"No one"?
"All"?
Absolutism is the first alert to fallacy.
Let's take a look at some Welding Machine Manufacturing Reality...
Most of my welding machines were manufactured by Lincoln Electric, in the USA, but my machines are all 20 years old or older, so in order to be fair to the question today in 2020..
View attachment 1016
Does Lincoln Electric still have manufacturing facilities in the United States? Check. Yup. Looks like they do.
From the 2019 Lincoln Electric Annual Report:
ITEM 2. PROPERTIES
The Company's corporate headquarters and principal United States manufacturing facilities are located in the Cleveland, Ohio area. Total Cleveland area property consists of 244 acres, of which present manufacturing facilities comprise an area of approximately 3,017,090 square feet.
All properties relating to the Company's Cleveland, Ohio headquarters and manufacturing facilities are owned by the Company. The Company believes that its existing properties are in good condition and are suitable for the conduct of its business.
The Company has 59 manufacturing facilities, (including operations and joint ventures in 18 countries), the significant locations of which are as follows:
United States:
Cleveland, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Coldwater, Ohio (Coldwater Machine Company)
Fort Loramie, Ohio
Mason, Ohio (Harris)
Mentor, Ohio
San Diego, California
Anaheim, California
Reno, Nevada
Ladson, South Carolina
Winston-Salem, North Carolina (Harris Products) (Worthington Industries)
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Detroit, Michigan (Baker Industries)
FortCollins, Colorado
Bettendorf, Iowa
Churubusco, Indiana
Gainesville, Georgia (Harris)
Facilities are great... but is anything going on inside theses millions of square feet of manufacturing space in America?
View attachment 1017
View attachment 1018
Yep. Looks like the lights are still on, and Lincoln is seeking to fill several manufacturing jobs employing American workers today, despite the Stay At Home shut downs of the COVID-19 Pandemic, and now the civil unrest.
So what is Lincoln Electric so busy manufacturing with all these USA employees and manufacturing facilities, and who are they selling the stuff to?
LINCOLN ELECTRIC HOLDINGS, INC.
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm
NOTE 6 - SEGMENT INFORMATION
Pages F-18, F-22
The Company's primary business is the design, development and manufacture of arc welding products, automated joining, assembly and cutting systems, plasma and oxy-fuel cutting equipment.
The Company also has a leading global position in brazing and soldering alloys.The Company's products include arc welding power sources, plasma cutters, wire feeding systems, robotic welding packages, integrated automation systems, fume extraction equipment, consumable electrodes, fluxes and welding accessories and specialty welding consumables and fabrication.
The Company's product offering also includes CNC plasma and oxy-fuel cutting systems and regulators and torches used in oxy-fuel welding, cutting and brazing.
The Company has aligned its organizational and leadership structure into three operating segments to support growth strategies and enhance the utilization of the Company's worldwide resources and global sourcing initiatives. The operating segments consist of Americas Welding, International Welding and The Harris Products Group.
The Americas Welding segment includes welding operations in North and South America. The International Welding segment includes welding operations in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. The Harris Products Group includes the Company's global cutting, soldering and brazing businesses as well as its retail business in the United States.
Export sales (excluding inter-company sales) from the United States were $147,145,000 in 2019, $160,064,000 in 2018 and $151,630,000 in 2017. No individual customer comprised more than 10% of the Company's total revenues for any of the three years ended December 31, 2019.
If the independent registered public accounting firm's attestation to the Securities and Exchange Commission is to be believed, then it looks like Lincoln Electric manufactured and
exported $150 million dollars worth of welding stuff
from the United States last year. So clearly
someone is manufacturing welding stuff in the United States. Which is more than "no one."
And I think it is cool that
@RenoHuskerDu wants to buy a new welder made in the United States, employing USA workers, built by a company originating and still headquartered in the United States, that has been in business in the United States for 125 years.
Now the argument is sure to arise... are Lincoln welding machines actually MADE in the USA, or just ASSEMBLED in the USA with Chinese parts. Like Miller. And that's a fair question. Let's strike that arc.
At the Cleveland manufacturing facility, Lincoln Electric does everything from designing, soldering, and potting the PC boards to bending and forming the sheet metal that serves as the chassis and covers to the machines that Lincoln builds there. In fact, the last customer service rep at Lincoln I spoke to over the phone used to be bend brake operator on Lincoln's manufacturing plant floor. He tells me that Lincoln imports only 1 PC board from China, and that is a board for the price competitive entry level Lincoln Squarewave 200 tig machine, the rest of which is Made in Mexico.
However, all of the Precision Tig series of professional transformer Tig welders are made in the USA, along with all of the Power Wave series, the Aspect inverter series, the engine driven Ranger series, as well as the top of the line Vantage series. This includes the circuit boards to these products.
The Power Mig 350MP, also Made in the USA, is not only a pulse mig machine, but also has proprietary "pulse on pulse" waveforms, as well as push pull gun capabilities. Furthermore, the Powermig 350 MP can serve as a stick welder, since it is both a constant current and constant voltage power supply. The arc characteristics of this machine as a stick welder can change from soft and buttery to crisp and digging. In addition to Mig, Pulsed Mig, Push Pull Mig, and Stick welding, the PM350MP can also be set up as Tig welder. All in the same machine. (Hence the MP designation, for "Multi Process").
There is a successor to the Power Mig 350MP, that Lincoln calls the Powermig 360MP. The 360 has all of the features and capabilities of the 350 it supersedes, and adds several more operator interaction features like a 7" touch screen, and a memory for previous procedure settings. However, unlike the 350, which is made in the USA, the newer 360 is now made in Mexico, along with every other PowerMig machine that Lincoln currently manufactures.
So while
@Yomax4 may have thought, while reading up to this point, that this entire post was in refutation to his claim, in fact, what he says is partly true for smaller entry level MIG machines. It was just not absolutely true. The majority of small wire feeders are made in countries other than the United States. And all of Lincoln Electric's smaller mig machines are now made in Mexico, with the exception of the Power Mig 350 MP (I have this welding machine). Again, the larger industrial Mig set ups, like the Power Waves, and the family of wire drive feeders that are separate from the power supplies, are Made in the USA. But not the smaller migs with the power supply + wire feeder in the same cabinet (except the PM300 and PM350MP).
And to complete the discussion of country of origin for Lincoln welding machines, the Invertec series are made in Italy, and the round top engine drives, such as the Classic and SAE series, are made in Canada. Still, Lincoln Electric keeps the manufacturing of its flagship welding machines, like the Vantage, the Ranger, the Aspect, the PowerWave, the Precision Tig, etc... close to the vest, on the corporate headquarters campus, in Cleveland, Ohio.
And it looks like they're hiring!
