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Up Topic Welding Industry / General Welding Discussion / Pancake hoods, Linde HeliArc, Braided Copper
- - By JeremyW83 (***) Date 09-10-2008 20:02
I was on a job the first part of this year up in Nebraska.  The safety guys there said that they and OSHA have banned pancake hoods.  Is this accurate cause I still see a lot of guys using them.  I do remeber hearing something about OSHA saying no to any hoods that you have to modify to make them fit you properly.  I guess that would prevent me from continueing to use one of my hoods that I have chopped.  I was just looking for some clarification on this.

Are Linde(Union Carbide) heliarc torches/rigs still being manufactured or are they discontinued. 

On the same job in the first paragraph a guy on the job would make braids out of the lead.  I used it on that job because of QA/QCs not wanting us to just ground any where.  I understand the desire for this for the safety of any electronics that the ground may go through to get to were you struck up at.  But I have also been on other jobs where we could ground anywhere and it was okay.  Both were grassroots.  Why I'm asking is I want to know if the would be any potential problem for makin/ usin these on jobs.  I just don't want to have to worry about gettin chewed on if some safety or qa/qc doesn't like it.  Plus the whole time I was using it it never left arc marks from ground I liked that best.

Thanks in advance

jeremy
Parent - - By Kix (****) Date 09-10-2008 20:28
Don't put that lead brade over any welds that haven't been shot yet.lol  If it arcs out a tit bit and leaves little bits of lead in the weld area, that x-ray will be something to look at. ;-)
Parent - - By Sourdough (****) Date 09-10-2008 20:33
For sure! Arc burns/strikes will give a piece of sh** CWI the opportunity to oust you.

Generally the ones that do that are the ones who have never had their hands dirty in their lives............
Parent - - By Lawrence (*****) Date 09-10-2008 21:39
Sourdough,

So if a reject is noted because of arc strike the inspector is a piece of **?

Just want to make sure I understand what I'm reading here.
Parent - - By Sourdough (****) Date 09-11-2008 20:09
Nah, I rate the pieces of SH#T as they come out of the anus. When they come out they all look the same, like a turd.

As time wears on that is when they prove their true worth. Then, and only then, can you tell a persons character, integrity and worth........

After that point, men like me can see who we are dealing with when we look that person in the eyes. On the internet, everyone's cool?
Parent - - By sbcmweb (****) Date 09-11-2008 20:45
If you were rating pieces of crap, you would be a Scatologist.

Until recently, I did not know there was an actual name for someone that studied crap.

I learn something new every day. :-) S.W.
Parent - - By Sourdough (****) Date 09-12-2008 00:34
Of course there is a name for somebody that studies crap - internal affairs............

They study numerous Napolian types throughout the year and do nothing at all about them.
Parent - By sbcmweb (****) Date 09-12-2008 01:46
YEAH!!! SOOOOO True!!

You go Sourdough!! :-) S.W.
Parent - - By jrw159 (*****) Date 09-10-2008 21:45
Sourdough,
  I am not sure if I am reading into your comment correctly or not.

Would the CWI be a piece of sh** for calling out a rejectable indication or for trying to oust someone for it?

jrw159
Parent - - By shorthood2006 (****) Date 09-10-2008 22:47
i feel abit of tention in the room.
Parent - - By vagabond (***) Date 09-11-2008 00:13
Unfortunately I must confess I used to feel the same way when I was under the hood about arc strikes.  Now after I've seen metal under a microscope and understand the metallurgy behind it I've become one of those inspectors.  Basically I look at it this way, if your a craftsman and you clean your work up I'll never know you made the arc strike unless I see you do it.  And if I see it I'm gonna bust you as much for being lazy as for making the arc strike in the first place.  We all make mistakes, it's whether you leave them or fix them that makes you a welder in my book.  Just my .02. . . . .
Parent - By shorthood2006 (****) Date 09-11-2008 00:27
i like your point of veiw.
Parent - - By up-ten (***) Date 09-11-2008 22:32
Vagabond...Maybe you've heard the saying " a good welder KNOWS how to fix his mistakes". I believe this to an extent. But, if a guy has done some grinding on the pipe besides his weld and its in a typical pattern of an arc strike, well an experienced inspector like yourself will pick that up pretty quick. In light of you wrote, would you call that a cutout?
Parent - By vagabond (***) Date 09-12-2008 00:32
Quite honestlly it would depend on where I am.  In boiler which is what I've been working lately (per the client) it is not a cut-out.  Other places it would depend on a number of factors.  Myself I used to hit it with a soft pac (tiger disc) and then a buffing wheel,  then I'd throw a little dirt on it for good measure.  I guarantee you it looked better then new when I was done but that's when I was a welder.  So really I suppose it depends on the spec. per job is the best answer I can give you.  At a nuke w/o a doubt that would be a cut-out, at least the ones I've been too.  And some refineries are pretty uptight about them too FWIW.
Parent - By jrw159 (*****) Date 09-11-2008 03:07
No tension on my end. :-)

