millwright welding vs bad fitter

By Lawrence (*****)

Date 10-14-2009 04:05

Slugging is bad for sure...

By Joseph P. Kane (****)

Date 10-14-2009 14:53

Lawrence

This is not slugging. Slugging is when you put rods, electrodes, or even Rebar in the joint to help fill it up sooner, which results in large LOF. The way I read his description, this was a method of bridging the extra wide open root.

I am not saying it was a good idea, but without much more information about the end usage, and the resultant root geometry, no one but the welder or the onsite visual inspector or the radiographer can say for sure that it wasn't a perfectly good fix.

Joe Kane

By Lawrence (*****)

Date 10-14-2009 17:36

Joe

Laying "3 each" Large diameter SMAW electrodes into a root opening because the gap is large, in order to stick weld over the top of the 3 electrodes and get-er-done sounds like slugging to me.

A3.0 says:
"Slugging. The unauthorized addition of metal, such as a
length of rod, to a joint before welding or between
passes, often resulting in a weld with incomplete fusion."

Sounds to me like exactly what is described above :) Unless those additional SMAW electrodes placed in the joint were *authorized*

The poster tells us in a later entry that the whole thing was joined with SMAW... "Mexican Tig" is just a mean way to say slugging if I read the whole story correctly..

By Joseph P. Kane (****)

Date 10-15-2009 19:54

Lawrence

EGG ON MY FACE!!!

I never looked up the definition in A 3.0. I do not have access to it right now, either. So, I stand corrected!

Worse, I have actually done this many times with a customer I had with Titanium jackets used for dipping in plating tanks. In that case, the "slugging" was the only practical way of making the repair. Of course, those were TIG rods, and I used GTA process on the repair. No code applied, it just had to be chemically resistant like the original. So all the back purging and cleanliness requirements applied, but not any structural or special finish requirements applied.

I have seen and caught welders slugging by filling the intermediate passes with slugs, including non-weldable Rebar. That is what I always thought "Slugging" was.

Joe Kane

By aevald

Date 10-14-2009 04:43

Hello gatorofarkansas, as Lawrence said: "slugging" is not the way that welding should be done. In the situation that you posted here, how bad is likely partly answered by the purpose of this particular piping. If you are talking about piping that is used to transfer grain or other organic compounds and isn't under pressure or mixed with caustics or other "bad stuff" then this is likely a craftsmanship issue and a fit for service issue and not necessarily a safety issue. If this welding is supposedly being done to a particular code I think they've got some problems.
You have to make your own call on what you are willing to do. Safety should always be a concern for anyone who is requested to do something that they don't personally and professionally agree with. You were wondering how weak this might be? That all depends on whether the use of these 3 rods allowed for complete fusion to the root of the joint with the proper root reinforcement or whether they were all 3 consumed by the arc and melted to form a continous and uninterrupted root reinforcement. Very likely neither of the 2 scenarios that I listed above happened, so more than likely you could see internal fractures propagating over time or the possibility of internal erosion issues or other issues because of the internal profile of these joints. "how bad" can have many definitions depending on the service of this piping, so without knowing more of the details of it's make-up, use, and service, none of the folks on the forum can give you a specific definition. Give some more details and you will probably get some very specific and definite answers.
You mentioned the 3 rods, I have seen welders use multiple rods while TIG welding pipe, not 3 but definitely 2, generally not on a root pass, but certainly on fills and caps. I don't believe this to be an issue unless the WPS says otherwise and the resulting weld deposits exhibit detrimental results. This scenario was done while employing the "cup walking method" and resulted in having the proper amount of filler metal available to provide the correct width and depth of deposition per pass. A bit for you to consider. Best regards, Allan

By Metarinka (****)

Date 10-14-2009 19:23

in my days as a TIG pipe welder, it was fairly common to dip two 0.035 wires or 3/32 wires into a puddle simulatenously. instead of using one larger rod, using two smaller ones let you stack them horizontally or vertically to either get a deeper pass, or to get a wide bead such as on a cap or near the cap.

can't say much more about slugging, other than it's hard to say how strong it will be... buttinger is the correct method. In our shop we've machined wedges to bridge some "worst case" type scenarios. These wedges give you a proper joint fit up on both sides of the gap, but this was more controlled work than "Git R Done" stuff.

P.S Mexican tig welding joke or not, is not always appreciated. I only say this because right now I'm doing a lot of training under a 30 year veteran mexican welder, who puts anyone else in our facility (including me) to shame.

By DaveBoyer (*****)

Date 10-15-2009 02:27 Edited 10-15-2009 02:31

I don't know exactly what the guy meant by "Mexican TIG". What I have called "Barnyard TIG" is adding filler wire while stick welding, a git er dun trick for sure. I think it was included in FC2002.

