it "a bloody great time". In addition, Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" gave it a rave review, stating that "Mr. McCarthy appears to have never read a screenwriting manual in his life [...] That's a compliment." Danny Leigh of the BBC programme "Film 2013" praised the film, saying that "the real star is the script. What this film really is is a Cormac McCarthy audiobook with visuals by Ridley Scott. It's black as night, engrossing and masterful." He also acclaimed the performances, particularly Diaz's, and said, with regard to the negative reviews, "Movie history is littered with films that we all sneered at and we all laughed at and we all thought were terrible and the critics hated them and no-one went to see them, and then 40 years later they fetch up on programmes like this with everyone saying 'what a masterpiece!'"


title: The Counselor

text: Scott Foundas, critic for "Variety", wrote a defense of the film titled "Why "The Counselor" Is One of Ridley Scott's Best Films" in which he compared it to John Boorman's "Point Blank" (1967) and the screenplay to the work of David Mamet, Harold Pinter, and Quentin Tarantino. Foundas writes, "[The film] is bold and thrilling in ways that mainstream American movies rarely are, and its rejection suggests what little appetite there is for real daring at the multiplex nowadays." Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro also praised the film, stating that the film is "a meditation of the illusory nature of normalcy and the devastation to come."


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: The Host (; lit. "Monster") is a 2006 South Korean-Japanese monster film directed by Bong Joon-ho and starring Song Kang-ho, Byun Hee-bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Doona and Go Ah-sung. The film concerns a monster kidnapping a man's daughter, and his attempts to rescue her. According to the director, his inspiration came from a local article about a deformed fish with an S-shaped spine caught in the Han River.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: Following the success of the director's work "Memories of Murder", "The Host" was highly anticipated. It was released on a record number of screens in its home country on July 27, 2006. By the end of its run on November 8, 13 million tickets had been sold, making it (at the time) the highest-grossing South Korean film of all time. The film was released on a limited basis in the United States on March 9, 2007, and on DVD, Blu-ray, and HD DVD formats on July 24, 2007. It won several awards including Best Film at the Asian Film Awards and at the Blue Dragon Film Awards.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: In 2000, an American military pathologist orders his Korean assistant to dump 200 bottles of formaldehyde down a drain leading into the Han River. Over the next several years, there are sightings of a strange amphibious creature in the waterway, and the fish in the river die off.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: In 2006, a slow-witted man named Park Gang-du runs a small snack bar in a park near the river with his father, Hee-bong. Other family members are Gang-du's daughter, Hyun-seo; his sister Nam-joo, a national medalist archer; and his brother, Nam-il, an alcoholic college graduate and former political activist.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: A huge creature emerges from the Han River and begins attacking people. Gang-du tries to grab his daughter from the crowd and run, but he realizes he has grabbed the wrong person's hand and sees the creature snatching away Hyun-seo and diving back into the river. After a mass funeral for the victims, government representatives and the American military arrive and quarantine people who had contact with the creature, including Gang-du and his family. It is announced that the creature is the host of a deadly, unknown virus.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: Gang-du receives a phone call from Hyun-seo. She explains that she is trapped in the sewers with the creature, but her phone stops working. Gang-du and his family escape the hospital and purchase supplies from gangsters in order to search for Hyun-seo. Two homeless boys, Se-jin and Se-joo, after raiding Hee-bong's snack bar for food, are attacked and swallowed by the creature. It returns to its sleeping area in the sewer and regurgitates them, but only Se-joo is alive. Hyun-seo helps Se-joo hide inside a drain pipe where the creature cannot reach them.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: The Parks encounter the creature and shoot at it until they run out of ammunition. The creature kills Hee-bong due to Gang-du miscalculating the remaining shells in his shotgun when he gives it to Hee-bong. Gang-du is captured by the Army and Nam-il and Nam-joo become separated from each other. Nam-il meets an old friend, Fat Guevara, at an office building to ask for help and learns the government has placed a bounty on his family. Unbeknownst to Nam-il, Fat Guevara has contacted the government so he can claim the bounty, but Nam-il is able to escape after obtaining Hyun-seo's location. Gang-du overhears an American scientist say that there is no virus; it was made up to distract people from the creature's origin. They decided to lobotomize Gang-du to silence him.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: When she thinks the creature is sleeping, Hyun-seo tries to escape from its lair using a rope she has made from old clothes. The creature awakes and swallows Hyun-seo and Se-joo. Gang-du succeeds in escaping from where he is being held by taking a nurse hostage. Nam-il meets a homeless man who helps him. The government announces a plan to release a toxic chemical called Agent Yellow into the river to attempt to kill the creature. Gang-du finds the creature and sees Hyun-seo's arm dangling out of its mouth. He chases it to the location where Agent Yellow is to be released, coming across Nam-joo along the way. The creature attacks the large crowd that has assembled to protest the chemical dump. Agent Yellow is released, which stuns the creature. Gang-du pulls Hyun-seo out of its mouth, but she is dead, though she is still clutching Se-joo, who is unconscious, but alive. Gang-du, enraged at his daughter's death, attacks the creature, aided by Nam-il, Nam-joo, and the homeless man. They set it on fire and Gang-du impales it with a pole, finally killing it. As they mourn for Hyun-seo, Gang-du revives Se-joo.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: Some time later, it is seen that Gang-du has inherited his father's snack bar and adopted Se-joo. While watching the river, he hears a noise and picks up a double-barrel shotgun to investigate, but finds nothing. He and Se-joo have a meal together, ignoring a news broadcast stating that the aftermath of the incident was due to misinformation.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: The film was the third feature-length film directed by Bong Joon-ho. Following the positive reaction to the director's debut, "Barking Dogs Never Bite", coupled with the critical acclaim and box-office success of his previous work, "Memories of Murder", the film was given a generous production budget of around (just over ), huge by local industry standards.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: Some of the filming took place in the real sewers near the Han River, rather than on a set. The stars and crew were inoculated against tetanus by the medical officer. During filming, the crew had to deal with the effects of changes in weather and ambient temperature. This including the sewage water freezing in cold temperatures, so that it had to be broken up and melted; and during hot and windy periods, the water evaporated and the silt turned to dust, which blew around in the breeze and into the faces of the crew.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: The director had to work around the budget-imposed restrictions, especially when it came to special effects. The creature was designed by Chin Wei-chen, the modeling was done by New Zealand-based Weta Workshop and the animatronics were by John Cox's creature Workshop.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: The CGI for the film was done by The Orphanage, which also did some of the visual effects in "The Day After Tomorrow".


