Laser Welding Pens: A Practical Guide for Metalworkers

A fabricator I know spent an entire afternoon on a single stainless-steel bracket that should have taken twenty minutes — TIG gun, filler rod, shield gas, and a bead that warped the part enough to send it back to the bench. Then a shop down the road welded four of those brackets in the time he was still cleaning up. The difference wasn’t skill; it was a hand-held laser welding pen. If you’ve seen these hand torches advertised for a few thousand dollars and wondered whether the claims are real, this guide walks through exactly what a laser welding pen is, what it can and cannot weld, why shops are buying them, and the safety rules you cannot skip.

What Is a Laser Welding Pen? (And Why the Name Is Misleading)

Start with the name, because it creates more confusion than clarity: a laser welding pen is a high-power fiber laser welder you hold in one hand. The light source sits in a cabinet on the floor or a bench, and a flexible fiber optic cable carries the beam out to a pen-sized torch that you guide along the joint much like a marker or a cordless screwdriver. Almost every comparison later in this guide follows from that one fact, so it is worth getting the anatomy right before you start comparing prices or specs.

The term itself is informal. There is no IEC or AWS category called a “laser welding pen.” The words you will find in safety literature, service manuals and product documentation are handheld laser welding system, handheld laser welding head or laser welding gun. Search those terms when you pull SDS sheets, write a risk assessment or look for a spare part.

The anatomy, piece by piece

Component	What it actually does
Laser source	Usually a diode-pumped fiber laser producing around 1,000 to 2,000 W of near-infrared output. This is the expensive part.
Beam delivery fiber	A flexible, armored fiber cable carrying the beam from source to head. It is a consumable item and a common failure point.
Processing head (torch)	The pen itself. Holds the focusing optics, often an oscillating or wobble mechanism, and the trigger.
Contact tip and nozzle	Tip touches the work to complete the safety circuit; nozzle protects the focusing lens and directs shielding gas.
Wire feeder (optional)	A small feeder on the head or a separate pod that pushes filler wire into the molten pool.
Shielding gas	Argon for stainless and aluminium, argon mixes for steel. Flow rate matters more than most buyers expect.
Chiller	Circulates coolant through the head and source. Air-cooled units exist but carry duty-cycle limits.
Power supply	Converts mains supply into regulated laser power. Mainstream units run on 220 V single-phase power.

IPG Photonics, one of the reference names in this market, markets its LightWELD family of hand-held laser welding systems in 1000 W, 1500 W and 2000 W versions, air-cooled, running on 220 V single-phase power. That three-tier, plug-and-play format is a useful mental model for what the rest of the industry sells.

Why “pen,” and why that trips people up

People call it a pen because the working head genuinely is pen-sized, and because it is guided by hand like a marker or a cordless screwdriver. The nickname backfires in two ways. First, it sounds like a small hobby tool you could pick up at a trade show for a couple of hundred bucks. It cannot. These are industrial machines with real capital cost, real service requirements and real hazards.

Second, the same hand-held form factor is used for three completely different jobs, and they often share a listing, a chassis or a seller. Handheld laser cleaners strip paint, rust and oxide without touching the substrate. Handheld laser cutters slice thin sheet. Handheld laser welders join metal. These are separate product lines, even though many modern systems bundle all three functions in one chassis.

Here is the trap. Plenty of entry-level “3-in-1” machines are diode-based tools that clean beautifully, cut thin sheet and weld poorly. Cleaning and cutting rely on different physics than welding, so a machine that leads its marketing with an impressive cutting demo tells you almost nothing about weld quality. Judge any of them on welding parameters, duty cycle and support, not on whether it can slice a piece of cardboard-backed tin.

These are Class 4 industrial lasers

Whatever the marketing says, a welding-capable handheld laser falls in the highest hazard class. OSHA’s laser hazard table lists Class IV as posing immediate skin and eye hazards from direct or reflected beam exposure, and names industrial lasers among the example products alongside light show projectors and medical surgical lasers. This is an occupational tool with occupational safety obligations, not a consumer gadget.

So who is this tool actually for?

Mostly small and mid-sized shops doing thin-gauge and light-section work: stainless fabrication and tank skirts, sheet-metal enclosures, HVAC and ductwork, production welding on small batches, repair work, and handymen who want a clean bead without setting up a TIG station. Hobbyists who work with thin metal are a real market too, provided they respect the safety regime.

For context, TWI lists laser welding among its core joining technologies, sitting next to arc welding, electron beam, friction welding and hybrid laser-arc. It is an established industrial process with a short history, not a novelty.

If arc processes are new to you, get the fundamentals straight first. Our guide to TIG welding techniques and standards covers the process a laser pen most often competes against, and this practical walkthrough of aluminum MIG welding covers the other. For deeper laser context, see our guide to alpha laser welding systems, uses and safety.

How Laser Welding Works: Keyholes, Wobble and Filler Wire

Everything a laser welding pen does comes down to energy density. An arc welder spreads heat across a wide puddle, the plate warps, and you end up chasing distortion with a grinder. A fiber laser concentrates power into a spot a couple of millimetres across, so metal melts locally instead of being cooked across a wide zone. The heat-affected zone stays narrow, the bead stays slim, and the part comes off the bench without bending.

The keyhole, step by step

The narrow bead is a side effect of something else: the keyhole.

1. The beam arrives. Focused laser energy lands on the joint. Metals are highly reflective, so how much is absorbed depends on surface condition and wavelength.
2. The surface melts. A small pool of liquid metal forms and heats toward boiling.
3. Vapour opens a hole. High-pressure metal vapour pushes the liquid aside, opening a tiny cavity, the keyhole, in the joint.
4. The keyhole traps the beam. The cavity acts as an optical funnel, focusing energy deeper into the workpiece and vaporising more metal as it goes. That is why a laser welds through thin sheet faster than a TIG arc can push into it.
5. The keyhole closes behind the torch. As the head advances, the cavity collapses, the pool flows in and solidifies, leaving a narrow fusion weld.

TWI credits the keyhole with laser welding’s low heat input compared with arc processes. Funnelled down the hole, you get penetration without throwing a wide band of heat into the surrounding metal. Less heat in means less distortion, and that is the whole commercial argument for the machine.

Autogenous or wire-fed

• Autogenous welding uses no filler; the two pieces fuse directly. It is the cleanest, fastest option and suits tight, well-prepared joints in the same material, typically thin sheet. For contrast, TIG remains the traditional process for that class of work, and our look at aluminium flux core welding shows another way to think about filler chemistry on non-ferrous jobs.
• Wire-fed welding feeds filler wire from an integrated feeder into the pool. You need it when the gap is wider than the keyhole can bridge, when joining dissimilar metals, or when you need to build up material. It costs wire, gas and time per joint, but it is far more forgiving.

Surface condition is not a detail. A clean, slightly rough surface absorbs more than a mirror-polished one, and contamination and oxide change the picture again, which is why shops buy a separate cleaning machine for prep work. Our guide to prepping aluminium properly before welding covers the same logic in more detail.

Wobble welding

Wobble means the beam does not travel in a straight line. It traces a small oscillating or circular pattern while the torch advances, widening the pool and slowing effective travel over the joint. IPG publishes a wobble capability of up to 0.200 inches across its LightWELD 1000, 1500 XR and 2000 XR models, and states that the function is intended to accommodate wider seams and parts with poor fit-up.

The beam you cannot see

Fiber welding lasers emit in the near-infrared region around 1070 nm, invisible to the human eye. Most hand heads include a low-power visible pilot light so the operator can line up the joint. That is a convenience, but it is also a genuine hazard: you are aiming a Class 4 beam you cannot perceive, and reflections are as dangerous as the beam itself. OSHA’s laser hazard table treats Class IV lasers as an immediate skin and eye hazard from direct or reflected exposure, and the AWS Welding Digest on handheld laser welding safety explains the eye and skin injuries that can result.

The settings that decide the bead

• Standoff: nozzle tip to work. Too close and spatter cakes the tip, too far and focus and energy density drop.
• Focus: the focal point shifts with material thickness and with the consumable in use. Thin material usually wants defocus, thicker material focus.
• Travel speed: too slow soaks in heat and distorts the part, too fast leaves undercut and lack of fusion.
• Work angle: hit the joint square. A steep drag angle widens the pool and hurts penetration.
• Shielding gas: argon or argon/CO2 mixes for steel, argon for stainless and aluminium. Too little lets air in and the pool oxidises, too much destabilises the keyhole. Check your machine’s range and use a flow meter.
• Preflow and postflow: gas before and after the weld prevents oxidation at the start and end, where most porosity hides.
• Wire to travel speed ratio: feed too fast and you stack a fat, badly shaped bead, too slow and you get lack of fusion with a cold lap.

Nobody should guess at these numbers on the shop floor. That is why IPG’s LightWELD systems advertise 100 stored welding and cleaning presets, with the option for advanced operators to customise and save their own.

Other setups, such as Alpha’s laser welding systems, follow the same physics, and knowing the keyhole story makes any of them easier to set up. Next, we look at the materials and thicknesses you can realistically expect to weld.

What Can a Laser Welding Pen Weld? Materials, Thickness and Real Limits

Vendors sell these machines for a wide spread of alloys, but capability is not a single number. It is a curve that falls off fast once you leave mild steel, and understanding that curve is the difference between buying the right tool and owning an expensive frustration.

The material families these machines are sold for

Hand-held laser welding systems are marketed against a predictable list:

• Carbon and mild steel — the bread and butter. Low reflectivity, forgiving surface condition, cheapest to qualify.
• Stainless steel (304, 316 and similar) — the most common reason small shops buy one: clean, narrow beads, no heat tint on the parent metal.
• Aluminium, including 6061 and 5052 alloys
• Galvanised steel — weldable, but with a fume penalty to respect
• Copper and brass — lower capacity, higher difficulty
• Nickel alloys and titanium — the specialist tier, usually the higher-power machines

That last group is where buyers overreach. Titanium and nickel alloys are weldable by laser but unforgiving of contaminated surfaces and demanding on shielding gas. If titanium is 5 percent of your workload, a dedicated TIG setup may serve you better.

Published thickness capability (a manufacturer claim)

Here is the capability chart published by IPG Photonics for its LightWELD handheld range. Every cell is a manufacturer claim, not an independent test result.

Material	LightWELD 1000	LightWELD 1500 XR	LightWELD 2000 XR
Steels (carbon, mild, stainless)	Up to 9 gauge (0.156 in)	Between 1000 and 2000 XR	Up to 0 gauge (0.313 in)
Aluminium 3 & 5 series	Up to 8 gauge (0.129 in)	Between 1000 and 2000 XR	Up to 0 gauge (0.325 in)
Copper	Up to 12 gauge (0.081 in)	Up to 8 gauge (0.129 in)	Above the 1500 XR figure
Titanium	Not published	Up to 6 gauge (0.203 in)	Up to 4 gauge (0.234 in)

Note the pattern: steel is easiest, aluminium close behind, copper dramatically harder, and titanium reserved for the larger machines. Worth knowing before you plan production around one of these: all three published LightWELD models are air-cooled, not water-cooled, so thermal duty cycle limits continuous running. That matters in a production cell and very little in a job shop.

Reading the gauge numbers

Gauge is a legacy sheet-metal measure worth learning, because it is how nearly every capability chart is written. The figures above are steel gauge references: 9 gauge is 0.156 in, 8 gauge 0.129 in, 12 gauge is 0.081 in and 0 gauge is 0.313 in. The aluminium 0 gauge figure of 0.325 in is thicker because gauge tables are material-specific and aluminium sheet is produced thicker for the same label. Confirm which reference the maker used before you order material to fit.

Why the numbers fall where they do

Keyhole welding, as TWI describes it, needs enough energy density to vaporise metal rather than merely melt it, and that requirement explains most of the chart. Thicker sections need more power to reach vaporisation temperature in the time available, while conductive metals such as copper and brass pull heat away so fast that energy disperses before a stable keyhole forms. That is why copper sits at 12 gauge on a 1000 W unit despite a lower melting point than steel, and why copper welding remains a specialised, higher-power proposition.

Aluminium behaves differently again. Its oxide film is extremely tenacious and must be broken by the keyhole itself, and any dirt or oil produces dross instead of a clean puddle. Shops that already weld aluminium know how vital surface preparation is, which is why guidance like prepping aluminium properly before welding transfers so well here. For comparison, see our guides to aluminium MIG welding and aluminium flux core welding.

Galvanised steel deserves caution. The zinc coating vaporises ahead of the base metal and produces zinc fume, a well-documented respiratory hazard. Clean the coating back before welding, or use shielding and extraction suited to the job. NIOSH notes that welding fumes are metal particles that can cause metal fume fever, and that exposure rises sharply in poorly ventilated spaces.

