I should make sure of the charge in my area,I always charged only by the hour from when I left home until I returned. I think that is how it is done here. I will ask a few welders in my area who I know will tell me. If any up here charged by the inch I am unaware of it. Course for me,most of the heads were for 13 5/8 casing, not sure what your most common size was. The rigs were triples and everything seemed to go slower than on the doubles. Pretty much every time I had to practically baby sit the crew from start to finish, they were never sure what to do next,from the time I cut the conductor to finish welding on the head. I would have to tell them how to tie off the winch line,suck up the conductor or whatever.Toolpusher was either sleeping or gone. I didn`t like to do this for potential liability falling back on me,but it was either that or most of the time stuff would not get done.All I could think of is with the ups and downs in the oil field,they must have had a constant and very high turnover rate because most of the guys seemed like rookies. They also were in no hurry because they always seemed to call me out to start my work before the cement was set and figured by the time I got finished everything would be fine. Maybe that is how it`s done all over ,I don`t know. And  when I worked around the triples where everything went slower,it was 6 to 8 hours before I was finished. I`m not sure what size head Weaver was welding on but I thought he said it took him about a couple hours complete. If I could get done that quick I definitely would have to charge by the inch. Thanks for your response.