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: The monster was designed with some specific parameters in mind. According to the director himself the inspiration came from a local article about a deformed fish with an S-shaped spine caught in the Han River.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: Therefore, the director's wishes were for it to look like an actual mutated fish-like creature, rather than have a more fantastical design. In the opening scenes of the film, two fishermen presumably encounter the creature whilst it is still small enough to fit in one of their cups; suggestive of its humble, more realistic origins. The monster also exhibits frontal limbs similar to amphibians' legs. This element of its design seems to have been more a choice of functionality on the designers' part as the monster needed to be able to run and perform certain acrobatic movements during the film. For a genre film monster, the creature's size is rather small, only about the size of a truck. Also unlike in many other monster-themed films, the creature is fully visible from early on in the film, sometimes for large stretches of time and even in broad daylight, which earned the film some critical praise.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: The film was in part inspired by an incident in 2000, in which a Korean mortician working for the U.S. military in Seoul reported that he was ordered to dump a large amount of formaldehyde down the drain. In addition to its environmental concerns, this caused some antagonism toward the United States. The American military stationed in South Korea is portrayed as uncaring about the effects their activities have on the locals. The chemical agent used by the American military to combat the monster in the end, named "Agent Yellow" in a thinly-veiled reference to Agent Orange, was also used to satirical effect. The director, Bong Joon-ho, commented on the issue: "It's a stretch to simplify "The Host" as an anti-American film, but there is certainly a metaphor and political commentary about the U.S."


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: Because of its themes, which can be seen as critical of the United States, the film was lauded by North Korean authorities, a rarity for a South Korean blockbuster film.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: The film features a satirical portrayal of the South Korean government as bureaucratic, inept, and essentially uncaring. Korean youth protesters are featured satirically in the film, in a mixed way, partially heroic and partially self-righteous and oblivious. According to Bong Joon-ho, the Park Nam-il character is a deliberate anachronism, a reference to South Korea's troubled political history, which involved violent protest. "When you look in terms of this character, it's sort of like the feeling of time going backwards. [...] You could say that he is the image of the college protester back ten years ago; it doesn't exist in the present day."


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: The film was released theatrically in Australia on August 17, 2006. During the first half of September 2006, it premiered in Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Hong Kong. It received a theatrical release in the United Kingdom on November 10, 2006. This was its first official release outside of film festivals, and outside Asia and Australia. Its American release was March 9, 2007. It was also released in France, Ireland, Sweden, Germany, and Spain, amongst other countries.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: "The Host" received screenings on several film festivals. In addition to its opening in Cannes, among the most prominent were the Toronto, Tokyo and New York film festivals. The film swept Korea's Blue Dragon Awards : "The Host" received five awards, Go Ah-sung took Best New Actress and Byun Hee-bong was awarded as Best Supporting Actor.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: "The Host" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2006 and was released nationally in South Korea on July 27, 2006. Having been heavily hyped and featuring one of the most popular leading actors in the country, Song Kang-ho, the film was released on a record number of screens and made the South Korean record books with its box office performance during its opening weekend. The 2.63 million admissions and box office revenue easily beat the previous records set by "Typhoon". The film reached six million viewers on August 6, 2006. In early September the film became South Korea's all time box office leader, selling more than 12.3 million tickets in just over a month in a country of 48.5 million. By the end of its run on November 8, the viewing figures came in at 13,019,740.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: The French film magazine "Cahiers du cinéma" ranked the film as 3rd place in its list of best films of the year 2006 and 4th for the 2000–2009 decade. The Japanese film magazine "Kinema Junpo" selected it as one of the top 10 best foreign films of the year 2006. ("Flags of Our Fathers" won the best foreign film of the year 2006.)


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: With a limited American release starting March 11, 2007, "The Host" received critical acclaim. It holds a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 151 reviews with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's critical consensus states, "As populace pleasing as it is intellectually satisfying, "The Host" combines scares, laughs, and satire into a riveting, monster movie." In addition, it was ranked one of the top films of 2007 on Metacritic with a score of 85 out of 100 based on 35 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" wrote "The Host is a loopy, feverishly imaginative genre hybrid about the demons that haunt us from without and within." In 2009, the filmmaker Quentin Tarantino included it in his list of top 20 films released since 1992 (the year he became a director). The film was also listed at #81 on "Empire"'s list of "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema".


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: The region-2 UK release of the film was released on March 5, 2007, while the region-1 US DVD was released on July 24, 2007, in both single-disc and a two-disc collector's edition in DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: Twitch Film announced on November 3, 2009 that a video game was planned, to be released as a multi-platform first-person shooter. As of April 2021, no game had been released and is assumed to be vaporware.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: In June 2007, it was announced that a 3D film—alternately referred to as a sequel or prequel in news reports—was in progress, with a different director. The budget for "The Host 2" was announced at close to , and would be based on a script by webcomic artist Kang Full. An FX demo reel debuted at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 2010 and the projected release date of summer 2012 was announced. However, as of 2022, there have been no further updates on the project, and its current status is unknown.


title: The Host (2006 film)

text: In November 2008, it was announced that Universal Studios would be remaking "The Host" with Gore Verbinski producing, Mark Poirier writing the script, and first-time director Fredrik Bond directing the film. The film was set for a 2011 release. However, the production has remained in so-called "development hell".


title: Welding

text: Welding is a fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by using high heat to melt the parts together and allowing them to cool, causing fusion. Welding is distinct from lower temperature techniques such as brazing and soldering, which do not melt the base metal (parent metal).


title: Welding

text: In addition to melting the base metal, a filler material is typically added to the joint to form a pool of molten material (the weld pool) that cools to form a joint that, based on weld configuration (butt, full penetration, fillet, etc.), can be stronger than the base material. Pressure may also be used in conjunction with heat or by itself to produce a weld. Welding also requires a form of shield to protect the filler metals or melted metals from being contaminated or oxidized.


