by the wire electrode 16 or from some other source it bears noting that a wide array of wire electrodes 16 may be used in the exemplary system 10 in full accordance with the present techniques for instance the wire electrode 16 may comprise any of a variety of suitable metals such as aluminum stainless steel nickel or iron for instance additionally in some embodiments the wire electrode 16 may be a solid wire or a cored wire including a flux cored or gasless wire electrode as will be further appreciated various welding electrodes 16 may also have different widths or diameters than one another such as diameters of 0 024 inches 0 030 inches and 0 035 inches to name but a few indeed as discussed in greater detail below the drive system 14 may be configured to advance a variety of wire electrodes 16 that may differ in size and or composition to shield the weld area from contaminants during welding to enhance arc performance and to improve the resulting weld a shielding material 36 may be provided from a cylinder 38 to the welding torch 18 via the supply cable 26 in one embodiment the shielding material 36 is an inert gas it should be noted however that a wide variety of shielding materials may be utilized in addition to or in place of an inert gas including active gases various other fluids and particulate solids it will also be appreciated that other embodiments such as those employing gasless wire electrodes may not greatly benefit from a shielding material 36 and accordingly may or may not include the cylinder 38 the shielding material 36 may enter an outlet.