Where real capability drops below the chart

Published capability assumes square-butt joints, well-fixtured with no gap, clean surfaces, correct shielding gas and a single pass at an optimised travel speed. Every one of those is a real-world variable. Gaps larger than the keyhole can bridge produce porosity or no fusion, while joint angle, thickness mismatch, out-of-position work and fixturing that cannot hold heat all reduce capability. A dirty surface changes absorption, and mirror-finish stainless is the classic trap: a highly reflective surface bounces energy away instead of absorbing it, so the beam does far less work than on matte material. This is where laser cleaning changes results dramatically. Stripping the oxide layer with the same handheld laser, or abrading it mechanically, restores absorption and makes the joint behave like the chart says it should.

Why Shops Are Buying Them: The Benefits That Are Real

The reason handheld laser welding pens keep showing up in small-shop conversations is simple arithmetic. A stainless bracket that eats twenty minutes of TIG time becomes a five-minute laser weld with no filler rod to feed, no electrode to grind off, and a bead narrow enough that nobody dresses it down. That much is real. The marketing numbers floating around the internet need careful handling.

Speed: the number everyone quotes

IPG markets its LightWELD handheld systems as up to 4x faster than TIG, and other vendors publish comparable multiples for their own machines. Read those as manufacturer claims rather than independently verified figures, because the result depends heavily on the joint, the material and whether cleanup time is counted. The same IPG page describes TIG as a two-handed, time-consuming method that can generate extreme heat, deform thin material and struggle with copper and dissimilar thicknesses, and describes MIG as requiring consumable wire and bevelled joints for full penetration on thick metals. That is a vendor arguing its case, so treat it accordingly.

Even so, the speed advantage is real, and it stacks up from several sources:

• No filler rod to feed, reposition and roll between your fingers
• Single-pass welds on thin material without stopping to re-aim a torch
• Far less time on the grinder, because the bead is narrow
• Stored parameter presets that remove the trial-and-error cycle

Low heat input, small HAZ, less distortion

Because the energy lands in a tiny spot, the heat-affected zone stays narrow and the surrounding metal barely moves. This is where laser welding genuinely earns its keep on thin sheet, stainless and aluminium, where TIG heat input can bow a part out of flat. Narrower heat means less straightening, less clamping, fewer scrapped parts. If you have ever chased warpage across a stainless enclosure, the appeal is obvious.

A far shorter path to a repeatable bead

TIG is a craft. A good TIG welder develops over months, a truly capable one over years. For a shop running the same bracket or seam repeatedly, that skill is a liability: it lives in one person’s hands and disappears when they take holiday. A laser pen on a standard joint configuration is learned in days. Operators dial in a recipe, save it, and hit nearly the same result on the next part.

Thin material, clean work and small batches

Laser welding handles thin gauge that TIG burns straight through and that MIG tends to spray with spatter. There are no consumable electrodes, no electrode stubs in the seam, no slag to chip, and very little spatter. For stainless and aluminium work especially, that changes the finishing bill. It is also why prep matters so much: our guide to cleaning aluminium properly before welding applies directly to laser work, where the oxide film ruins the keyhole.

Because setup is quick, small batches and one-off prototypes stop being uneconomic. You do not have to lay out a TIG station, pull gas and wire, and set up fume extraction for a batch of four.

Automation without a robot programmer

For repetitive work, IPG offers a LightWELD collaborative robot system designed for welding jobs without requiring robot or programming experience. That is the quiet benefit many shops miss: the laser head can go to a cobot on the same repeatable joints where a human would tire after the fortieth part.

A scenario worth imagining

Take a small shop making stainless tank skirts and sheet-metal enclosures. Under TIG, each enclosure means chasing heat, grinding bead after bead, and quoting from a rate set by the last job. With a laser pen, the operator clamps the parts, recalls a preset and runs the seam. Quoting gets faster because cycle time is predictable, prototypes move in hours instead of days, and skirts that would warp under a hot arc come off flat, so straightening drops off the job sheet. Nobody claims the machine replaces the TIG set-up, but plenty of shops end up running both.

And the part people still forget: fume

Laser welding is not fume-free. The keyhole vaporises metal, and that plume still has to be extracted. NIOSH states that welding fumes are composed of metals, that most welding fumes contain a small percentage of manganese, and that prolonged manganese exposure carries potential neurological effects. NIOSH also notes that welding in confined spaces can significantly increase exposure.

The published limits to work to are a NIOSH REL of 1 mg/m³ (8-hour TWA) and 3 mg/m³ (STEL) for manganese, alongside an OSHA PEL of 5 mg/m³ as a ceiling. Local exhaust ventilation is not optional just because there is no arc. Galvanised work is the sharpest edge here, since the zinc coating adds its own fume load.

Where Laser Welding Pens Fall Short: The Honest Limitations

Every handheld laser welder sold today is marketed with capability charts: this much stainless, that much aluminium, single pass, clean bead. Those numbers are real. But they describe a machine running in ideal conditions, on square-butt joints, with clean metal, tight fit-up and a chiller doing its job. The moment your shop adds reality, the picture changes. This is the part most sales brochures skip, and the part that decides whether the tool earns its place on your floor.

Fit-up is where the keyhole breaks down

The keyhole is a small, self-sustaining hole of vapourised metal. It stays stable only when the two edges of the joint sit close enough for it to form and for molten metal to flow in behind it. Open the gap past that point and the keyhole collapses, the beam shoots through instead of fusing, and you end up with a cold lap or a hole in the part.

This is why wire feed and wobble exist. IPG’s own product literature for the LightWELD family openly acknowledges that wobble welding is needed to accommodate wider seams and parts with poor fit-up, which is effectively the manufacturer confirming that fit-up remains a real constraint. Vendor process comparisons make the same point about TIG being difficult on copper and limited when welding metals of dissimilar thicknesses, and laser welding carries comparable demands. Fit the parts first; the machine will not save you from a bad joint.

No preheat, and a hard thickness ceiling

Laser welding systems do not provide preheat. Many alloy steels, thick carbon sections and certain stainless grades need preheat to slow cooling and control cracking, and that control has to come from a qualified arc procedure and correct electrode selection instead.

There is also a ceiling on section size. Published capability for the LightWELD family tops out at 0 gauge, roughly 0.313 in steel, which frames handheld laser welding as a sheet and light-section process rather than a heavy-fabrication one. Structural plate, pressure vessels and thick castings still belong to a qualified arc process with its own qualification tests.