title: Welding

text: Many different energy sources can be used for welding, including a gas flame (chemical), an electric arc (electrical), a laser, an electron beam, friction, and ultrasound. While often an industrial process, welding may be performed in many different environments, including in open air, under water, and in outer space. Welding is a hazardous undertaking and precautions are required to avoid burns, electric shock, vision damage, inhalation of poisonous gases and fumes, and exposure to intense ultraviolet radiation.


title: Welding

text: Until the end of the 19th century, the only welding process was forge welding, which blacksmiths had used for millennia to join iron and steel by heating and hammering. Arc welding and oxy-fuel welding were among the first processes to develop late in the century, and electric resistance welding followed soon after. Welding technology advanced quickly during the early 20th century as world wars drove the demand for reliable and inexpensive joining methods. Following the wars, several modern welding techniques were developed, including manual methods like shielded metal arc welding, now one of the most popular welding methods, as well as semi-automatic and automatic processes such as gas metal arc welding, submerged arc welding, flux-cored arc welding and electroslag welding. Developments continued with the invention of laser beam welding, electron beam welding, magnetic pulse welding, and friction stir welding in the latter half of the century. Today, as the science continues to advance, robot welding is commonplace in industrial settings, and researchers continue to develop new welding methods and gain greater understanding of weld quality.


title: Welding

text: The term "weld" is of English origin, with roots from Scandinavia. It is often confused with the Old English word , meaning 'a forested area', but this word eventually morphed into the modern version, "wild". The Old English word for welding iron was ('to bring together') or ('to bring together hot', with "hot" more relating to red-hot or a swelling rage; in contrast to , 'to bind together with rope or fasteners'). The term "weld" is derived from the Middle English verb "well" (; plural/present tense: ) or "welling" (), meaning 'to heat' (to the maximum temperature possible); 'to bring to a boil'. The modern word was probably derived from the past-tense participle "welled" (), with the addition of "d" for this purpose being common in the Germanic languages of the Angles and Saxons. It was first recorded in English in 1590, from a version of the Christian Bible that was originally translated into English by John Wycliffe in the fourteenth century. The original version, from Isaiah 2:4, reads, "" (they shall beat together their swords into plowshares), while the 1590 version was changed to, """" (they shall weld together their swords into plowshares), suggesting this particular use of the word probably became popular in English sometime between these periods.


title: Welding

text: The word is derived from the Old Swedish word , meaning 'to boil'. Sweden was a large exporter of iron during the Middle Ages, and many other European languages used different words but with the same meaning to refer to welding iron, such as the Illyrian (Greek) ('to boil'), Turkish ('to boil'), Grison (Swiss) ('to boil'), or the Lettish (Latvian) ('to weld or solder', derived from , 'to boil'). In Swedish, however, the word only referred to joining metals when combined with the word for iron (), as in (literally: 'to boil iron'). The word possibly entered English from the Swedish iron trade, or possibly was imported with the thousands of Viking settlements that arrived in England before and during the Viking Age, as more than half of the most common English words in everyday use are Scandinavian in origin.


title: Welding

text: The history of joining metals goes back several millennia. The earliest examples of this come from the Bronze and Iron Ages in Europe and the Middle East. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus states in "The Histories" of the 5th century BC that Glaucus of Chios "was the man who single-handedly invented iron welding". Welding was used in the construction of the Iron pillar of Delhi, erected in Delhi, India about 310 AD and weighing 5.4 metric tons.


title: Welding

text: The Middle Ages brought advances in forge welding, in which blacksmiths pounded heated metal repeatedly until bonding occurred. In 1540, Vannoccio Biringuccio published "De la pirotechnia", which includes descriptions of the forging operation. Renaissance craftsmen were skilled in the process, and the industry continued to grow during the following centuries.


title: Welding

text: In 1800, Sir Humphry Davy discovered the short-pulse electrical arc and presented his results in 1801. In 1802, Russian scientist Vasily Petrov created the continuous electric arc, and subsequently published "News of Galvanic-Voltaic Experiments" in 1803, in which he described experiments carried out in 1802. Of great importance in this work was the description of a stable arc discharge and the indication of its possible use for many applications, one being melting metals. In 1808, Davy, who was unaware of Petrov's work, rediscovered the continuous electric arc. In 1881–82 inventors Nikolai Benardos (Russian) and Stanisław Olszewski (Polish) created the first electric arc welding method known as carbon arc welding using carbon electrodes. The advances in arc welding continued with the invention of metal electrodes in the late 1800s by a Russian, Nikolai Slavyanov (1888), and an American, C. L. Coffin (1890). Around 1900, A. P. Strohmenger released a coated metal electrode in Britain, which gave a more stable arc. In 1905, Russian scientist Vladimir Mitkevich proposed using a three-phase electric arc for welding. Alternating current welding was invented by C. J. Holslag in 1919, but did not become popular for another decade.


title: Welding

text: Resistance welding was also developed during the final decades of the 19th century, with the first patents going to Elihu Thomson in 1885, who produced further advances over the next 15 years. Thermite welding was invented in 1893, and around that time another process, oxyfuel welding, became well established. Acetylene was discovered in 1836 by Edmund Davy, but its use was not practical in welding until about 1900, when a suitable torch was developed. At first, oxyfuel welding was one of the more popular welding methods due to its portability and relatively low cost. As the 20th century progressed, however, it fell out of favor for industrial applications. It was largely replaced with arc welding, as advances in metal coverings (known as flux) were made. Flux covering the electrode primarily shields the base material from impurities, but also stabilizes the arc and can add alloying components to the weld metal.


title: Welding

text: World War I caused a major surge in the use of welding, with the various military powers attempting to determine which of the several new welding processes would be best. The British primarily used arc welding, even constructing a ship, the "Fullagar" with an entirely welded hull. Arc welding was first applied to aircraft during the war as well, as some German airplane fuselages were constructed using the process. Also noteworthy is the first welded road bridge in the world, the Maurzyce Bridge in Poland (1928).


title: Welding

text: During the 1920s, significant advances were made in welding technology, including the introduction of automatic welding in 1920, in which electrode wire was fed continuously. Shielding gas became a subject receiving much attention, as scientists attempted to protect welds from the effects of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere. Porosity and brittleness were the primary problems, and the solutions that developed included the use of hydrogen, argon, and helium as welding atmospheres. During the following decade, further advances allowed for the welding of reactive metals like aluminum and magnesium. This in conjunction with developments in automatic welding, alternating current, and fluxes fed a major expansion of arc welding during the 1930s and then during World War II. In 1930, the first all-welded merchant vessel, M/S "Carolinian", was launched.


title: Welding

text: During the middle of the century, many new welding methods were invented. In 1930, Kyle Taylor was responsible for the release of stud welding, which soon became popular in shipbuilding and construction. Submerged arc welding was invented the same year and continues to be popular today. In 1932 a Russian, Konstantin Khrenov eventually implemented the first underwater electric arc welding. Gas tungsten arc welding, after decades of development, was finally perfected in 1941, and gas metal arc welding followed in 1948, allowing for fast welding of non-ferrous materials but requiring expensive shielding gases. Shielded metal arc welding was developed during the 1950s, using a flux-coated consumable electrode, and it quickly became the most popular metal arc welding process. In 1957, the flux-cored arc welding process debuted, in which the self-shielded wire electrode could be used with automatic equipment, resulting in greatly increased welding speeds, and that same year, plasma arc welding was invented by Robert Gage. Electroslag welding was introduced in 1958, and it was followed by its cousin, electrogas welding, in 1961. In 1953, the Soviet scientist N. F. Kazakov proposed the diffusion bonding method.


title: Welding

text: Other recent developments in welding include the 1958 breakthrough of electron beam welding, making deep and narrow welding possible through the concentrated heat source. Following the invention of the laser in 1960, laser beam welding debuted several decades later, and has proved to be especially useful in high-speed, automated welding. Magnetic pulse welding (MPW) has been industrially used since 1967. Friction stir welding was invented in 1991 by Wayne Thomas at The Welding Institute (TWI, UK) and found high-quality applications all over the world. All of these four new processes continue to be quite expensive due to the high cost of the necessary equipment, and this has limited their applications.


title: Welding

text: The most common gas welding process is oxyfuel welding, also known as oxyacetylene welding. It is one of the oldest and most versatile welding processes, but in recent years it has become less popular in industrial applications. It is still widely used for welding pipes and tubes, as well as repair work.


title: Welding

text: The equipment is relatively inexpensive and simple, generally employing the combustion of acetylene in oxygen to produce a welding flame temperature of about 3100 °C (5600 °F). The flame, since it is less concentrated than an electric arc, causes slower weld cooling, which can lead to greater residual stresses and weld distortion, though it eases the welding of high alloy steels. A similar process, generally called oxyfuel cutting, is used to cut metals.


title: Welding

text: These processes use a welding power supply to create and maintain an electric arc between an electrode and the base material to melt metals at the welding point. They can use either direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC), and consumable or non-consumable electrodes. The welding region is sometimes protected by some type of inert or semi-inert gas, known as a shielding gas, and filler material is sometimes used as well.


title: Welding

text: One of the most common types of arc welding is shielded metal arc welding (SMAW); it is also known as manual metal arc welding (MMAW) or stick welding. Electric current is used to strike an arc between the base material and consumable electrode rod, which is made of filler material (typical steel) and is covered with a flux that protects the weld area from oxidation and contamination by producing carbon dioxide (CO) gas during the welding process. The electrode core itself acts as filler material, making a separate filler unnecessary.


title: Welding

text: The process is versatile and can be performed with relatively inexpensive equipment, making it well suited to shop jobs and field work. An operator can become reasonably proficient with a modest amount of training and can achieve mastery with experience. Weld times are rather slow, since the consumable electrodes must be frequently replaced and because slag, the residue from the flux, must be chipped away after welding. Furthermore, the process is generally limited to welding ferrous materials, though special electrodes have made possible the welding of cast iron, stainless steel, aluminum, and other metals.


title: Welding

text: Gas metal arc welding (GMAW), also known as metal inert gas or MIG welding, is a semi-automatic or automatic process that uses a continuous wire feed as an electrode and an inert or semi-inert gas mixture to protect the weld from contamination. Since the electrode is continuous, welding speeds are greater for GMAW than for SMAW.


title: Welding

text: A related process, flux-cored arc welding (FCAW), uses similar equipment but uses wire consisting of a steel electrode surrounding a powder fill material. This cored wire is more expensive than the standard solid wire and can generate fumes and/or slag, but it permits even higher welding speed and greater metal penetration.


title: Welding

text: Gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), or tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding, is a manual welding process that uses a non-consumable tungsten electrode, an inert or semi-inert gas mixture, and a separate filler material. Especially useful for welding thin materials, this method is characterized by a stable arc and high-quality welds, but it requires significant operator skill and can only be accomplished at relatively low speeds.


title: Welding

text: GTAW can be used on nearly all weldable metals, though it is most often applied to stainless steel and light metals. It is often used when quality welds are extremely important, such as in bicycle, aircraft and naval applications. A related process, plasma arc welding, also uses a tungsten electrode but uses plasma gas to make the arc. The arc is more concentrated than the GTAW arc, making transverse control more critical and thus generally restricting the technique to a mechanized process. Because of its stable current, the method can be used on a wider range of material thicknesses than can the GTAW process and it is much faster. It can be applied to all of the same materials as GTAW except magnesium, and automated welding of stainless steel is one important application of the process. A variation of the process is plasma cutting, an efficient steel cutting process.


title: Welding

text: Submerged arc welding (SAW) is a high-productivity welding method in which the arc is struck beneath a covering layer of flux. This increases arc quality since contaminants in the atmosphere are blocked by the flux. The slag that forms on the weld generally comes off by itself, and combined with the use of a continuous wire feed, the weld deposition rate is high. Working conditions are much improved over other arc welding processes, since the flux hides the arc and almost no smoke is produced. The process is commonly used in industry, especially for large products and in the manufacture of welded pressure vessels. Other arc welding processes include atomic hydrogen welding, electroslag welding (ESW), electrogas welding, and stud arc welding. ESW is a highly productive, single-pass welding process for thicker materials between 1 inch (25 mm) and 12 inches (300 mm) in a vertical or close to vertical position.


title: Welding

text: To supply the electrical power necessary for arc welding processes, a variety of different power supplies can be used. The most common welding power supplies are constant current power supplies and constant voltage power supplies. In arc welding, the length of the arc is directly related to the voltage, and the amount of heat input is related to the current. Constant current power supplies are most often used for manual welding processes such as gas tungsten arc welding and shielded metal arc welding, because they maintain a relatively constant current even as the voltage varies. This is important because in manual welding, it can be difficult to hold the electrode perfectly steady, and as a result, the arc length and thus voltage tend to fluctuate. Constant voltage power supplies hold the voltage constant and vary the current, and as a result, are most often used for automated welding processes such as gas metal arc welding, flux-cored arc welding, and submerged arc welding. In these processes, arc length is kept constant, since any fluctuation in the distance between the wire and the base material is quickly rectified by a large change in current. For example, if the wire and the base material get too close, the current will rapidly increase, which in turn causes the heat to increase and the tip of the wire to melt, returning it to its original separation distance.


title: Welding

text: The type of current used plays an important role in arc welding. Consumable electrode processes such as shielded metal arc welding and gas metal arc welding generally use direct current, but the electrode can be charged either positively or negatively. In welding, the positively charged anode will have a greater heat concentration, and as a result, changing the polarity of the electrode affects weld properties. If the electrode is positively charged, the base metal will be hotter, increasing weld penetration and welding speed. Alternatively, a negatively charged electrode results in more shallow welds. Non-consumable electrode processes, such as gas tungsten arc welding, can use either type of direct current, as well as alternating current. However, with direct current, because the electrode only creates the arc and does not provide filler material, a positively charged electrode causes shallow welds, while a negatively charged electrode makes deeper welds. Alternating current rapidly moves between these two, resulting in medium-penetration welds. One disadvantage of AC, the fact that the arc must be re-ignited after every zero crossings, has been addressed with the invention of special power units that produce a square wave pattern instead of the normal sine wave, making rapid zero crossings possible and minimizing the effects of the problem.


title: Welding

text: Resistance welding involves the generation of heat by passing current through the resistance caused by the contact between two or more metal surfaces. Small pools of molten metal are formed at the weld area as high current (1000–100,000 A) is passed through the metal. In general, resistance welding methods are efficient and cause little pollution, but their applications are somewhat limited and the equipment cost can be high.


title: Welding

text: Spot welding is a popular resistance welding method used to join overlapping metal sheets of up to 3 mm thick. Two electrodes are simultaneously used to clamp the metal sheets together and to pass current through the sheets. The advantages of the method include efficient energy use, limited workpiece deformation, high production rates, easy automation, and no required filler materials. Weld strength is significantly lower than with other welding methods, making the process suitable for only certain applications. It is used extensively in the automotive industry—ordinary cars can have several thousand spot welds made by industrial robots. A specialized process called shot welding, can be used to spot weld stainless steel.


title: Welding

text: Like spot welding, seam welding relies on two electrodes to apply pressure and current to join metal sheets. However, instead of pointed electrodes, wheel-shaped electrodes roll along and often feed the workpiece, making it possible to make long continuous welds. In the past, this process was used in the manufacture of beverage cans, but now its uses are more limited. Other resistance welding methods include butt welding, flash welding, projection welding, and upset welding.


title: Welding

text: Energy beam welding methods, namely laser beam welding and electron beam welding, are relatively new processes that have become quite popular in high production applications. The two processes are quite similar, differing most notably in their source of power. Laser beam welding employs a highly focused laser beam, while electron beam welding is done in a vacuum and uses an electron beam. Both have a very high energy density, making deep weld penetration possible and minimizing the size of the weld area. Both processes are extremely fast, and are easily automated, making them highly productive. The primary disadvantages are their very high equipment costs (though these are decreasing) and a susceptibility to thermal cracking. Developments in this area include laser-hybrid welding, which uses principles from both laser beam welding and arc welding for even better weld properties, laser cladding, and x-ray welding.


title: Welding

text: Like the first welding process, forge welding, some modern welding methods do not involve the melting of the materials being joined. One of the most popular, ultrasonic welding, is used to connect thin sheets or wires made of metal or thermoplastic by vibrating them at high frequency and under high pressure. The equipment and methods involved are similar to that of resistance welding, but instead of electric current, vibration provides energy input. Welding metals with this process does not involve melting the materials; instead, the weld is formed by introducing mechanical vibrations horizontally under pressure. When welding plastics, the materials should have similar melting temperatures, and the vibrations are introduced vertically. Ultrasonic welding is commonly used for making electrical connections out of aluminum or copper, and it is also a very common polymer welding process.


title: Welding

text: Another common process, explosion welding, involves the joining of materials by pushing them together under extremely high pressure. The energy from the impact plasticizes the materials, forming a weld, even though only a limited amount of heat is generated. The process is commonly used for welding dissimilar materials, including bonding aluminum to carbon steel in ship hulls and stainless steel or titanium to carbon steel in petrochemical pressure vessels.


title: Welding

text: Other solid-state welding processes include friction welding (including friction stir welding and friction stir spot welding), magnetic pulse welding, co-extrusion welding, cold welding, diffusion bonding, exothermic welding, high frequency welding, hot pressure welding, induction welding, and roll bonding.


title: Welding

text: Welds can be geometrically prepared in many different ways. The five basic types of weld joints are the butt joint, lap joint, corner joint, edge joint, and T-joint (a variant of this last is the cruciform joint). Other variations exist as well—for example, double-V preparation joints are characterized by the two pieces of material each tapering to a single center point at one-half their height. Single-U and double-U preparation joints are also fairly common—instead of having straight edges like the single-V and double-V preparation joints, they are curved, forming the shape of a U. Lap joints are also commonly more than two pieces thick—depending on the process used and the thickness of the material, many pieces can be welded together in a lap joint geometry.


title: Welding

text: Many welding processes require the use of a particular joint design; for example, resistance spot welding, laser beam welding, and electron beam welding are most frequently performed on lap joints. Other welding methods, like shielded metal arc welding, are extremely versatile and can weld virtually any type of joint. Some processes can also be used to make multipass welds, in which one weld is allowed to cool, and then another weld is performed on top of it. This allows for the welding of thick sections arranged in a single-V preparation joint, for example.


