The activation rate on my hood ia 1/20,000 fo a second. I don't think you will get burnt, or atleast it will take more than 50 arc strikes before you do. Also the light state on my hood is enough to protect from the arc I think it is shade 3 or shade 5. I think many writers will bear on the side of cautious with regard to equipment they do not totally understand. I would rather see someone who does tacks all day long using an auto as to not using one at all which will happen if they can't use an auto, all the head nodding all day will give you a real pain in the NECK!!!

Peace,
pjseaman

Hey Frank!

Welcome to the forum!

I don’t know of any good specific literature on exactly what your doing (maybe somebody else can help with that cause I would like some too) but do have a few tips that might be handy for you.

Here are some basics, in order of importance

Surface prep must be perfect, all oxides removed immediately before you weld, mechanical or etched, inside and out. Your root won't break down if there is a thick oxide layer or if any contaminant is present.

Fitup, the thinner the tube the tighter the fitup must be, no gaps!

Torch position. Keep the torch perpendicular to the work at all times, just a slight tilt will change the consistancy of your penetration profile. If you can fixture your part in a rotating positioner you could weld the whole thing out in the flat position in a single pass. Multiple arc strikes breed discontinuities.

Tip prep. I like 1/16 cerium and zirconium electrodes for jobs like yours. Forget the balled end and sharpen your tungsten not with a long slim taper but rather with a more radical angle with just a little blunt at the end. This will produce a more columnar arc and more directional penetration.

Balance control. If your powersource is a squarewave than I would start at about 65 to 70% dwell time on EN and see how that looks. More time on EN will provide deeper penetration and a more narrow profile, however be careful as too much EN may reduce the cleaning action required to get a nice fuse at the toes and root.


Aluminum likes to be welded hot and fast, with a manual project this can only be accomplished with some practice. If you have scrap put it to good use :)

If the cylinder is mounted/braced against a work table that is used for welding, make sure to isolate the bottle from the table with a heavy duty piece of rubber. Some welders toss their stinger or tig rig when finished with whatever they are welding on. If it strikes a gas bottle that isn't isolated from the table (ie - an electric path exists through the bottle into the table), it may arc on the bottle. It may cause an explosion.

Charles Hall

contacting the nlrb is the right way to go. That is what they are there for and they will walk you through the process. I must tell you though, when I used to work for att universal card, me and a co-worker organized a union run for the 1,800 employees. After about a year it went about as far as it could get; we got to the point were the employees got to vote. If they voted for the union the company would not have been able to stop it. Unfortunately we lost the vote. The company spent hundreds of thousands on a non union campaign. Their whole OFFICIAL approach was "Why would you want someone getting in between you and your supervisor?" I never did understand this whole idea, seeing that I would picture that as a good situation. UNOFICIALLY they threatened that if the union was a go they would just close the site, and everyone would loose their jobs. They had high dollar speakers come in and give speaches about all the bad things that a union would bring, like strikes and lay offs. People had been there for many years, and although they were unhappy with the current situation, they took those fears that the company implanted to heart. It was an ugly mob like battle. I was threatend, suspended, fired, then suspended again once they took me back. The NLRB held my hand the whole way, and got me back to work with lost wages every time I was suspended or fired. At times I did not know who to trust. It was like a made for TV movie. The company had informants, including some of the guys who were my biggest supporters. They manipulated the system in several different ways to attempt to get me fired. They even had people testify that i had broke the advertisement rules even though I had not.

If you decide to go through with this, you must talk to the NLRB first... before talking to anyone. There are very specific laws about when you can advertise such a run. there are also specific laws about how you can advertise. If you break any of the rules, even once, that company will throw you out on your ass quicker than you will believe, and the NLRB won't be able to help you.

This is in no way, shape, or form trying to discourage you. A union in my opinion is the only way to go. I am just trying to give you very basic knowledge about what you are getting into, and relay the message that there are rules... and they must be followed.