So far in this post We have picked on millwrights, Mexicans, rednecks & farmers. Who are We going to pick on next?

By Metarinka (****)

Date 10-15-2009 20:21

I don't care as long as it's not me!

By Twangfactor (*)

Date 10-14-2009 05:59

If you have a bad fit up that results in too wide of a gap or an uneven gap with an area that is too wide to run your root pass. Then to make things worse you can’t cut it out and start over for what ever the reason might be and you just have to weld it as is. In every case it is best to “butter up” the edges of the joint to close the gap and then run the root pass. I have had to do this many times in the past on various jobs and have the welding engineer and welding inspectors on site to look at the problem and consult. After properly “buttering up” the edges and then running the root pass I’ve yet had one fail radiographic or internal visual inspection. These repairs have been in service on high pressure piping for many years and have not been cause for concern.

On the other hand by grabbing a hand full of rods and stuffing those in the gap and running over them with your tig torch you will have a ton of problems. Incomplete fusion between the rods, insufficient internal reinforcement and a crappy internal surface that will have pits and voids, these will hold debris. Let us say that all that runs through this line is chicken feed. Some of the feed will get caught in that poor surface and decompose contaminating the rest of the feed. Change chicken feed with milk in a milk processing plant and that crappy weld will make for a bunch of spoiled product at best.

Somebody once said on this site that you can make a thousand perfect welds and nobody will know your name. Make one crappy weld that breaks and everybody will talk about you for a long time to come. On that same vein create a situation where you make a bunch of livestock or people sick you will be really popular on every out house wall. Have you ever seen “T Burns Sucks” written in an out house? Enough said.

By gatorofarkansas (*)

Date 10-14-2009 11:17

Thanks for reply, but the weld was on a bin that leads to a mixer. The fitter and crew cut out the old bin to install a new air operated gate and then piece the bin back together. The welds were done with 1/8" 6011 stick rods with Lincoln tombstone welder ( mexican tig welding was a joke ). The gap in question was at the top of the bin, where the old and the new came together. Started to run beads on the edges to start filling in the gap and was asked "what`s taking so long they need this bin now" and this is where I just said ok I`ll get done it but it will not be what I would call a quality weld and was told "it`s ok it`s just chicken feed only thing they want is for it not to leak". Not happy about this and do understand about being known for the bad weld you made and not all the good ones seen this happen to alot of welders. This is first time I`ve worked with this company and in a feed mill for that matter, I`m a laid off welders helper waiting to get back out on a pipeline (hopefully soon) things are really slow. Again any replys are appreciated.

By Superflux (****)

Date 10-14-2009 19:47

gatorofarkansas,

"what`s taking so long they need this bin now" I know, that line is way overused. It's one thing when someone is being lazy but when your dealing with a fudged up situation like you mentioned, it really pi$$e$ you off. First off, let the blame get passed on up (or down) to the fitter that left the 3 rod gap. When that don't work (it seldom does) then my favorite line is "I'd be a lot closer to done if I wasn't getting interrupted by you.

One trick is to "stretch" the pipe with heat. I've done this with boiler tube panels and pipelines (both above and in the ground). By (torch/rosebud) heating up the pipe FAR ENOUGH AWAY from the weld so that one side of the pipe doesn't get hotter than the other, depending on how long of a run you have, there is no limit to how much the pipe can grow.
Been on sleeper racks and tie-ins (coated with tar or poly) where we had to wait for the sun to come out for a few hours till the pipe grew enough to make the fit and weld.

The only other recourse for a welder is to REFUSE the fit. All you can do as a professional, is make sure you've got all your tools, rod, machine set correctly, etc ready to go!
Once you've struck an arc on it (tacked-up), ...YOU'VE BOUGHT IT and you better be ready for show time.
It always comes down to the Welder that isn't getting done FAST ENOUGH! All of us who have been under the hood and under the gun know what it is like.

There's a right way, a wrong way, and the way we're gonna git-r-done.......If the latter, hope they see you as the Hero that saved the day.

By Cumminsguy71 (*****)

Date 10-15-2009 23:31

I had a similar problem many months ago. We were on our last weld, a 90 degree fitting into a long straight section. Fitter(also a millwright by trade actually) threw this junk up there and the way the pipe landed left me snug on one side and about a quarter inch gap on the other side. We looked at it and he said, "you can weld that right?" I said, damn, can't we do something? We huffed and puffed and tried but that was it. He says, "you can weld that can't ya?" I told him I guess there really was no other choice. So I grabbed the 6010 and ran downhill on the canyon side working on both edges and wire brushing off between passes to build up and close the gap. Once I had the gap closed up I ran a root pass and capped it off. Was not sure if that was the greatest thing to do, it was chill pipe, not steam, gas or chemicals and not high pressure. Talked to my Uncle(seasoned boilermaker/welder) and he said that what I did was called buttering and is legal.

