I would not have an issue with accepting the welders AWS Card, providing:
a) I was able to verify its legitimacy through the Quikcheck/National Registry
b) The codes the welder was tested to aligned with the job specifications.
c) I was able to verify he is who his Card says he is.
After all, the point of having a National Registry, or any kind of central certification scheme, is to limit the redundancy and cost of weld testing. For example, if your job specs call for testing the welders to D1.1 and he was tested, and passed, to D1.1 at the ATF, then there is not much to argue about from a compliance point of view.
The flip-side of the coin is that an off-site weld test is no guarantee that the welder can weld. If your specs are stringent and you want to limit repairs then merely collecting papers doesn't cut it. Keep in mind how lenient welder performance criteria can be. But if you're only worried about whether the mechanicals were done properly for compliance sake, I would accept the Card.
Also remember the burden of your party's responsibility that's outlined in the scope of whatever code you're working to. Not all codes allow the transfer of qualifications.
Whether previous qualification is acceptable or not is the prerogative of the Engineer if you are working to AWS D1.1.
Personally, I will not accept the AWS certification if I cannot ascertain if the welder used backing or not, the thickness of the test plate or pipe, the process, the base metal, i.e., all the essential variables applicable to welder qualification.
The last AWS card I saw didn't address the essential variables listed in table 4.12. That being the case, I didn't accept previous qualification.
Al
Good point. If all the essential variables weren't spelled out, the certifying party would be unable to list ranges qualified. You would think AWS would know what's required to qualify to their own codes, but I've seen stranger things.
I don't need to 'SEE' the bend testing results. They only state 'Acceptable' or 'Rejected'. They don't have pictures or really tell me anything. And, they may have used RT to qualify the welder. They wouldn't even have a card if one of these had not passed.
But, the points Al and Tension brought up are good reasons to want better paperwork than just those cards. Cards that are a reduced version of the whole page recommended in D1.1 Annex N work great. Most cards aren't worth the time and printer effort to produce them.
He Is In Control, Have a Great Day, Brent
