I'm gonna try and keep this short. Fillet welds, I'm doing the fillet for my AWS D1.1, 1/2" plate etc. I started around 125 amps on my little miller thunderbolt. The bead looks good, needs to be a 5/16 face....deep, well you guys know what I mean. Anyhow, I thought they looked good so I cut one off to check my penetration. I found a tiny place in the corner where the two plates meet that was not completely fused. I went up to 140-145(Lincoln Excalibur 7018) and still had a good bead. Cutting open another I found that I in fact have fused down to the root but when I look at the line across the bottom for the vertical piece I can see it does not penetrate very deep. I went up to the easy bake oven setting upwards of 155 and have undercut at the top leg, it burned deep though! I have found on here that you must penetrate to the root so is what I have done with it set at 140-145 acceptable and considered to be a sound weld?? I can get pics later, wife has the digi cam, if that will help explain. Don't have anyone local to ask these questions. Do I need to dig the rod into the corner more? Right now I'm keeping the rod and arc over the union of the two metals in the corner.
Second question, 3G, vertical up, 3/8 plate 22.5 degree bevels with a 3/8 backing strip. All I can say is there is a difference between welding vertical up on a piece of flat plate and one that is grooved. I've worked on stringers, caps and such. My first attempt I had about a 3/16 root opening. I had the heat up to high and boogered it up. Second, same root opening, plates. I did a tight weave(zig zag-feel comfortable with that). I then ground out the high spots etc. I did an intermediate pass and then the cap pass. I had my machine set around 120-125 and seemed to work/run well. My cap pass was not as tight as I would like, maybe 1/8 between my ripples, is this ok? Needs to be tighter I'm sure but I have not seen to many cap passes, some I see and I think mine is good, others I think, wow, mine sucks. I was'nt satisfied with that one so I did another, this time running stringers only, suggestion from another welder. I widened my root opening to about 1/4, seems like a little more room in there to work around. I ran my first to the left up the left plate, then cleaned. Ran the second up the right and cleaned. I altered back and forth and much time later was nearly at the top and had it filled in when I had a huge brain spasm of some sorts and screwed the pooch. Well, one flying piece of metal and several foul words later........I think I got carried away with my grinder and the spacing was wider at the top and it looked........bad?
Is it better to weave on vertical up? As far as the root pass, stringer or weave? I'm trying to figure a way to make a thing with this 20 ton bottle jack to bend test these at home. Destructive testing was very handy when I was doing the MIG testing at school. My settings, at 120-125 amps is this around where I should be? On flat plate it looks good. Also when I get into position to do the root and say I'm doing a stringer for each side of the root should I approach the first one at an angle like a fillet weld or should I concentrate on the backing plate and flow the puddle to the edge of the bevel??
Ok, gettin long again, I'll go now. thanks for any info....
The greenhorn, rookie, new guy, etc. etc.
Hello Shawn, I commend you on your practice and seeking advise.
1) D1.1 4.30.2.3 (1) Fillet welds shall have fusion to the root of the joint but not necessarily beyond.
4.8.1.2 (5) Base metal undercut shall not exceed 1/32 in.
You are correct to burn hot to penetrate the root for the fillet weld test. But, you also have to meet the visual acceptance criteria for the face of the weld. i.e. undercut, leg size, cracks, no craters, profile (convexity, concavity)
You can also do a fillet break test for more info.
Not sure how accurate your settings are on your machine or the condition of your electrodes. That can affect your test results if your 7018's are not dry or in a oven.
You do need to concentrate your rod in the corner on a 45 degree angle and tilt your stinger down 5-10 degrees so your rod tip is slightly higher than your stinger. Keep a tight arc gap. Long arcing will decrease penetration at the root. Try to maintain a tight arc the full length of the weld. If you do a break test it is important to show complete fusion to the root and the sum of all inclusions and porosity shall not exceed 3/8 in. on a 6" long specimen.
2) Typical root opening for a groove test is 1/4 in. I suggest taking advantage of that extra 1/16 in. root opening it will help get the root in and not "hump" up as much. It's important to remove all slag before running your hot pass. Try not to trap slag in undercut on walls during root pass. You can weave the hot, fill and cap passes unless your WPS or test supervisor says otherwise. (I know you are practicing, just keep that in mind for down the road) I don't recommend running split pass root pass with 1/4 in. opening. Too much chance of trapping slag.
On a 3G on 3/8 in. plate I don't run stringers, I weave. You need to pause on the walls to make sure you tie in properly. It will get easier with more practice. Each layer you will weave wider and travel upward slower and pause on the walls. Slight weave on the root(just enough to tie the walls in), more on the hot pass and more weave each layer. When welding thicker grooves you can split pass whenever you feel the need to. Try a Z pattern or experiment until you get the best results.
Are you able to go to the school you mentioned to use their bend tester? You can try to rig something that works but would hate to see your plates wasted if you bend them wrong.
Good luck and keep practicing you will get it!
Thanks Tim, I'll be trying that later. Starting to think about enrolling back in the school near home just so I can burn their welding rod and use up their plates, starting to get a tad bit expensive. Before I started doing these particular welds I thought I was decent with the stick, best mechanic/welder at the shop I worked at til I was laid off. Doing these are tricky though, I know for you guys it's probably a walk in the park! I can't remember how much metal and wire I went through doing MIG, but it was 4 nights a week, 4-5 hours for around 4 months when I finally got it for all positions. I've been using a 10lb of esab and 10lb of excalibur. I keep them sealed and bring them in the house(don't have a rod oven yet, but have found a good small one on the web for a decent price) I figure the low humidity from our a/c chuggin all day should help. Thanks again and back to the practice....
shawn
You're welcome. Think of it as Neo in the Matrix movie. One day it will all come together and you will have figured it out! That's the day that you realize that you can weld anything within the process that you are competent in, that can be welded. That is a good day.keep burning and asking, the folks on this forum are glad to help.
Are you anywhere near Watts Bar Lake? Nuclear Plant?
No that's up near Cookeville or further which is around 2 hours or more from me. I'm nearly at the Alabama line, can be around Huntsville in about 1hr 15.
If you have access to some acid, then you can "acid etch" the cut end and really see how much fusion you actaully have. I have given a lot of fillet weld tests, and I have passed guys because they did "fuse" to the root. Just like the code says it doesn't "have" to go beyond, of course I'd rather it did, but it's not required.
Be careful with your machine settings. Cranking up the amps is not always the right solution. This means you may be going outside the parameters of the WPS (if you work with code requirement jobs). We have some of the Thunderbolt machines here and also use Lincoln Excalibur rods, I believe from memory that you can't go over 130 -135 amps, so just be aware. Chris
Thanks Chris, I have access to some acid, maybe not what we're looking for though. I have around 40 old batteries(part of my scrap thing) not sure if that'll work or not. It's kinda hard to be specific with those thunderbolts, the numbers leave alot of guessing. I'm real close on the fillet and think if I keep it around 140 I'll have good penetration to the root just gotta make sure I'm not undercutting and so on. Practice, practice practice......
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