Reflectivity, coatings and dirty surfaces

Mirror-polished stainless, chrome plating and some coated or plated surfaces reflect much of the beam instead of absorbing it, so you are left chasing the weld with more power. Galvanised coatings vaporise into zinc fume, and paint, oil, mill scale and cutting fluid create porosity, spatter and inclusions. Clean metal is not a nicety here, it is a requirement.

Outside, above and around the workpiece

There is no shielding enclosure, so wind and dust disturb both the keyhole and the shielding gas, and an open beam path is far harder to control and to fence off. Field repair work on farm equipment, rail or site pipe goes back to stick welding for good reasons.

Position is another one. Vertical-up and overhead welds that a TIG operator handles comfortably become awkward and tiring with a hand-held head on a heavy lead, especially on an all-position joint where the nozzle, the wire feeder and the operator’s wrist all compete for the same space.

The costs that never go away

Contact tips, nozzles, focus lenses and protective windows wear or spatter, and the chiller, shielding gas, electricity and filler wire all keep billing you. An autogenous weld on thin sheet is cheap to run. Anything involving filler wire, purge gas or frequent lens changes is a different conversation, and the per-joint consumable cost belongs in any comparison against TIG.

Code work, skill and support

Many welding codes and specifications were written around arc processes, so structural, pressure and code-critical work needs a written procedure and qualification established with your welding engineer, not a shop-floor experiment. And the easy-to-learn claim applies to standard joint configurations, not to improvised repairs on unknown metallurgy, where you still need to know what the metal is and what the failure mode will be.

None of this makes a laser welding pen a poor buy. It makes it a specific tool with a specific envelope: thin and light sections, clean metal, controlled fit-up, repeatable joints. Outside that envelope, a proven arc process with a qualified procedure is still the smarter and often cheaper answer.

Laser Welding Pen vs TIG vs MIG vs Stick vs Resistance Welding

The shop-floor question is rarely “which process is best” but “which one suits this joint”. A handheld laser welding pen is a specialist, not a universal replacement, so it has to be weighed against the processes you already run. Per TWI’s welding technology overview, laser welding, arc welding, electron beam welding, friction welding and hybrid laser-arc welding sit in separate technology areas with different application ranges.

Factor	Handheld Laser Welding Pen (Fiber)	TIG (GTAW)	MIG (GMAW)	Stick (SMAW)	Resistance / Induction Spot Welding
Heat Source	Focused fiber laser beam (~1070 nm)	Non-consumable tungsten arc	Consumable wire arc, shielding gas	Flux-coated electrode arc	Resistive heat via clamped electrodes
Typical Speed	Very fast on thin sheet (vendor claims vary)	Slow and deliberate	Moderate to fast on long seams	Moderate, limited by rod changes	Extremely fast on repetitive spot joints
Setup & Consumables	Fiber source, chiller, gas, tips/nozzles, lens/windows, optional filler wire	Torch, tungsten, filler rod, gas	Wire feeder, gun liner, contact tips, gas, wire	Electrode holder, rods, minimal gas gear	Water-cooled electrodes, tooling, spot unit
Typical Thickness Range	Sheet and light section; thin gauges are the sweet spot. IPG publishes capability in gauge and inches for steels, aluminium 3 & 5, aluminium 6, nickel alloys, titanium and copper, allowing a like-for-like check against your own material.	Very thin to thick plate with multi-pass	Thin to heavy plate, best with spray transfer	Medium to heavy plate, forgiving on rough fits	Narrow per setup; strong on thin-to-thin lap joints, weak on open butt joints
Best Materials	Stainless, mild/carbon steel, aluminium, nickel alloys, titanium, thin non-ferrous parts; strong on cosmetic stainless	Almost any weldable metal; the go-to for aerospace TIG welding and unknown alloys	Carbon/mild steel, stainless with correct wire/gas, aluminium with the right approach; see Aluminum MIG Welding: The Complete Practical Guide	Carbon and structural steels; works on rusty, dirty surfaces	Mild steel, stainless, galvanized sheet, thin conductive alloys; automotive and battery tab work
Distortion	Very low: high energy density, narrow heat input	Moderate if unmanaged, controllable by a skilled hand	Higher than laser or TIG on thin sheet as heat builds	Can be high on large multi-pass welds	Generally low on clamped thin lap joints
Operator Skill Required	Moderate for standard joints, more repeatable than TIG, but fit-up discipline and safety training still required	High; proficiency takes years	Low to moderate; easy basics, harder clean out-of-position welds	Moderate; forgiving of dirty work, less so on verticals	Low per part once fixtured, but fixturing can be complex
Fume / Spatter	Minimal spatter with tight settings, but fume remains; galvanized coatings need extraction. See NIOSH’s welding fume guidance	Very little spatter, fume varies with rod and filler	More spatter than TIG or laser, especially short circuit	Considerable spatter and slag, high fume	Very little spatter or fume in most spot work, coatings still need awareness
Capital Cost	Highest upfront for a hand-held unit, plus chiller, extraction and consumables	Lowest entry point for quality welds, but productivity cost adds up	Affordable, wide machine range	Cheapest to get started with	Varies wildly; benchtop spot units reasonable, automated lines costly
Where It Fits In A Real Shop	Tight repeat work, cosmetic stainless, thin sheet, prototyping, small batches with minimal distortion	Code-critical work, unknown metallurgy, vertical-up, thick sections, precision fabrication	Structural steel, long seams, heavy plate, general fabrication	Field repairs, outdoor work, heavy structural joints	High-volume flat lap joints: enclosures, brackets, battery tabs

The Decision Logic For Buyers

Vendor literature helps, but read it with attribution. IPG calls TIG time-consuming and two-handed, and says MIG needs consumable wire, pre-cleaning and beveled joints for full penetration in thick metals. IPG also claims LightWELD holds consistent results across more materials and thicknesses than MIG or TIG, with minimal distortion, undercut or burn-through. Those claims do hold in many thin-gauge demonstrations, but no independent factory-style speed comparison is published, so benchmark on your own coupons.

