ESAB founding from muddy-electrode discovery (Gothenburg ~1910)

Origin story for mineral-coated electrodes. Welder in Gothenburg dipped bar electrode in mud, found mineral coating excluded atmospheric nitrogen and eliminated porosity. Became basis of ESAB, now one of the world's largest welding companies. Also: contemporary discovery of cellulosic coatings from paper-wrapped electrodes.

The cellulosic electrode came from wrapping paper around an electrode in 1910, and they found, oh, they got rid of the nitrogen porosity in the steel. They didn't know it was nitrogen porosity, but that's what happened. By burning paper and creating an H2-monatomic-hydrogen-CO2 plasma, they excluded all the nitrogen in the air, and they got a good weld. A guy in Gothenburg, Sweden, found that sticking his bar electrode in the mud at about 1910 and welding with a muddy electrode excluded all the porosity that came from welding in the air, in terms of the nitrogen in the air causing porosity. I go through this in my fusion welding class in a little more detail. But that in Gothenburg, Sweden, became the beginning of what's now known as the ESAB company, which is one of the world's largest welding companies. They learned to use muddy electrodes. They were basically using minerals from the mud, but they had a lot of moisture.