g32141,
What a load of crap.
I, like many other CWIs on this forum am an ex welder who became a Welding Inspector because I didn't want to crawl around in the mud anymore.
17 years of rolling around in trenches, hanging upside down in boilers, kneeling on concrete floors etc tends to wreck your body.
At 46 years old with 28 years in the game I am going to use any tool I can to make my job easier including using a mirror.
I have paid my dues, I don't need to read rubbish from someone who is probably still wet behind the ears.
If you have a problem with an inspector, take it up with him. Don't tar us all with the same brush.
Shane
G32141
Interesting that you should hate the inspector's mirror. I was brought on my first pipeline job, because the welders who "almost never made a bad weld", blew 36 of the first forty two joints (X-Ray) and were blaming it on "SOFT PIPE". I looked at the radiographs and saw classic "Wagon Tracks" indications on the films. The contractor spent $14,000.00 having the pipe and a 45 and a 90 elbow analyzed for metallurgical problems.
Now to me, common sense should have told anyone with an IQ greater than 65, that the pipe came from one manufacturer and the Els came from other manufacturers, so "Soft Pipe" (whatever that means) could not be the cause. So I am glad they parted with $14,000.00 of the owners profit just for being so stupid. Too bad the welders didn't have to pay half, for their shoddy workmanship!
The first day on the job in the marshalling yard, they were double ending and making up elbow spools. They started welding at 0700, and I started at 0730. At 0730, I told the crew that they had to hold for my inspection between the root and the hot pass. OH! But the code says that we have to get the hot pass in whithin 20 minutes. I said that this was just a recommendation, and no matter what, why, or how long, they had to wait for my inspection of the root pass grind off, prior starting the hot pass.
Well, this was a Union Company (Operating Engineers) and they all walked off and went to the office. The manager came out and gave me what for. I told him to call the owner, and twenty minutes later they all came out and said that they had to do whatever I said. I rejected the incomplete joint they has started at 0700 out of hand and told them it was a cut out. But you didn't even inspect it?!?! Actually I did hear the two blow throughs that you made on the hot pass.
When the root pass on the second joint was completed, I got down and dirty inspecting it, and made them grind out several remaining slag lines. They protested that they would burn all those slag lines out with the hot pass (All Downhill - API !!04 XC pipe job, 16 to 24 inch schedule 40 pipe.). I told them that all the failures I had seen on the radiographs were wagon tracks, which meant that they were not burning the slag lines out.
When the job moved into the Streets of Brooklyn, NY some of the street cuts were only 20 inches wide. There were bell holes, but I weighed about 400 pounds, and I couldn't fit in any of them. I could barely fit in the slot cut in the ashphalt. So, I produced something the welders never saw before; an inspection mirror! With the mirror, I showed them every slag line without climbing under and wedging myself into a bell hole.
Now when you do cross country pipe in Manhattan, you might have 700 to a thousand joints per mile. In Brooklyn, we only had 550 to 750 joints per mile. Each crew welds two and sometimes, but rarely, three joints a day. One crew started from the terminal end and My crew started from the burried TETCO Main end.
They all hated that mirror, because with it, I could pick out every piece of slag there was. Then one day, at about joint 95 or so, they were double ending a joint up on the city street. and the two welders and the supervisor all took turns grinding out the root pass and reinspecting it before I inspected. They dared me to find any slag lines in that joint!!! I didn't need a mirror on that joint, because there was plenty of access. But I knew they were challenging me, so I used the mirror and showed them the slag they missed. There was no argument. I showed them the slag in the mirror. They all agreed that it was there. I also showed them why I could find things with a mirror that they couldn't see straight on. (With a slight twist of the wrist, I was looking at the joint from a different aspect angle with different lighting conditions. When they looked at the joint straight on, they didn't have that advantage, and the lighting conditions were not always favorable.)
The best compliment that I had on that job was - "Damn mirror, It is worse than an X-Ray"!!
Now they continued to weld all the way up to joint 129 without a failure on X-ray. At joint 129, I went down to the terminal and another CWI took over from me. Joint 130 failed X-ray twice then had to be cut out. It failed the first time on the new joint. ( They were only allowed 1 repair and then they had to cut out) Joint 132 had two cut outs and passed on the 5th try. Joint 135 had one failure, joint 137 had one failure. They were able to bamboozle the replacement inspector, but they couldn't fool the x-ray.
I went back at joint 139, and lowered the boom again, and they welded up to joint 174 without another X-ray failure.
Now, These were top notch welders, and I didn't strike arc - one on that job. I just made them follow all the rules that they learned in aprentiss school, and when they did that, they were successful. The the other inspector that took over for me at joint 129, they actually conned into showing that he could weld. He couldn't do it any more, and they brow beat him with it. Of course they didn't pass X-ray too often once they cowed him, and reverted to business as usual. Sloppy work meant bad results!
So, when I run into hot shot welders who think I should be as dirty or dirtier than they are, I just smile. Give me all the lip you want. Don't let me use your mud board. Oh, did you know that I also check the parameters when you are under the hood. Do you know that I can hear it, when you blow through on the hot pass. Do you know that I time all the operations. Do you know that I also inspect the antler (work lead grounding device) for arc strike actions. Do you know that the owners ask me for recommendations? Don't ask me for any slack on the clamp removal rules, or that slight hi-lo that you can't seem to clamp out.
By the way, the reasons these crews "Almost never blow an x-ray" is because they mostly weld the water column pressure pipelines in the city streets, and they all don't get x-rayed. The ones that do get X-rayed are selectively presorted by the welding foreman. The Pipes that I was inspecting were part of the 750 psi cross country facility main, and every joint had to be x-rayed.
I agree that VT should be done before NDT. Why would an inspector write VT-OK on a joint he did not inspect? Yess all weld repairs have to be VT' ed again before a new NDT operation is performed.
Joe Kane
g32141,
First off let me tell you, a mirror is a recommended inspection tool. As long as the mirror is within 18 inches of the weld and your eye is within 18 inches of the mirror, it is legite! Ever welded with a mirror?? Evedintly NOT. I HAVE, as well as many others. I personally feel that you should not be considered an inspector if you do not have an inspection mirror in your arsenal of tools.
Sounds like you left a bad spot, thinking that the inspector will never find it in that position, then whammo, out comes an inspection mirror. You have just finished rolling around in the mud for 30 minutes trying, unsuccessfully, to achieve a good weld, and here comes the inspector, your thinking, he will have to get muddy as hell to ever find the problem, but he was smarter than that, and without missing a beat, uses his mirror, finds the problem, writes it up and walks away as clean as he walked up.
Now, my take an what happened may very well be way off, and if it is, sorry for reading into it like that, but that is the way you came off.
BUT my take on the use of a mirror is BALLS ON and you will not be able to negate it. Try if you want, but it will be a waste of your time.
jrw159