US Patent 6906284 Arc welding method

The present invention relates to an arc welding method in which generation of spatters can be suppressed while the use quantity of gas to be supplied to a welding portion can be decreased. A welding wire 8 is brought into contact with a work W while applying a voltage between the welding wire 8 and the work W, so that the end of the welding wire 8 is caused to be fixingly welded to the work W. At this time, an electric resistance between the welding wire 8 and the work W is continuously obtained during the contact between the welding wire 8 and the work W, and thus, a minimum of the electric resistance is detected. When the current is temporarily reduced after the detection of the minimum of the electric resistance, the tip of the welding wire 8 hardly bursts, thus suppressing the expelling of molten particles, which may cause spatters, from the welding wire 8. The minimum value is also used for the torch-to-workpiece distance control.