jrw159
Parent - - By jwright650 (*****) Date 09-11-2008 11:37
Sourdough,
(please don't take offense, several of my guys didn't understand why I get on them about the arc strikes outside of the weld joint until they took part in this test that I'm about to tell you about)

Let me show you a couple picts of an arc strike, and you may understand why the guys are riding you about your comment. I took several pieces of regualr ole A36 flatbar 3/8" thick and laid them on a table side by side an had one of my welders take a 7018 and drag it quickly across them, then had them look at them and grind the strike out until they felt the damage was no longer there. Then I took those same pieces of flatbar and bent them in my weld coupon bender and here is what happened....

Note: the first piece of flatbar was arc strike free, the rest were laid side by side and had a 7018 drug across them, and then ground.



and here is a close up (used the camera here at work so the quality isn't the best)

Parent - By Kix (****) Date 09-11-2008 14:51
The grinding on those coupons may have caused those to open up so I'm not convinced.  lol  ;-)  Just kidding, I've seen the same experiment done and the arc strikes opened up a bit.  I also know what they look like under a scope and that's something to throw in your bag of knowledge.
Parent - - By vagabond (***) Date 09-11-2008 15:09
Very interesting. . . .  I'd heard about this one but never seen the results.  Kewl!!!  The microscopic view will certainly make a believer out of you too.  It's pretty amazing the amount of damage that happens in such a short period of time.  Sourdough you know we still luv ya right????   . . . . . . . . .Sourdough??
Parent - By jwright650 (*****) Date 09-11-2008 16:07
Guys this was regular ole run of the mill A36...hard to mess that stuff up, it is very forgiving...... imagine what goes on with other grades of steel that are more finaggy about the rapid heat input and instant quenching of an arc strike.
Parent - By Sourdough (****) Date 09-11-2008 20:00
I know you still luv me! How could you not?

Well............if you're a cop or another out of town welder, you probably hate me.

But the most important thing is that I still love you!

Have a good 9-11
Parent - - By Sourdough (****) Date 09-11-2008 20:03
Yep, I can see it for myself. I'm just *****in cause at the time I needed a job.

I do have one question though : what's worse, a low cap or an arc strike? I've seen both pass inspection and xray.............?
Parent - - By JTMcC (***) Date 09-11-2008 22:36
Think about it for a minute.

A low cap on the firing line will be called by one of the firing line inspectors, so the welder will have to go back and fix it.
A low cap on a tie in crew or lowering in or a bore crew will be caught by their inspector.
Either way it takes nothing but a welder/helper and a welding rig to recap the pipe.

An arc strike in the pipe gang or firing line will be left in the dust, for the back end to repair.
An arc strike on tie ins/lowering in/bores will usually be repaired by that crew on the spot.
Either way it takes two welders/helpers, a beveling machine, usually 3 tractors w/operators, laborers, the foreman, the various inspectors (welding, dope, ect.), in other words an entire crew with several pieces of heavy equipment.

It's not hard to figure which costs more. Cut outs are very expensive little operations.

JTMcC.
Parent - - By Sourdough (****) Date 09-12-2008 00:28
Well, pardon me for being such an ignorant cuss. Of course it's only my second day in the rodeo.
Parent - By JTMcC (***) Date 09-12-2008 02:38
You asked the question, I just answered it.

JTMcC.
Parent - By Sourdough (****) Date 09-11-2008 20:11
You know I will always respect you John. Always do me the favor of telling me how it is, and I will always be respectful........thanks for having this forum!
Parent - By sbcmweb (****) Date 09-12-2008 02:02
That's cool John. Your insight is always refreshing & helpful. :-) S.W.
Parent - - By JeremyW83 (***) Date 09-11-2008 00:26
Thanks you clarify that Kix.  I just wanted to be sure that there would be no problem with using one.