I will not go into the benifits of a union in this post... I would not do the unions justice. Do some research. There is more info out there on unions than you can read in a lifetime. Make sure you read history, and more importantly current info. Unions today are very different from unions in the past (In my opinion this is a good thing.) If you talk to older family members, you will sometimes hear horror stories about union work... I am sure some of those stories are true. Like I said, unions today are different than they were in the past, so do the research for yourself.

Remeber as a worker in the United States, you and your coworkers have the right to organize, and seek union representation. Nobody can take that from you.

Mike

mcavana "Just stick it in there"

Hello Chet!

For all you "youngsters" out there, two words: "Glucosamine & Chondrotin"... This stuff really works!!! It takes a little bit (2 to 4 wks) of time for you to start feeling the difference but, if it was'nt for this stuff, I'd reallly be in heap of pain, not to mention, probably hooked on vicodin or some other pain reliever just to get around!!!
Seriously!!! Please do'nt wait until you ca'nt stand the pain any longer!!!
(No, I'm not a paid spokesperson for this stuff) Just a suggestion...
I hear you guys!!! Is'nt it uncanny how those aches start to really bother us just around the same age???

Anywho, to answer your question Chet...
I think you know this already but, we were'nt really welding up all those mirrors in fact, we were'nt welding any mirrors (I had to read your question a couple of times to get your joke, oh well, I'm a little slower these days)!!!

I believe for myself, that we were using the mirrors as an aid to enable the person welding to actually "see" the welds when performing a repair on structural or pipe sections that did'nt pass inspection for that particular area of the joint etc...

In other words, usually when the joint was originally welded, there was ample space to perform the welds without any obstructions or restrictions to your line of sight... However, back in the day different piping systems and other systems for that matter, were installed with schedules that more than likely were'nt coordinated with the different trade departments... Talk about not knowing what the other hand was doing!!! Man was it a mess!!! Anywho, by the time the inspection deparment got around to inspecting not only the pipe joints but, also pipe hangers, and other revisions like, adding additional structural components, piping or tubing for redundancy, etc., the areas in question which needed rework were often found completely or partially surrounded by physical obstructions (Added equipment, etc.) to the degree that the welder sent to repair or add another hanger or to repair or weld a new joint would have no choice but, to use a mirror or two or three (very rare!!!) or four in order to not only get the proper line of sight to the joint or repair but, also to perform the weld or repair weld with some degree of comfort and consistency (when I was younger, I was flexible but, I nor anyone else was plastic man even though sometimes, I thought I was!)...

Another factor to consider was to cover up just about everything and anything that was capable of catching fire, cover up any metal or pipe that was exposed to potential arc strikes etc. So, alot of time was spent covering up in order to perform a weld that in reality, took only minutes to complete when it came to repairs. It took a little longer when we were in the "wet docks", and were welding new installations which were the result of engineering revisions...

In order to perform these welds with some degree of control, we came up with some really innovative gadgets that enabled us to bend around, and reach the specific locations of the joints that required welding...
The machinists were very helpful in that aspect... We also had to control when power was to be turned on, so that we would'nt put arc strikes all over the place before we reached the weld area, and most of this was done by using quick disconnects on the cables, (one person was used for this) with SMAW... Some of the repairs were performed with GTAW (mostly on pipe, and some machined surfaces)...

More than a couple of times which I would rather forget, we had more than one person performing the welding on the same area at the same time...
For example, on some of those really hard to reach pipe repairs, two people were performing the welding (three if you include the person turning the power on and off) because, due to the fact that the location where you had to position yourself was "tenative" to say the least (unstable)!!! One person handled the GTAW torch while the other fed the filler rod!!! (another person used the quick disconnects)
Usually this was performed with welders that had previously worked together using a different process (twin-arc SMAW) beforehand, and that's why we were so respected by our superiors... yeah right!!! Back in those days we thought that no job was tough enough!!!

SSBN726 (Ohio), 727 (Michigan), 728 (Illinois), and 729 (I do'nt remember this sub's state name although, I think it was the USS Georgia) were really a work in progress... in other words, prototypes that stayed that way until SSBN730 was built because, by then, they had worked out all of the problems and revisions they encountered with the first three submarines, and started to incorporate the solutions on the fourth sub, and finally eliminating or at least minimizing the problems on the fifth Trident submarine...