• Laser wins: thin sheet, stainless, aluminium, tight repeat work, small batches. Aluminium prep is non-negotiable, so refresh your Aluminum Cleaner for Welding: How to Prep Aluminum Right routine first.
• TIG still wins: thick sections, vertical-up, code-critical work, unknown metallurgy, heavy fabrication, often planned around an All Position Welding Rod Guide.
• MIG wins: structural steel, heavy plate, long straight seams where deposition rules.
• Stick wins: dirty field work, bad weather, heavy structural joints where gas shielding is impractical. See Advantages of Stick Welding: Why SMAW Still Wins.
• Spot welding wins: hermetic seams, battery tab work, high-volume flat parts already fixtured.

Prep Work: Laser vs Plasma/Oxy-Fuel

Weld quality starts at fit-up. Some “3-in-1” units advertise cutting, but judge their welding ability separately. Plasma is fast for structural steel and oxy-fuel still fits thick plate and field work, but edge quality matters most, because dross, heavy bevels or a jagged cut ruin the tight fit-up a keyhole needs.

Hybrid Laser-Arc Welding: The Future For Thicker Sections

For sections too thick for a hand-held laser alone, TWI classifies hybrid laser-arc welding as its own technology, combining a laser with an arc process (usually MIG or TIG) in one weld head. The laser gives deep penetration from its keyhole, the arc adds filler deposition and bridges wider gaps. Automated cells are heading this way, extending penetration without forcing a hand-held pen past its sheet-and-light-section niche.

Cost-Of-Ownership: Consumables Per Hour Matter

Sticker price is the least honest comparison. A laser welding pen adds gas, contact tips, nozzles, protective windows, focus lenses, optional filler wire, electricity, chiller power and maintenance. TIG costs tungsten, rod, gas and your own time. MIG costs wire, tips, gas and spatter cleanup. Stick costs electrodes and stubs. Resistance welding costs electrode dressings and tooling upkeep.

Add the hidden items: rework, grinding, straightening distortion, scrap and labour hours. On thin stainless or aluminium that would burn through under a careless TIG pass, less grinding alone can decide the case, provided the joint is prepped properly and run within machine capability.

In practice most fab shops run a laser welding pen alongside TIG, not instead of it. The laser takes high-volume, cosmetic, thin-gauge jobs; TIG stays for thick plate, verticals, repairs and code-critical work needing an established procedure. Choose from your job mix: if 80% of your welding is 20 to 14 gauge stainless with tight fits, a handheld laser is a massive gain, while 3/8″ plate in the field still points to stick or MIG. Benchmark both on the joint that eats most of your hours.

Safety First: Class 4 Lasers, Eyewear and Hot Work Rules

Skip this section and nothing else on the list matters. A laser welding pen puts a Class 4 beam into your hand, and that beam is invisible. You cannot see where it points or where it reflects. Most incidents are mundane: a stray reflection off a stainless table, a lifted protective window.

OSHA’s laser hazard table describes Class IV lasers as presenting an “immediate skin hazard and eye hazard from exposure to either the direct or reflected beam; may also present a fire hazard.” OSHA’s laser hazards page is worth bookmarking before you uncrate the machine. OSHA’s Technical Manual is blunter: Section III, Chapter 6 states that Class IV high-power lasers are hazardous to view under any condition, directly or diffusely reflected, which covers the ceiling, a chrome torch handle and the polished sheet you are welding. OSHA Technical Manual Section III Chapter 6

What the beam does to an eye

Fiber laser sources emit near-infrared light around 1070 nm, well outside what your eye can see. The retina cannot respond to it, so there is no blink reflex and no natural aversion. The AWS Welding Digest article on handheld laser welding safety (January 2025) says plainly that exposure to laser light can inflict severe retina and/or cornea injuries, leading to permanent eye damage. There is no “it was only a brief flash” version of this injury.

Because the beam is invisible, an operator who loses nozzle contact or sets the torch down gets no cue at all. The interlocks are doing the work your eyes would normally do.

Nominal ocular hazard distance

Laser Safety Facts notes that Class 4 visible-light lasers have output power of 500 milliwatts and above, and gives two worked examples of nominal ocular hazard distance (NOHD) at 1 mrad divergence: 740 feet (225 m) for a 1 W laser and 1,640 feet (500 m) for a 5 W laser.

The same source calls its hazard distances general guidance only: a knowledgeable, trained Laser Safety Officer must measure the actual laser and follow ANSI Z136 to determine the real NOHD. Budget time and money for a proper assessment.

Eyewear: what actually protects you

Protective eyewear must match the laser’s wavelength and the optical density your source needs. Three points from Laser Safety Facts and the Texas Department of Insurance laser safety guidance catch out a lot of people:

• Sunglasses are not laser protective eyewear. Not tested against a laser, not wavelength-rated, no optical density guarantee. “My glasses are dark” is not a control.
• Do not black out the beam path entirely. The operator still needs to see where the beam is. Eyewear that blackens the work area gets lifted or left on the bench.
• An auto-darkening welding helmet does not cover this. Those filters are built for arc radiation and visible light and will not attenuate a Class 4 infrared beam. You still need wavelength-appropriate laser safety glasses.

Choose eyewear rated for the wavelength band and power of your source, with an optical density your Laser Safety Officer signs off on.

The safety programme around the machine

Eyewear is one part of it. A defensible programme includes a documented Laser Safety Officer, trained and authorised operators, a controlled area with signage, a key switch, an emergency stop, beam path control away from reflective surfaces, and restricted access for unfamiliar users.

Quality machines carry the hardware. IPG lists operator safety features including key switch control, an emergency stop button, a safety interlock on laser delivery to the welding gun, a two-step torch trigger, firing only while the nozzle contacts the part, laser power shutdown if no welding plume is detected, and door switch interlock circuits. Verify these on the unit you are buying, not just the model family.

Hot work rules still apply

Laser welding is not exempt from hot work regulation. OSHA 1910.252 applies in full:

• Fire watchers and clearance. 1910.252(a)(2)(iii)(A) requires fire watchers when appreciable combustible material is within 35 feet (10.7 m) of the point of operation, and (a)(2)(iii)(B) requires a fire watch for at least half an hour after welding or cutting ends.
• Authorization and permits. 1910.252(a)(2)(iv) requires the area to be inspected and precautions designated before cutting or welding is permitted, preferably as a written permit.
• Ventilation. 1910.252(c)(1)(iii) requires local exhaust or general ventilation to keep toxic fumes, gases and dust below the maximum allowable concentration, and (c)(1)(iv) requires filler metals and fluxes to be covered by the hazard communication programme.