title: Welding

text: After welding, a number of distinct regions can be identified in the weld area. The weld itself is called the fusion zone—more specifically, it is where the filler metal was laid during the welding process. The properties of the fusion zone depend primarily on the filler metal used, and its compatibility with the base materials. It is surrounded by the heat-affected zone, the area that had its microstructure and properties altered by the weld. These properties depend on the base material's behavior when subjected to heat. The metal in this area is often weaker than both the base material and the fusion zone, and is also where residual stresses are found.


title: Welding

text: Many distinct factors influence the strength of welds and the material around them, including the welding method, the amount and concentration of energy input, the weldability of the base material, filler material, and flux material, the design of the joint, and the interactions between all these factors.


title: Welding

text: For example, the factor of welding position influences weld quality, that welding codes & specifications may require testing—both welding procedures and welders—using specified welding positions: 1G (flat), 2G (horizontal), 3G (vertical), 4G (overhead), 5G (horizontal fixed pipe), or 6G (inclined fixed pipe).


title: Welding

text: To test the quality of a weld, either destructive or nondestructive testing methods are commonly used to verify that welds are free of defects, have acceptable levels of residual stresses and distortion, and have acceptable heat-affected zone (HAZ) properties. Types of welding defects include cracks, distortion, gas inclusions (porosity), non-metallic inclusions, lack of fusion, incomplete penetration, lamellar tearing, and undercutting.


title: Welding

text: The metalworking industry has instituted codes and specifications to guide welders, weld inspectors, engineers, managers, and property owners in proper welding technique, design of welds, how to judge the quality of welding procedure specification, how to judge the skill of the person performing the weld, and how to ensure the quality of a welding job. Methods such as visual inspection, radiography, ultrasonic testing, phased-array ultrasonics, dye penetrant inspection, magnetic particle inspection, or industrial computed tomography can help with detection and analysis of certain defects.


title: Welding

text: The heat-affected zone (HAZ) is a ring surrounding the weld in which the temperature of the welding process, combined with the stresses of uneven heating and cooling, alters the heat-treatment properties of the alloy. The effects of welding on the material surrounding the weld can be detrimental—depending on the materials used and the heat input of the welding process used, the HAZ can be of varying size and strength. The thermal diffusivity of the base material plays a large role—if the diffusivity is high, the material cooling rate is high and the HAZ is relatively small. Conversely, a low diffusivity leads to slower cooling and a larger HAZ. The amount of heat injected by the welding process plays an important role as well, as processes like oxyacetylene welding have an unconcentrated heat input and increase the size of the HAZ. Processes like laser beam welding give a highly concentrated, limited amount of heat, resulting in a small HAZ. Arc welding falls between these two extremes, with the individual processes varying somewhat in heat input. To calculate the heat input for arc welding procedures, the following formula can be used:


title: Welding

text: where "Q" = heat input (kJ/mm), "V" = voltage (V), "I" = current (A), and "S" = welding speed (mm/min). The efficiency is dependent on the welding process used, with shielded metal arc welding having a value of 0.75, gas metal arc welding and submerged arc welding, 0.9, and gas tungsten arc welding, 0.8. Methods of alleviating the stresses and brittleness created in the HAZ include stress relieving and tempering.


title: Welding

text: The durability and life of dynamically loaded, welded steel structures is determined in many cases by the welds, in particular the weld transitions. Through selective treatment of the transitions by grinding (abrasive cutting), shot peening, High-Frequency Impact Treatment, etc. the durability of many designs increases significantly.


title: Welding

text: Most solids used are engineering materials consisting of crystalline solids in which the atoms or ions are arranged in a repetitive geometric pattern which is known as a lattice structure. The only exception is material that is made from glass which is a combination of a supercooled liquid and polymers which are aggregates of large organic molecules.


title: Welding

text: Crystalline solids cohesion is obtained by a metallic or chemical bond that is formed between the constituent atoms. Chemical bonds can be grouped into two types consisting of ionic and covalent. To form an ionic bond, either a valence or bonding electron separates from one atom and becomes attached to another atom to form oppositely charged ions. The bonding in the static position is when the ions occupy an equilibrium position where the resulting force between them is zero. When the ions are exerted in tension force, the inter-ionic spacing increases creating an electrostatic attractive force, while a repulsing force under compressive force between the atomic nuclei is dominant.


title: Welding

text: Covalent bonding takes place when one of the constituent atoms loses one or more electrons, with the other atom gaining the electrons, resulting in an electron cloud that is shared by the molecule as a whole. In both ionic and covalent bonding the location of the ions and electrons are constrained relative to each other, thereby resulting in the bond being characteristically brittle.


title: Welding

text: Metallic bonding can be classified as a type of covalent bonding for which the constituent atoms are of the same type and do not combine with one another to form a chemical bond. Atoms will lose an electron(s) forming an array of positive ions. These electrons are shared by the lattice which makes the electron cluster mobile, as the electrons are free to move as well as the ions. For this, it gives metals their relatively high thermal and electrical conductivity as well as being characteristically ductile.


title: Welding

text: Three of the most commonly used crystal lattice structures in metals are the body-centred cubic, face-centred cubic and close-packed hexagonal. Ferritic steel has a body-centred cubic structure and austenitic steel, non-ferrous metals like aluminium, copper and nickel have the face-centred cubic structure.


title: Welding

text: Ductility is an important factor in ensuring the integrity of structures by enabling them to sustain local stress concentrations without fracture. In addition, structures are required to be of an acceptable strength, which is related to a material's yield strength. In general, as the yield strength of a material increases, there is a corresponding reduction in fracture toughness.


title: Welding

text: A reduction in fracture toughness may also be attributed to the embrittlement effect of impurities, or for body-centred cubic metals, from a reduction in temperature. Metals and in particular steels have a transitional temperature range where above this range the metal has acceptable notch-ductility while below this range the material becomes brittle. Within the range, the materials behavior is unpredictable. The reduction in fracture toughness is accompanied by a change in the fracture appearance. When above the transition, the fracture is primarily due to micro-void coalescence, which results in the fracture appearing fibrous. When the temperatures falls the fracture will show signs of cleavage facets. These two appearances are visible by the naked eye. Brittle fracture in steel plates may appear as chevron markings under the microscope. These arrow-like ridges on the crack surface point towards the origin of the fracture.


title: Welding

text: Fracture toughness is measured using a notched and pre-cracked rectangular specimen, of which the dimensions are specified in standards, for example ASTM E23. There are other means of estimating or measuring fracture toughness by the following: The Charpy impact test per ASTM A370; The crack-tip opening displacement (CTOD) test per BS 7448–1; The J integral test per ASTM E1820; The Pellini drop-weight test per ASTM E208.


title: Welding

text: While many welding applications are done in controlled environments such as factories and repair shops, some welding processes are commonly used in a wide variety of conditions, such as open air, underwater, and vacuums (such as space). In open-air applications, such as construction and outdoors repair, shielded metal arc welding is the most common process. Processes that employ inert gases to protect the weld cannot be readily used in such situations, because unpredictable atmospheric movements can result in a faulty weld. Shielded metal arc welding is also often used in underwater welding in the construction and repair of ships, offshore platforms, and pipelines, but others, such as flux cored arc welding and gas tungsten arc welding, are also common. Welding in space is also possible—it was first attempted in 1969 by Russian cosmonauts during the Soyuz 6 mission, when they performed experiments to test shielded metal arc welding, plasma arc welding, and electron beam welding in a depressurized environment. Further testing of these methods was done in the following decades, and today researchers continue to develop methods for using other welding processes in space, such as laser beam welding, resistance welding, and friction welding. Advances in these areas may be useful for future endeavours similar to the construction of the International Space Station, which could rely on welding for joining in space the parts that were manufactured on Earth.


title: Welding

text: Welding can be dangerous and unhealthy if the proper precautions are not taken. However, using new technology and proper protection greatly reduces risks of injury and death associated with welding. Since many common welding procedures involve an open electric arc or flame, the risk of burns and fire is significant; this is why it is classified as a hot work process. To prevent injury, welders wear personal protective equipment in the form of heavy leather gloves and protective long-sleeve jackets to avoid exposure to extreme heat and flames. Synthetic clothing such as polyester should not be worn since it may burn, causing injury. Additionally, the brightness of the weld area leads to a condition called arc eye or flash burns in which ultraviolet light causes inflammation of the cornea and can burn the retinas of the eyes. Goggles and welding helmets with dark UV-filtering face plates are worn to prevent this exposure. Since the 2000s, some helmets have included a face plate which instantly darkens upon exposure to the intense UV light. To protect bystanders, the welding area is often surrounded with translucent welding curtains. These curtains, made of a polyvinyl chloride plastic film, shield people outside the welding area from the UV light of the electric arc, but cannot replace the filter glass used in helmets.


title: Welding

text: Welders are often exposed to dangerous gases and particulate matter. Processes like flux-cored arc welding and shielded metal arc welding produce smoke containing particles of various types of oxides. The size of the particles in question tends to influence the toxicity of the fumes, with smaller particles presenting a greater danger. This is because smaller particles have the ability to cross the blood–brain barrier. Fumes and gases, such as carbon dioxide, ozone, and fumes containing heavy metals, can be dangerous to welders lacking proper ventilation and training. Exposure to manganese welding fumes, for example, even at low levels (<0.2 mg/m), may lead to neurological problems or to damage to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or central nervous system. Nano particles can become trapped in the alveolar macrophages of the lungs and induce pulmonary fibrosis. The use of compressed gases and flames in many welding processes poses an explosion and fire risk. Some common precautions include limiting the amount of oxygen in the air, and keeping combustible materials away from the workplace.


title: Welding

text: As an industrial process, the cost of welding plays a crucial role in manufacturing decisions. Many different variables affect the total cost, including equipment cost, labor cost, material cost, and energy cost. Depending on the process, equipment cost can vary, from inexpensive for methods like shielded metal arc welding and oxyfuel welding, to extremely expensive for methods like laser beam welding and electron beam welding. Because of their high cost, they are only used in high production operations. Similarly, because automation and robots increase equipment costs, they are only implemented when high production is necessary. Labor cost depends on the deposition rate (the rate of welding), the hourly wage, and the total operation time, including time spent fitting, welding, and handling the part. The cost of materials includes the cost of the base and filler material, and the cost of shielding gases. Finally, energy cost depends on arc time and welding power demand.


title: Welding

text: For manual welding methods, labor costs generally make up the vast majority of the total cost. As a result, many cost-saving measures are focused on minimizing operation time. To do this, welding procedures with high deposition rates can be selected, and weld parameters can be fine-tuned to increase welding speed. Mechanization and automation are often implemented to reduce labor costs, but this frequently increases the cost of equipment and creates additional setup time. Material costs tend to increase when special properties are necessary, and energy costs normally do not amount to more than several percent of the total welding cost.


title: Welding

text: In recent years, in order to minimize labor costs in high production manufacturing, industrial welding has become increasingly more automated, most notably with the use of robots in resistance spot welding (especially in the automotive industry) and in arc welding. In robot welding, mechanized devices both hold the material and perform the weld and at first, spot welding was its most common application, but robotic arc welding increases in popularity as technology advances. Other key areas of research and development include the welding of dissimilar materials (such as steel and aluminum, for example) and new welding processes, such as friction stir, magnetic pulse, conductive heat seam, and laser-hybrid welding. Furthermore, progress is desired in making more specialized methods like laser beam welding practical for more applications, such as in the aerospace and automotive industries. Researchers also hope to better understand the often unpredictable properties of welds, especially microstructure, residual stresses, and a weld's tendency to crack or deform.


title: Welding

text: The trend of accelerating the speed at which welds are performed in the steel erection industry comes at a risk to the integrity of the connection. Without proper fusion to the base materials provided by sufficient arc time on the weld, a project inspector cannot ensure the effective diameter of the puddle weld therefore he or she cannot guarantee the published load capacities unless they witness the actual installation. This method of puddle welding is common in the United States and Canada for attaching steel sheets to bar joist and structural steel members. Regional agencies are responsible for ensuring the proper installation of puddle welding on steel construction sites. Currently there is no standard or weld procedure which can ensure the published holding capacity of any unwitnessed connection, but this is under review by the American Welding Society.