The same was the case with the Los Angeles (688) class attack submarines, where myself, and a few other good men were also heavily involved with getting those subs ready for shakedown sea trials in preparation for commisioning (handing them over to the Navy)!!!

I remember each time one the submarines left the yard for good...
Each time I prayed for their safe return to their new homes with the United States Navy!!! Second to None!!!

The groundswell of pride we (The shipyard workers) experienced was sometimes overwhelming!!!
Most important of all was the fact that none of these submarines ever let the U.S. Navy down!!! Thanks to Presidents Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan, and to the continuing dedication of maintaining the highest standards that are in the finest traditions of the United States Navy, the main architect of our nations Nuclear Navy, Rear Admiral Hymie Rickover (RIP you S.O.B.!!!)... Not to mention all of the fine sailors ( I did a tour on the SSN Los Angeles) that served on these Submarines, and those who continue to serve!!!!!

Anywho, I hope I was able to satisfy your curiosity Chet because, I'm all talked out, and if I missed anything then, I'm sure Gerald could fill in the blanks so to speak...

Thanks for your patience in explaining this to you and others...

Respectfully,

SSBN727 Run Silent... Run Deep!!!

P.S. btw the reason I use this sub is because, this one was my home sub, and I was loaned out to all of the other subs when things got "hairy" if you know what I mean!!!

A local company is offering a manufactured tie for reinforced concrete columns. The ties are pencil rod resistance welded to rebar and can be ordered in lengths specified for the column. While resistance welding meets the definition of a weldment it also brings up questions of arc strikes and tacking from AWS D1.4 sections 5.3 and 5.4. Since the resistance weld is the completed weld and no filler metal is used but the arc is a localized application of heat similar to an arc strike would this be considered detrimental to the reinforcing bar? The rebar is 60 grade #3 ASTM A615 and no preheat is used. CE is not specified.

FIXXXXAH, I have seen this problem before. The biggest problem is a simple one, and that is arc lenght. With a 3/32" 7018 electrode you have to keep an arc lenght of 3/32" or less. If your elctrode angle is wrong this can make the arc lenght too long and you might not notice. If you have run a lot of 6010 or 6011 electrodes you have trained yourself to keep a longer arc lenght and oscillate a lot. Using 7018 requires that you keep oscilllation to a minimum (twice the elcetrode diameter), but many welders can adapt with experience. It also looked like you tried to maintain too large of a puddle on the root pass, and this with a long arc lenght will pull porosity in from the back and well as the front of the weld joint. Your cap pass would fail inspection because, as Kix474 stated, you can not have arc strikes outside the joint. I do not think Pulse welding would help, but only add to your frustration.

I reread your recap and noticed that you have 3/32" root face. E7018 is not a pentration electrode like E6010 or E6011, and that would make the weld joint not compatible with the welding rod. It sounds like the WPS for this test is not very practical. I saw almost no keyhole in the picture of your root pass, and that could only come from not using the correct weld joint with the correct welding electrode. MLM

Joe,

The High School and Community College programs that I most admire can from time to time frustrate young students; nonetheless, I am persuaded the following is the best way to begin with (pre-apprentice) young welders.

1. Oxy-Fuel safety and Shop Equipment.
NOBODY lights a torch or strikes an arc until the principals of operations of each piece of equipment to be used are demonstrated (in writing and practically to you) with 100% accuracy. This includes any tools (grinders, cutoff wheels etc.)

2. Oxy Fuel welding and cutting
Any welder in almost any shop they may step foot into will be expected to be proficient with this. In a course that may last only one or two semesters, mastery of Oxy-Fuel will be of greatest value. Secondly Gas welding on thin mild steel is a way for welders with no experience to learn how to "See" a molten weld puddle and begin to control it, furthermore it allows students to get an inexpensive education in distortion control and the manual dexterity aspects of gas welding will be used as the students move forward later to GTAW.

3. SMAW 6010/6011 On thin mild steel develops skills that will transfer to other electrode types and processes. Tacking and arc control are often passed by when we are too quick to get out there and build something. Again the welders are compelled to learn what they are "looking at" and how to make adjustments in technique. A student can be quickly be taught to run beads with Low hydrogen (7014/7018) electrodes that look good but they may enter the workforce and be a disappointment to both themselves and their employer.

The above may appear formidable, but hey, that's just how the trades really are. Your local employers will appreciate an apprentice who has a fundamental grasp of Safety, Hand and Shop Tools, Power sources and Process. You and your students will both feel better when you KNOW that when they enter the working world they will not hurt themselves or anybody else due to the fact they were unprepared.

Beginners will learn at very different rates. This is why a competency-based curriculum is vital. When a motivated student demonstrates (in writing and in practice) mastery of a principal or process they may move to the next step. Slower students (or those who end up in your shop because some other elective was full) must be kept safe by a solid process of step-by-step accountability for each stage of training.

The textbook of choice for me is "Modern Welding Technology" by Howard Cary

I also appreciate the structure of the AWS "Level 1 Entry Level" and "Level 2 Advanced" welder qualification standards. The qualifications for each process and position may be used as part of your project plans, adding integrity and value to your program. Detailed expectations are provided for both the welder and the Instructor.

The advice to pursue a relationship with VICA is excellent.

Keep us updated

Lawrence

Hello,
I am mainly welding as a hobbyist but at the moment I have a summer job making expensive gates for people with too much money. I managed to pick up this really nice welding set, a Thermal Arc 400s. The set is a DC Stick / Lift TIG deal with a maximum output of 400 amps in a box the same size as my current piece-o'-junk MIG welder! It's an inverter with digital arc control. Actually, I'm kicking myself for just missing out on an AC set as well. I should mention I bought it in an auction, hence all these questions a manual might help with (Anyone got one?).

I have a few questions to ask about this set though. First of all, do any of you know what type of termination the remote control has? Can I plug other brands into it? Secondly, have any of you ever looked into having a Thermal Arc set converted for it's phase and input voltage?

The set is designed to run on three phase, although I have this at work I'd like it to run at home as well. Thermal Arc sell a single phase version of this set and I'm wondering if the circuit is designed to have the same arc handling components on the boards and just different input power components. I mean, is it likely that I will be able to replace the three phase components or will they be rooted through-out the entire welder? My thinking was just that commercially, it'd be more economical for Thermal Arc to make them this way. The single phase set they do is 280 amps, so it seems as if they are using the same parts somewhere between the two and loosing the amps on the single phase set due to the nature of the supply current, not it's design.

Thanks for any help on this guys, I'll really appreciate it!
John H.

P.S. I took this into work and loaded it with a Murex Vodex 3.2mm rod (Which can take ten to twenty strikes on our set to start). I touched the job and the rod struck up immediately. I then used a 316 stainless 4.2 rod on some scrap and ran a thick, full penetration, clean weld in seconds with the welding set crying at my under use of it's immense output. Please bear in mind, I started stick welding just a few weeks ago! These are _beautiful_ welders if you're looking at one!

Thin wall < 1/8" (0.125"/3.2mm) 4130 Chromoly can be very successfully welded with ER 70S2 or S6 without preheat or postheat weld treatment. Use 0.023"/0.6mm, 0.030"/0.8mm, 0.035"/0.9mm, 0.045"/1.2mm or maximum 0.0625" - 1/16"/1.6mm diameter bare or copper coated GMAW wire.
Use small diameter (0.020"/0.5mm, 0.040"/1.0mm, 0.0625"/1.6mm)2% Thoriated or Ceriated Tungsten electrodes. Sharpen these tungstens chemically with sodium nitrate or use a "tungsten grinder" (very difficult to hand sharpen).
Use the low amperages recommended for the tungsten diameters.
Gas lenses work great!
Use a back purge, and "cleanliness is next to godliness"!
NO ARC STRIKES/ARC BURNS OUTSIDE OF THE WELD JOINT!! Make work connections (ground) so there is no arc burn/strike outside the weld joint!

By the term "overheating", I meant getting the tubes too hot. From a distortion point of view, the more heat put into a section of wall tubes, the greater the distortion to the tube section. From my experience, the tubes tend to expand outwards with excessive heat input from cladding, be it from either cladding for corrosion resistance, or for cladding to increase minimiun wall thickness. During the cladding on this job, for min. wall thickness, I carried a variety of temp sticks, ranging from 125 degrees F to 500 degrees F. The tubes never got above 250 degres F in the center section(an area roughly 28" X 48", all totaled more than 1000sq.in., and did I mention it's a last-minute finding in a shutdown situation, and the initial response was to put 4 welders on the cladding?), well below the interpass temperature for carbon steel. But if you were to look along a side profile view of the roof tubes, you will still see a distortion, as my partner didn't feel the same way as I did about giving the plant a nice job, it being overhead and all?!?!
Niekie2,
You speak of the quality of the welds. I tend to agree. How much porosity from bad starts will result in a failure? I attempted to show my partner how little time needed to be spent grinding, if one were to identify the defective areas, and once located, just go ahead and grind them out. This was to no avail. You can possibly imagine how much I wanted to do him some bodily harm when I became aware of the arc strikes and resultant porosity he left on my overlay!
And lets speak about bead profiles for a moment. What would you call a good multipass bead profile in a case such as this( this case being such that the cladding was performed longitudinally)? How do deep interbead valleys perform in this situation? My guess is not very well. I would think it reduces the overall thickness of the cladding, and potentially creates a notch stress riser( is this correct?).
What did you mean by "overheating"? And are you talking of the same distortion as I am?
I personally thought that if the tube was too hot to put your bare hand on, then it was too hot to weld on. I might add that the minimum wall thickness determined by UT examination was .080", so "burn through" was also an issue,(and thank GOD it didn't turn into an issue!) and high travel speeds were a necessity. I've used this philosophy on several occasions, and it has repeatedly proven itself to me as an excellent distortion control technique. If I were to clad a panel with no mind for distortion issues, you might not even see some of the tubes from a side view, for with the heat came the need to grow. But where to grow? I wonder if we aren't inadvertently changing some of the flow dynamics of the gas flow by the distortion of the tubes, be they wall or roof tubes, and thereby changing the wear patterns.
And by the nature of this distortion, I was wondering if this had an effect on expected tube lifetime.
Also, I was wondering if someone out there had a bad experience with an overlay job, that I could use as an example the next time someone told me " it doesn't matter".
After my all too brief discussions with the plant's chief metallurgist, I must say I feel I'm on the right track. If I need correction on some point, by all means gentlemen, please do so.
Dale Simonds

As I remember, a lot of the other welders fell in love with the process. I personally thought it had a lot of uses, such as the ability to seal a 1/2" gap, vertical down, 1 pass, and completely acceptable to the navy. We were in mid-process of working out the bugs in the equipment, when the Brittish had their incident in the Falkland Islands. If you remember, they took a missile (I forget who sent it to them) right smack into the deckhouse (the aluminum superstructure above the main deck) on one of their ships. Apparently, it started some kind of reaction, and the aluminum started burning. Thereafter, the U.S. Navy scraped the aluminum superstructure. As far as I know, the superstructure is now made of HSLA-80, 5/32" thick. AS .052" FCAW is a bit heavy duty for this thickness base metal, GMAW-P found its new home in the shipyard. Perfect place for it. Ideal for distortion control. It had already proven its usefulness when we were still doing the aluminum deckhouses. While the majority of the aluminum was around 3/8" in thickness, focal areas for stress required aluminum several inches thick in some places. As GMAW aluminum has some of its own LOF issues, GTAW was usually employed to weld these areas. But as we know, GTAW aluminum requires AC current, and a continuous high frequency unit. This sometimes led to a flaking of the tungsten electrode, which would show up on RT examination, leading to costly repairs. Here comes GMAW-P to the rescue. It performed flawlessly, once the welders figured out what to watch for.
I deal with a lot of LOT. Actually, I think it sometimes relates to experience level. What troubles me more than LOT is LOC (Lack of Caring). "Close enough" . Thats bad enough from the new welders just starting out. I always give them a good chiding, and go on my way. But what really disturbes me it when I get the same "close enough" attitude from the engineers and foreman. While it is true that everything doesn't have to be perfect to make an acceptable weld, what part of the process can you omit and still get a quality weld the customer will accept? The prep? The alignment of the ID's? The preheat? Interpass cleaning? In process defect removal ( a bad start maybe)? Spatter on the OD? Arc strikes? PWHT? I could talk for a week about preping alone. I've never been on a job where the ID of the fittings ( 90's, 45's etc...) matched the ID of the pipe. I remember 1 case in particular, because it was so outlandish, and just happened last year. We were working on some 22" diameter P-22 chrome, 1" wall thickness, 100% RT. My fitter said he was ready for a tack weld. I asked him how it looked. He said "Beautiful!". He was lying. There was 1/2" ID difference, all on the top half of the joint!. I told him he would have to counterbore the fitting ( a 90 ) so the ID's would match more closely. He looked at me like I was crazy, shouting "that's a lot of work" . I told him I knew that, and if this work was too hard for him, maybe he should seek employment in either the food service or housekeeping industries.
Dale Simonds

You will need to tell them what processes and electrodes are acceptable, acceptance standards for weld quality, whether you are looking for full penetration or partial penetration on butt welds, what to do about arc strikes on the base metal, cleaning requirements after welding, maximum weld reinforcement height, etc. You need to find a good source of info for this, such as a book on sheet metal fabrication practices and an experienced sheet metal welder to talk to.

Here's a little info:

http://lincolnelectric.com/products/tech/migweldss.asp

You may also try contacting SMACNA to see what publications they have that will help, and check with the Sheet Metal Workers Local in your area to see if they have someone that can tell you what info the workers would like to have to do their job easier. Here's another good source of practical books on fabrication:

http://www.fmametalfab.org/

And another good source of advice:

http://www.weldreality.com/

Hope this helps,
Marty

I have just experienced the uncomefortable effects of "arc-eye". As I often qualify welding procedures, I also have a problem regarding eye protection. While qualifying procedures, I need to be close to the welder to take voltage and amperage reading, and often the distance welded as well. This information must then be recorded on a record sheet.

As you can not perform these duties while wearing a standard welding helmet (because then you can not see what you are doing) I am exposed to the welding arc on a regular basis. Obviously one tries to minimize your exposure, but it still happens that you are waiting for the welder to strike the arc (with helmet on, or looking away) when nothing happens. Eventually you turn to see what is happening and WHAM, he strikes the arc.

Are there any of you guys that can give me advice on what the best eye protection is in this situation. I am thinking of purchasing one of those welding helmets that only darkens when exposed to a welding arc. They are rather expensive (especially in South African Rands) so I would like to know if any of you has experience using such a welding helmet while qualifying procedures, before I lay out the money.

Regards
Niekie Jooste

If you want to see where you're going to strike your arc at, you should buy a "blink" lens. All it is, is a battery or solar powered welding lens that darkens when it senses an arc. You can pick one up from most welding shops, (provided they're worth a damn) anywhere from 95$ to $375. Arc one makes a good lens, or you can go with a Speedglas Utility, which is about $150. Or if you don't want to spend that kind of money, you can go to any welding shop and buy either a gold or green lens in a 9, 10, 11, or 12 shade...I'm guessing from the sound of your dilemma, you have a 12 lens in the handheld one. Oh yeah, when you get a lens, if you decide to go the less expensive route, you can get yourself a cheap soft hood for less than 20 dollars. Myself, I won't use a dark lens because my work requires good starts, and you can mess up with a dark lens and put arc strikes all over the parent metal...which isn't good.

Hope this helps,
John