Laser welding still produces fume, and it produces it fast. Galvanised steel is the sharpest edge: the zinc coating vaporises into zinc fume, which causes metal fume fever. NIOSH’s welding fume information notes that welding fumes are composed of metals and most contain a small percentage of manganese. On galvanised material, aluminium or coated stock, local exhaust is not optional. Our guide to prepping aluminium properly covers surface prep; the same discipline applies to galvanised and mild steel.

If you suspect an exposure

Write this into your shop’s procedures before the machine arrives, not after the first near miss. Get the Laser Safety Officer named, the eyewear fitted, the extraction measured, the permits written, and the interlocks tested. Everything else in this guide assumes you did that first.

Common Mistakes and How to Troubleshoot Them

Most laser welding faults are not mysteries. They are the same few setup errors, and they arrive in a predictable order: bad fit-up, dirty metal, wrong gas flow, wrong parameters. Read the symptom before you touch the machine.

Symptom	Likely Cause	What To Do
Gap not closing, ragged bead	Gap wider than the keyhole can bridge	Re-fit, clamp, add wobble or wire feed
Porosity, spatter, black specks	Oil, cutting fluid, rust, paint, scale, galvanising	Clean faces back to bright metal
Dull, oxidised or sooty bead	Gas flow too low, air in the joint	Set flow to the maker’s range
Wandering bead, pop or sputter	Gas flow too high	Drop flow to mid-band
Burn-through, cratered surface	Too much power for the thickness	Lower power, slow slightly, re-check focus
Cold lap, no penetration	Too little power, travel too fast	Raise power or slow down
Undercut, ripples, dragged bead	Travel speed too fast for the fill	Slow down, re-check power
Wide heat-soaked bead, distortion	Travel too slow, excess heat	Speed up, trim heat input
Stacked rippled bead, poor wire entry	Wire feed too fast, wire too thick	Reduce feed, match wire to gap
Wire feeds erratically or not at all	Loose liner, worn rollers, tangled spool	Re-tension liner, clean rollers, check spool
Dark crust or dross on aluminium	Oxide film, contaminated gas	Degrease, abrade oxide, check gas
Heavy spatter, yellow-brown fume	Zinc vaporising in the keyhole	Grind coating back, shield and extract
Quality drifting over a shift	Spatter on nozzle, dirty lens	Clean lens, replace nozzle and tip
Machine will not fire	Nozzle off part, interlock open, gas fault, key off	Work the checks below in order
Results vary job to job	No proven preset in use	Recall recipe, change one thing

The machine will not fire: work the checklist in order

When a hand-held gun will not fire, do not start adjusting settings. Work the safety and mechanical checks first, because those cause most no-fire cases.

1. Contact tip not touching the work. Most hand-held systems only fire while the nozzle is in contact with the part.
2. An interlock is open. Doors, shielding enclosures and fume extraction can all be interlocked. Read the display instead of guessing.
3. Gas flow fault. A flow switch stops the machine when shielding gas is missing. Check cylinder, regulator and hose for kinks.
4. Key switch off or wrong start mode. The source key switch must be in run, and pedal, trigger and two-step modes all behave differently.
5. No plume detected. IPG lists a safety feature that cuts laser power when no welding plume is detected, stopping the beam firing at a missing or wrongly angled workpiece. Reposition on the joint and try again.

Contamination changes absorption, not just cleanliness

Oil, cutting fluid, rust, paint, mill scale and galvanised coating cause porosity, spatter and inclusions, but contamination also changes absorption. Clean steel reflects part of the beam while oxide absorbs more, so yesterday’s power setting can now overheat the surface. A result drifting mid-shift usually traces back to the joint, not the machine.

Prep is quick with the right tool: an abrasive or wire wheel handles most scale and rust, and a laser cleaner is faster on stubborn stainless or aluminium oxide and leaves no residue. IPG includes pre-weld and post-weld laser cleaning on its LightWELD handheld systems, and our guide to prepping aluminium properly before welding covers oxide removal in more detail.

Change one parameter at a time

Change one thing, then write down what changed. Adjust power, then travel speed, then gas flow, and nothing can be attributed.

Vendor preset libraries exist for that reason: IPG advertises 100 welding and cleaning presets on the LightWELD range, each a proven mix of power, speed, wobble, gas and wire feed. Travel speed is most often wrong in both directions. Too slow builds a wide, heat-soaked bead that distorts the part and risks edge undercut. Too fast and the pool cannot fill, giving ripples, undercut and lack of fusion. Too much power burns thin sheet through, too little leaves a cold lap that fails under load. Re-check focus after changing the contact tip or nozzle, because focal position moves with the consumable.

Wire feed problems

Wire feed adds a second process to control. Diameter must suit the gap and feed speed must match travel speed. Feed too fast and the wire enters the pool faster than it melts, giving a badly stacked, rippled bead with poor entry. Feed too slow and you get a cold, sluggish bead. A loose liner lets the wire wander, and a wire that wanders misses the keyhole. On aluminium, wire alloy, diameter and gas purity all matter, as the practical guide to aluminium MIG welding explains.

Galvanised steel and fume

Welding galvanised steel vaporises the zinc coating, giving heavy spatter and toxic zinc fume. Grind the coating back from the joint, or use shielding appropriate to the job, and run extraction. The fume matters more than the spatter. Check the NIOSH welding resources and the NIOSH Pocket Guide entry for welding fumes when choosing local exhaust ventilation. Hot work also stays under the usual fire rules, including OSHA 1910.252, which requires movable fire hazards to be moved or confined with guards before welding proceeds.

Contaminated optics and worn nozzles

Spatter-damaged nozzles and contaminated focus lenses are leading causes of inconsistent welds and a common reason warranty claims get disputed. As spatter builds, nozzle shape changes, standoff shifts and bead width changes. A spattered lens scatters the beam and quietly cuts delivered energy. Inspect and clean both with the approved method, and replace the nozzle once its shape has gone.

Choosing and Buying Your First Laser Welding Pen

Sales pages show clean beads on neat coupons, not whether the source is serviceable in your country or how your fit-up tolerance survives parts that arrive out of shape.

Start with the laser source

• Fiber (around 1070 nm): the right answer for metal. Steels, stainless, aluminium and nickel alloys absorb it efficiently, which is why serious handheld welding products are fiber-based.
• CO2 (10.6 micrometre): poorly absorbed by many metals and largely displaced here. If a seller leads with CO2 for welding, walk away: it is a cutting technology, not a welding process.
• Diode “3-in-1” units: cheap multi-function tools are diode machines built for cleaning and light cutting. Their welding function is a marketing add-on with little published data. Treat them as laser cleaners with a bonus feature.

