Finding skilled TIG welders is getting harder every year. Training takes months. Labour costs keep climbing.
Handheld laser welding changes the math: 4x faster than TIG, training measured in days not months, and weld quality that does not depend on years of hand skill. The air-cooled handheld head weighs roughly 0.58 kg in the hand, lighter than most TIG torches.
One experienced fabricator with a laser welder can match the output of several TIG stations, freeing your skilled welders for the complex work that actually requires their expertise.
Most operators become productive with a handheld laser welder within 2 to 5 days. TIG welding typically requires 3 to 6 months of practice before producing consistent, inspection-quality welds. That gap is why a handheld laser system can run on operator-level wages rather than competing for a qualified TIG labour pool that is not growing. The full ramp, and what still has to be taught, is in our guide to how long it takes to train a laser welding operator; the welder-shortage math behind the training gap is its own article.
Laser welding produces a narrow, deep weld with minimal heat input: near-zero warp on thin sheet, less discolouration, and clean welds that skip post-weld finishing on most jobs. Results stay consistent across operators. Vantix 4-in-1 systems combine welding, cleaning, light cutting, and seam cleaning in one platform.
TIG remains the right choice for exotic alloys like Inconel and titanium where laser parameters are not yet standard. Extremely tight access joints in complex assemblies may favour TIG's torch geometry. For one-off artistic or architectural work where the welder's eye and hand are the quality control, TIG has an aesthetic edge.
Three more cases where we will tell you to keep your TIG rigs:
The most common question we hear from certified shops: what happens to our W47.1 certification if we add a laser welder? The short, honest version: certification attaches to your shop, your welding supervisors, and your qualified procedures, not to any machine. Buying a laser welder neither breaks nor extends it. Adding a new welding process does create a procedure-qualification obligation with CWB before you rely on it for code-governed work, and laser welding is newer to that framework than the arc processes. Nobody selling machines can promise you an approval, including us.
We wrote the full buyer's walkthrough, including the questions to take into your call with CWB: how laser welding fits a CWB-certified shop.
See it weld your material at our Lumby, BC showroom.
No obligation. No pressure.
If you are working through a laser welding decision, these go further on the specifics:
