Some of you might remember the thread I started a while back (What would you do) the one about the UL inspection and some of the defect I found on a painted ladder. Well, the owner of the manufacture that builds these ladders called the UL guys over here in Appleton Wisconsin to come up and review what I had marked up on there ladder. The UL guy shows up, very nice and very intelligent, and I show him what my findings are. I went right to the most obvious weld right off the bat to get a feel for how this guy was going to be.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a189/vdubin474/Ladder12-18-08.jpg I show him this weld and he starts giving me the run around about how he doesn't see anything wrong with it and that it shouldn't effect the structural integrity of the weld. So I said who are you to say that the integrity of the weld isn't effected. He says that's what the MAG particle determines and the UL guys back at the plant MAGed it and signed off on it so it has to be good.
So he went through my finding and agreed with me on 2 welds, one with sever undercut
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a189/vdubin474/Ladder010pic.jpg and one with some overlap that was on way more then just this one. So he starts telling me that there is some standard that UL goes buy stating that if the overlapped portion of the weld is in a restart and is sitting back the diameter of the weld size on top of the first bead then it's ok. So I said well, I've never heard of that and if that's the case then what about this one.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a189/vdubin474/RKLadder011pic.jpg He said this one is good, but if you notice the overlap that looks like a hole in the top of the weld it clearly doesn't meet his story. Needless to say, we're more worried about the rust that is going to be seeping out of these welds then whether or not they are going to cause the ladder to fail and he still only marked up 2 spots of the 20 or so that are going to be rusting underneath all the overlap. Here's another on that will surely rust over time and it even has a crater for water to sit in notice no marks. This is where the air pissed out due to overlap and lack of fusion when the paint was baked.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a189/vdubin474/Ladder612-18-08.jpg http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a189/vdubin474/Ladder512-18-08.jpg Sorry for the rant, I'm just disappointed that this UL inspector ran me around so much that I got dizzy. I think this guy could also have been a lawyer to if he wanted. I was throwing all kinds of stuff at him and he lead me in circles about how didn't know what condition the ladder was in when it was inspected and this other crap. I asked well aren't you guys supposed to speak up if something is not in any condition to be inspected and also not to sign of on anything. He said yes and I said well, this ladder was obviously ready for inspection then wasn't it. Then he starts telling me about the smoke on the welds and silicone and how it effects the inspection and I just shut up because I wasn't getting anywhere. lol K I'm done ;-)