IPG’s published LightWELD range shows what a properly specified product looks like: 1000 W, 1500 W and 2000 W laser power, air cooling, 220 V supply with labeled rear connections, a single cable carrying laser power, gas and gun control, an optional cleaning width of up to 0.600 inches, and wire welding support on all three models. Claims that specific are worth asking a dealer to demonstrate.

Power, cooling, wire feed and wobble

More power buys thicker material and margin, not a better bead on thin sheet. On 2 mm stainless, a high-wattage machine behaves like an overpowered torch: wide bead, burn-through risk, extra distortion. Ask what your thinnest material is, your thickest, and weekly volume: mostly 1 to 3 mm sheet, a mid-range source is plenty; occasional 6 to 10 mm work justifies higher power plus a wire feeder, where autogenous welding stops being the answer.

Cooling. Air-cooled units are simpler, lighter and portable, but a 1000 W air-cooled source on continuous shifts will run hot, and thermal management becomes your limiting factor. Water cooling suits production and cobot cells; intermittent job-shop work is fine on air.

Wire feeder. Decide early, because it changes the machine. Autogenous-only units are fast and simple on clean, tightly fitted joints; wire feed becomes essential the moment you bridge a gap, join dissimilar metals or build material up.

Wobble. The oscillating or circular travel that widens the pool and bridges gaps is among the most valuable and most undersold features on these machines. If parts arrive with gaps, a wobble head buys tolerance you would otherwise pay for in clamping and scrap.

Cleaning versus welding focus

Laser cleaning strips paint, rust, oil and mill scale far faster than grinding or chemical methods, and it changes weld results because clean metal absorbs energy differently from contaminated metal. On aluminium, prep is the difference between a sound weld and dross; our guides to prepping aluminium for welding and aluminium MIG welding cover the same logic for arc work. Cutting is only a bonus: on a welding-focused machine the parameters, presets and application support are better developed. Buy cleaning because it helps your welding.

Safety you can verify at a demo

Ask to see, not to be told. IPG’s published operator safety features are concrete items to confirm on the machine in front of you: key switch control, emergency stop, a safety interlock verifying laser delivery integrity, a two-step trigger, firing only when the nozzle contacts the part, power cutoff if no welding plume is detected, and door-switch interlocks. The plume cutoff and the two-step trigger turn a Class 4 beam into a managed hazard.

Service, consumables and electrical reality

A cheap machine with no local service and no replaceable tips is a false economy. Before committing, find out who services the source in your country and how long turnaround takes; whether contact tips, nozzles, focus lenses and protective windows are stocked locally; and what consumables cost per hour of welding. Verify your circuit can carry the source and, on a water-cooled variant, the chiller load. Plan fume extraction: a laser welder still makes fume and will not extract it for you.

Capacity claims, new versus used

Any capacity figure is meaningless without its conditions: single or multiple pass, square butt or lap, material, gauge, gap tolerance, shielding gas and flow rate, fixturing. Published thickness tables from a manufacturer such as IPG’s LightWELD specifications are a vendor claim, not an independent test. Ask for a demonstration on your own material, in your own thickness. If the seller declines, treat the numbers as marketing.

Used can be good value, but verify source hours, whether the source is diode-pumped and serviceable, and whether the machine has run production loads or merely idled. A unit sitting unused for years may have degraded consumables, seized cooling pumps and stale calibration. Ask for video of it running before you travel.

Questions to ask the seller

1. Which materials and thicknesses have you welded on a paid job?
2. Is the source field-serviceable, and what is the lead time?
3. What is in the box: wire feeder, chiller, fume extraction interface, gas regulator?
4. What do the presets cover, and can I save my own?
5. Who trains me, and is that included?
6. Does the warranty cover source, head and chiller separately?

Timing and return on investment

Do not buy in a hurry. Allow a few weeks for demonstrations, quotations and real numbers from your own jobs. For the return check, take your current arc-on time per joint, multiply by your labour rate, and compare it against expected laser time plus setup and fixturing, then add the rework, grinding and straightening you avoid. If it only pays for itself at volumes you do not have, wait.

Buy on your material mix and job volume, not on the demo. Get a hands-on trial, a written procedure, a safety programme in place and a clear consumable supply line before spending. The guide to alpha laser welding systems and safety is worth reading alongside this one if you are still comparing process families.

Your First Week With a Laser Welding Pen — and Where to Go Next

A laser welding pen is easy to switch on and surprisingly hard to run well in a busy shop. The gap between those two things is where most of the money quietly disappears: inconsistent beads, rushed parameters, and a machine that ends up gathering dust beside the TIG set. A deliberate first week is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy with this tool.

A Seven-Day Onboarding Plan

Day	Focus	What you cover
1	Safety before sparks	Laser safety orientation, eyewear fitting, ventilation check and a hot work permit walk-through. Do not energise the source yet.
2	Machine familiarisation	Layout and controls, wire loading, gas connection, nozzle and contact tip, the preset library, and every safety interlock including the key switch and emergency stop.
3	Scrap coupons	Butt joints in mild steel, stainless and aluminium. Compare autogenous with wire fed. Tune power and travel speed on offcuts, not on customer parts.
4	Fit-up and gap control	Clamping, gap control, wobble patterns, and matching wire feed speed to travel speed. Most ugly first welds are fit-up faults, not power faults.
5	Live work, supervised	Real jobs with an experienced operator watching. Weld the same joint by TIG and compare time, bead profile and distortion side by side.
6-7	Measure and document	Log cycle time, consumables, rework and finishing time. Turn what you learn into standard work and a written procedure.

Get the Safety Programme Right on Day One

OSHA’s laser hazards resources are the right starting point for a written programme, covering hazard classification, control measures, warning signs and safety programme structure. Build yours from those rather than from memory.

Ventilation is the piece shops skip. Under OSHA 1910.252, ventilation is a prerequisite to work in confined spaces, and 1910.252(c)(1)(iii) requires ventilation to keep fumes below maximum allowable concentrations. Judge your extraction against the NIOSH recommended limits for manganese of 1 mg/m³ as an eight-hour TWA and 3 mg/m³ short-term, alongside the OSHA permissible limit of 5 mg/m³ ceiling, using the NIOSH welding fume guidance. Measure it. A hood hanging over the bench is not extraction.

