Glossary
Welding Machine Operator Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential welding machine operator terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key welding machine operator vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in welding machine operator training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Contact tip
- Wire guide.
- Destructive test
- Breaking welds to check.
- First article
- First part checked before a run.
- Fixture
- Holds parts.
- Lockout/tagout
- Energy isolation before servicing.
- Porosity
- Gas holes in welds.
- PPE
- Personal protective equipment.
- Robotic welding
- Welding by robot.
- Scrap
- Parts that fail inspection.
- SOP
- Standard operating procedure.
- Spatter
- Weld splatter.
- Spot welding
- Joining with electric spots.
- Teach pendant
- Robot controller.
- Tip dressing
- Cleaning spot weld tips.
- Wire feed speed
- Wire rate.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Welding Machine Operator practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Welding Machine Operator training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.