Second,  welders back to your corners.  I didn't mean to start a battle royal.  I have to take the side with saying that if you do not remove your arc marks or make them you bring it on yourself.  JMHO
Parent - - By JTMcC (***) Date 09-11-2008 01:07
In my world, an arc burn is a cutout, period.
You can have the sweetest old inspector in the world, or the meanest. It doesn't have anything to do with the inspector, an arc burn is just a cutout.

JTMcC.
Parent - - By TRC (***) Date 09-11-2008 23:15
API Standard 1104, Twentieth Edition, October 2005, Errata/Addendum, July 2007, A.5.3 Arc Burns, Arc burns may occur on the internal or external surface of the pipe as a result of inadvertent arc strikes or improper grounding. They generally appear as a pit or cavity visible to the eye or as a dense area on the radiograph. The cavity may be surrounded by heat-affected zone that may be of lower toughness than the base material or the weld deposit.
The acceptance limits for unrepaired arc burns are given in Table 4 and are based on the premise that the heat-affected zone has zero toughness but that any planar imperfection originating within the heat-affected zone is blunted at the edge of the zone. Substantial data indicate that the total depth of the arc burn, including the heat-affected zone, is less than half the width of the burn..... Arc burns that contain cracks visible to the naked eye or on conventional radiographs are not covered by this appendix and shall be repaired or removed.
Just thought I'd throw this in here, it gives another view point- Ted
Parent - - By jwright650 (*****) Date 09-12-2008 12:01
Ted, it's hard to argue with when you see it in black and white...hence the need for taking every precaution to avoid the costly accidental arc strike.

I had some new guys in my shop who were taught(at previous employment) to strike the arc anywhere and drag the rod over to the joint and start welding. These guys had some bad habits to break but they eventually got the point that we didn't want that happening here.
Parent - By rockin d (**) Date 09-12-2008 19:45
my first P/L i was capping & made an arc burn , x-ray tech called it a cut out , so i fixed it , by myself after all the firing line had left except for the pipe gang . i felt so bad cause of me they had to stay late , that was my last arc burn. Ever since I lay my rod between the bevels ,lower my pncake & get after it (I just started to use a solar lens after 13yrs. & I still lay my rod down first , guess its a habit i'll never get rid of.
Parent - - By swsweld (****) Date 09-15-2008 01:32
From pancake hoods to steam generators.

Concerning arc strikes; we were doing modifications on steam generators at several nuclear plants throughout the U S and took every precaution against arc strikes. You were always in a bind working in a tight area, on top of a 12" diameter pipe formed in a circle hugging the inside diameter of the S/G. We were installing J nozzles on top of the 12" pipe to make it more awkward. We hung fire cloth everywhere using magnets. The shell is usually several inches thick(can't remember exactly) and the S/G is a very critical component.

We were not threatened with our job unless you were just being wreckless. But you were threatered with other things, i.e. mig work, trash burners, no work in the future for you, etc.

They didn't want you to get a strike and hide it. If that was even possible. They wanted you to mark it with the approved marker and tell supervision so that it can be documented and repaired by buffing, then PT and MT. I don't recall anything else beyond that. What they didn't want was a crack left in the base metal because someone was afraid of losing their job.  A smart decision in my opinion.
Parent - - By JeremyW83 (***) Date 09-16-2008 19:03
Is anybody familiar with OSHA regs on welding hoods?  In my first post I stated that I had heard of OSHA banning or trying to of hoods that had been or needed to be modified?  Is this false?
Parent - By pipeliner 798 (**) Date 09-17-2008 03:16
im not familiar with OSHA's regs on this but a pancake is built to be modified so i wouldnt think it would be any different than adjusting the headband on a flip hood, and hoods are not built for structural protection there for flash and spark burns. i wear a pancake everyday and havent heard anything about this
Parent - - By DaveBoyer (*****) Date 09-11-2008 03:19
     Esab now owns all the old Union Carbide brands of welding equipment, so presently those Linde torches will say "ESAB" "Genuine Heliarc" or something like that. They are the most copied design, and everybody makes parts compatible with them.
Parent - By Mat (***) Date 09-16-2008 10:56
Wow, I never knew an arc strike could do so much to the base metal.  Live and learn.
Up Topic Welding Industry / General Welding Discussion / Pancake hoods, Linde HeliArc, Braided Copper

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