I did what you did on some galvanized fence cause it was so darn thin whatever you used you blew threw the junk. Used a 1/8 7018 and layed it in there and struck the are and bent it around the tube as it got hot. This was a t-joint....and no safety issues unless there was a bad guy trying to climb over it and he fell...hopefully to his death!

I know the position you were in though. Big dic..s breathing down your neck, gotta have it. Thats how the chill pipe was for me, just don't want it to leak but have to be done quick cause the doors were gonna open and we could not be in the areas where we were at......but don't work overtime(duh???)

By mightymoe (**)

Date 10-14-2009 21:07

Are you sure it's not called red neck tig welding?

By Superflux (****)

Date 10-14-2009 21:20

Fitters don't set pumps and millwrights should not be fitting pipe. I know in the broad definition of the craft, MWs should be able to fit, but usually when it comes to tieing into pumps, MW dept. typically calls in a PF/PW to assist in the final alignment.
There is a reason why we have specialised crafts.

When there is a joint out of tolerances ALWAYS get the supervisor involved in the discrepancy. Let them deal with QC, Engineering (yell at the Fitter!) etc. That is what they are supposed to be there for (problem solving) and why they make more $$ than you.

By ssbn727 (*****)

Date 10-14-2009 23:37 Edited 10-14-2009 23:39

Reads like "scab' work to me Superflux... I read you loud and clear regarding the interaction of crafts to get the job done correctly but nowadays more than ever, there's an ever increasing amount of work going on where these "rules of the road" do not exist on those types of work sites sadly enough!!! And I'm not going to get into a long winded diatribe about how engineering wise, the whole darn action sounds like another typical clusterf@ck which is exactly what it is!!!

According to AWS A3.0 Joe, Lawrence is correct but, I understand what you're saying with respect to the origins of the term called "slugging" since it did become the word used from the type of practices typically described by so-called welders, and associated personnel during the construction of many types of WWII maritime vessels and obviously before that!

Thank goodness for QA/QC as well as sound engineeering practices these days, otherwise this practice would still be as widespread as it was back in the day when many folks looked the other way to "giterdone" and back then the widest used excuse was: "Don't you know that there's a war going on?" At least this is what a long time AWS member here in Pittsburgh describes the way the environment was back when he was welding a lot of the huge components together in the Philadelphia shipyards which is where he ended up after being caught with has butt hanging out as were the rest of the service personnel of our Armed forces when the Japanese decided that they would have an easy time kicking our butts in the Pacific by sneak attacking us at Pearl Harbor... How little did they know with the exception of Admiral Yamamoto, that they were about to commit a grave error in awaking the sleeping giant known to them as THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and set the stage for the development of the GREATEST FIGHTING FORCE THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN!!!

NONE OTHER THAN THE US NAVY AND THE US MARINES AS THEY KICKED THEIR BUTTS ALL THE WAY BACK TO OKINAWA WHERE WE THEN DECIDED THAT IT WOULD BE BEST TO NUKE THEM INTO SUBMISSION IN THEIR HOME ISLANDS WHICH IS WHAT WE SHOULD DO TO THESE FRIGGIN TALIBAN EXCEPT INSTEAD, JUST LIKE THE RUSSIANS ARE DOING IN CHECHNYA AND GEORGIA, WE SHOULD "MOAB" THE CRAP OUT OF THEM, and start another weapons production line similar to the way we increased production of the Patriot missile system which without Israeli help, would have ended up being a really screwed up theatre defense system instead of what ti has evolved into today...

Wow! I was hoping that I wouldn't get carried away here but as usual, I went off course again!!! Oh well what are ya gonna do??? :) :) :) Anywho, that's what I heard from this gem of an elder Gentleman from back in the days of WWII.

Respectfully,
Henry

By Superflux (****)

Date 10-15-2009 05:02 Edited 10-15-2009 06:22

Whufff...
Might want to switch to decaff in the afternoon.
I'm not sure how widespread this criss crossing of crafts are these days. I've worked many a (small) job where probably only the Electrical Dept. boundary was not violated.
I guess if Basic Electrical theory was taught in Hi school Ag class like welding and carpentry then ....

Since I type slow, My rants are concise and condensed.

DaveBoyer, I am an equal opportunity basher, thought I'd include Sparkys...tomorrow will be them danged Martians for slinging meteorites at us and polluting the pristine Antarctic snow fields...

By ssbn727 (*****)

Date 10-15-2009 07:02

That's only what you think now!!! ;) :) :)

Remember to never let your EGO get in the way - CAPECHE???

Respectfully,
Henry

By jnieto

Date 10-16-2009 00:52

I think it is called redneck tig welding!!!