Then walk through fire watch rules properly. OSHA 1910.252(a)(2)(iii)(B) requires a fire watch to be maintained for at least half an hour after welding or cutting is completed, to detect and extinguish smoldering fires. A laser can ignite dust, insulation and backing board just as readily as an arc.

The Numbers Worth Tracking

• Beam-on time per joint, compared against the same joint welded by TIG.
• Wire and gas consumption per joint, in metres and litres or cubic feet.
• Rework and scrap rate, tracked by job rather than by feeling.
• Bead consistency across operators: width, penetration, undercut, spatter.
• Time spent grinding and finishing, which is often where the real saving hides.
• Tip and nozzle consumption, a leading indicator of technique problems.

The Honest Bottom Line

Laser welding pens are a genuinely useful tool for thin-gauge and light-section work. They lower the skill barrier for standard joint configurations, they produce narrow, low-distortion beads on stainless and aluminium, and they put small batches and one-off prototypes back in-house. They also bring serious hazards, real capital cost, and a learning curve that has less to do with welding and more to do with fit-up, surface condition and parameter discipline. Buy one when your material mix and job volume justify it, not because the demo videos look impressive.

Before You Commit

• Ask for a hands-on demonstration on your material and gauge, not the vendor’s stock.
• Request a written procedure. If they will not give you one, that is your answer.
• Bring in a welding engineer for code-critical or pressure work.
• Build the safety programme first, then the production schedule.
• Plan for surface preparation. Clean metal changes everything, and prepping aluminium properly is a good habits lesson for the whole shop.
• Read up on the equipment side with our laser welding systems and safety guide, and revisit electrode selection, use and PPE before comparing arc consumables. For the process you will benchmark against, our TIG welding training guide covers the technique in detail.

Some handheld laser systems now combine welding and laser cleaning in one chassis, with the stated aim of improving weld quality and productivity through pre- and post-weld cleaning. A future piece on handheld laser cutting and laser cleaning will pick that thread up.

The best first week you can give yourself is the one where the safety programme, the ventilation numbers and the parameter log all end up written down. Do that, and the machine earns its place on the shop floor.

Next up, in the FAQ below: the questions shops ask most often about laser welding pens, from realistic price expectations to the honest limits of handheld systems.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are laser welding pens safe to use in a small workshop or home garage?

Not without a deliberate safety setup. Handheld laser welding systems are industrial Class 4 lasers, and OSHA states Class IV equipment presents an immediate skin and eye hazard from direct or reflected beams. At minimum you need wavelength-appropriate laser safety eyewear, a trained operator, controlled beam paths away from reflective surfaces, fume extraction, and a hot work procedure that satisfies OSHA 1910.252. Many entry-level units are marketed as ‘safe for home use’; treat that as a marketing line, not an engineering specification.

Do laser welding pens need filler wire?

Not always. Autogenous welding — no filler — is the default for tight, clean, well-fitted joints, which is why the process can be so fast. You will want integrated wire feed for wider gaps, dissimilar metals, thinner gauges and any joint where you need to add material. Most modern hand-held systems ship with a wire feeder as an accessory, and IPG’s published specifications confirm wire welding on all three of its LightWELD models.

Can a laser welding pen weld aluminium?

Yes, and it is one of the strongest cases for the technology because TIG struggles with aluminium’s thermal conductivity and oxide film. IPG publishes aluminium 3 & 5 capability from up to 8 gauge (0.129 in) on the 1000 W model to up to 0 gauge (0.325 in) on the 2000 XR. Expect to spend more time on surface preparation and gas purity than you do on steel, because a contaminated surface produces dross and porosity.

How thick of metal can a handheld laser welder handle?

Think sheet and light sections rather than plate. IPG’s published capability for its LightWELD range runs from up to 9 gauge (0.156 in) steel on the 1000 W model to up to 0 gauge (0.313 in) on the 2000 XR. Those figures assume square-butt joints with good fit-up and a single pass, so gaps, angle, thickness mismatch and dirty metal all reduce what you will actually achieve.

Is a laser welder as strong as a TIG weld?

A properly parameterised laser weld in the right material is metallographically excellent, with a small heat-affected zone and high consistency. The real difference is not strength but control: TIG gives the welder continuous, visible heat control, while a laser welder relies on preset parameters and good fit-up. For code-critical or pressure work, qualification of the specific procedure matters more than the process name.

Do I need an auto-darkening welding helmet with a laser welder?

You need both, because they protect against different hazards. A welding helmet is rated for arc radiation and visible infrared/ultraviolet from a welding arc; laser safety glasses are rated for the specific wavelength and optical density of a Class 4 laser. Laser Safety Facts is explicit that ordinary sunglasses are not laser protective eyewear, and that eyewear should not block the beam path entirely, because you still need to see where the beam is going.

Are the cheap handheld laser welders worth buying for a hobby shop?

Only if your work is thin-gauge and consistent, and you are disciplined about safety and parameters. The riskiest purchases are units that advertise ‘3-in-1 welding, cutting and cleaning’ with a low-power diode source; the cutting and cleaning functions can be genuinely good while the welding performance is mediocre. Check whether the vendor publishes realistic capability numbers for your material and gauge, whether safety interlocks are present, and whether consumables and service are available where you live.

Does laser welding produce dangerous fumes?

Yes. Laser welding still vaporises metal, so OSHA’s welding standard still requires ventilation to keep fumes, gases and dust below maximum allowable concentrations, and filler metals and coatings must be covered by the hazard communication programme. NIOSH notes that welding fumes are composed of metals, that most contain a small percentage of manganese, and that confined-space welding significantly increases exposure. Galvanised coatings and aluminium are particularly fume-prone.

Do I need a Laser Safety Officer for a handheld laser welder?

On the OSHA model, yes for anything serious. Laser Safety Facts states its hazard distances are general guidance only and that a knowledgeable, trained Laser Safety Officer must measure the actual laser and determine the nominal ocular hazard distance, following ANSI Z136. For a small shop this can be handled by bringing in a qualified consultant for a site assessment and a written safety programme, rather than trying to work from a marketing brochure.

Can a laser welding pen cut metal too?

Many hand-held systems include a cutting and cleaning function, and pre- and post-weld laser cleaning genuinely improves weld quality by removing oil, oxide and mill scale. IPG publishes a cleaning width of up to 0.600 inches for its LightWELD range. Cutting capacity is a separate matter from welding capacity, so evaluate the two functions independently rather than assuming a good cutter is a good welder.