title: Welding

text: Glasses and certain types of plastics are commonly welded materials. Unlike metals, which have a specific melting point, glasses and plastics have a melting range, called the glass transition. When heating the solid material past the glass-transition temperature (T) into this range, it will generally become softer and more pliable. When it crosses through the range, above the glass-melting temperature (T), it will become a very thick, sluggish, viscous liquid, slowly decreasing in viscosity as temperature increases. Typically, this viscous liquid will have very little surface tension compared to metals, becoming a sticky, taffy to honey-like consistency, so welding can usually take place by simply pressing two melted surfaces together. The two liquids will generally mix and join at first contact. Upon cooling through the glass transition, the welded piece will solidify as one solid piece of amorphous material.


title: Welding

text: Glass welding is a common practice during glassblowing. It is used very often in the construction of lighting, neon signs, flashtubes, scientific equipment, and the manufacture of dishes and other glassware. It is also used during glass casting for joining the halves of glass molds, making items such as bottles and jars. Welding glass is accomplished by heating the glass through the glass transition, turning it into a thick, formable, liquid mass. Heating is usually done with a gas or oxy-gas torch, or a furnace, because the temperatures for melting glass are often quite high. This temperature may vary, depending on the type of glass. For example, lead glass becomes a weldable liquid at around , and can be welded with a simple propane torch. On the other hand, quartz glass (fused silica) must be heated to over , but quickly loses its viscosity and formability if overheated, so an oxyhydrogen torch must be used. Sometimes a tube may be attached to the glass, allowing it to be blown into various shapes, such as bulbs, bottles, or tubes. When two pieces of liquid glass are pressed together, they will usually weld very readily. Welding a handle onto a pitcher can usually be done with relative ease. However, when welding a tube to another tube, a combination of blowing and suction, and pressing and pulling is used to ensure a good seal, to shape the glass, and to keep the surface tension from closing the tube in on itself. Sometimes a filler rod may be used, but usually not.


title: Welding

text: Because glass is very brittle in its solid state, it is often prone to cracking upon heating and cooling, especially if the heating and cooling are uneven. This is because the brittleness of glass does not allow for uneven thermal expansion. Glass that has been welded will usually need to be cooled very slowly and evenly through the glass transition, in a process called annealing, to relieve any internal stresses created by a temperature gradient.


title: Welding

text: There are many types of glass, and it is most common to weld using the same types. Different glasses often have different rates of thermal expansion, which can cause them to crack upon cooling when they contract differently. For instance, quartz has very low thermal expansion, while soda-lime glass has very high thermal expansion. When welding different glasses to each other, it is usually important to closely match their coefficients of thermal expansion, to ensure that cracking does not occur. Also, some glasses will simply not mix with others, so welding between certain types may not be possible.


title: Welding

text: Glass can also be welded to metals and ceramics, although with metals the process is usually more adhesion to the surface of the metal rather than a commingling of the two materials. However, certain glasses will typically bond only to certain metals. For example, lead glass bonds readily to copper or molybdenum, but not to aluminum. Tungsten electrodes are often used in lighting but will not bond to quartz glass, so the tungsten is often wetted with molten borosilicate glass, which bonds to both tungsten and quartz. However, care must be taken to ensure that all materials have similar coefficients of thermal expansion to prevent cracking both when the object cools and when it is heated again. Special alloys are often used for this purpose, ensuring that the coefficients of expansion match, and sometimes thin, metallic coatings may be applied to a metal to create a good bond with the glass.


title: Welding

text: Plastics are generally divided into two categories, which are "thermosets" and "thermoplastics." A thermoset is a plastic in which a chemical reaction sets the molecular bonds after first forming the plastic, and then the bonds cannot be broken again without degrading the plastic. Thermosets cannot be melted, therefore, once a thermoset has set it is impossible to weld it. Examples of thermosets include epoxies, silicone, vulcanized rubber, polyester, and polyurethane.


title: Welding

text: Thermoplastics, by contrast, form long molecular chains, which are often coiled or intertwined, forming an amorphous structure without any long-range, crystalline order. Some thermoplastics may be fully amorphous, while others have a partially crystalline/partially amorphous structure. Both amorphous and semicrystalline thermoplastics have a glass transition, above which welding can occur, but semicrystallines also have a specific melting point which is above the glass transition. Above this melting point, the viscous liquid will become a free-flowing liquid (see rheological weldability for thermoplastics). Examples of thermoplastics include polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polyvinylchloride (PVC), and fluoroplastics like Teflon and Spectralon.


title: Welding

text: Welding thermoplastic is very similar to welding glass. The plastic first must be cleaned and then heated through the glass transition, turning the weld-interface into a thick, viscous liquid. Two heated interfaces can then be pressed together, allowing the molecules to mix through intermolecular diffusion, joining them as one. Then the plastic is cooled through the glass transition, allowing the weld to solidify. A filler rod may often be used for certain types of joints. The main differences between welding glass and plastic are the types of heating methods, the much lower melting temperatures, and the fact that plastics will burn if overheated. Many different methods have been devised for heating plastic to a weldable temperature without burning it. Ovens or electric heating tools can be used to melt the plastic. Ultrasonic, laser, or friction heating are other methods. Resistive metals may be implanted in the plastic, which respond to induction heating. Some plastics will begin to burn at temperatures lower than their glass transition, so welding can be performed by blowing a heated, inert gas onto the plastic, melting it while, at the same time, shielding it from oxygen.


title: Welding

text: Many thermoplastics can also be welded using chemical solvents. When placed in contact with the plastic, the solvent will begin to soften it, bringing the surface into a thick, liquid solution. When two melted surfaces are pressed together, the molecules in the solution mix, joining them as one. Because the solvent can permeate the plastic, the solvent evaporates out through the surface of the plastic, causing the weld to drop out of solution and solidify. A common use for solvent welding is for joining PVC or ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) pipes during plumbing, or for welding styrene and polystyrene plastics in the construction of models. Solvent welding is especially effective on plastics like PVC which burn at or below their glass transition, but may be ineffective on plastics like Teflon or polyethylene that are resistant to chemical decomposition.