Reheat tube that was 4 deep, second panel off the wall, weld was about 8'' from the ceiling. The QC gave it a look after I was done and called me back up there. I thought I had a repair for sure, but he just wanted to know how in the hell I made that weld. LOL Thank god for air bags and mirrors :)
Repairing some other donkey's screw-up.
Al
Rig Hand,
that sounded like fun, i think about the hardest ones i had to make was up in the pent house right up under a header replacing the third bank back, they were 2" heavy wall P91 and we were purgen with football needles, couldnt get to the back and they were vertical and like i said they were 3 roles back. It worked out pretty good being that im left handed and my partner was right handed that way i good reach around the back on the left side watching the good ol mirror then o righty would bring it on around, we were tigin the root and hot and sticking(smaw) on out, they were 32 welds to make and not braging cause ive had my share of bad shoots but they all passed x-ray. And they was just enough room under that header for two welders, very tight
Strat
Sometimes I think just learning to run a 7018 uphill was the hardest thing I ever done....it took me a long time to get it down.
Someone missed a weld on an outside corner joint inside a fuel control box (box inside another box), it was already assembled and they wanted to try to save it. I had a 2 1/2" hole to get my torch and filler thru and a 1 1/2 hole 90 degrees away I could look thru. I taped a dowel rod to a pencil torch to reach in there, and just taped up a lens over the small hole. Major problem was it was .020 SS on the inside box....took quite a bit of head scratching to figure out how to purge it and put heat sinks on it, another guy was holding a small strip of copper welded to a rod against the backside of the joint....no way to clamp anything inside. Two inches of weld and I was exhausted (stressed out). It was a pretty ugly bead but they took it. Would have been easier to me to build a whole new one.
Not the hardest welding day I ever had by far .....but that was a really tedious hold ur breath 2 inches of weld.
Laying on my back inside of a Pratt & Whitney JT8D turbofan, hanging from a 737, doing mirror welds on inconel exhaust struts during a gail on the SFO flight line.
But I gotta also go with Tommy. Leaning to run 7018 vert was hard on me too. :)
I spent 2 weeks of night classes learning to run 6013 uphill. After that 7018 was a piece o cake.:-)
I ain't never made it to the penthouse, but that's ok with me. I have never heard anything good about it, other than header welds.
"Sure does seem like a lot of trouble just to heat up some water" :)
hardest weld i had to make was in jack stands. was a 4in 90 on a random.
heater tubes 3in form the wall 3in on top of each other. 4in pipe 120 wall
Uh reheats,superheats,penthouse,waterwall,platinum tubes they all sucked but the hardest was a nuclear head to a service structure 3 hour jumps double pc's rubber gloves under welding gloves goofy hood that I wasn't used to it was hot as heck !! Another was a weld in New York in the Catskill Mts hillside was 38 degree angle pipe was too 30" off side glad I can weld with both hands!! Black liquor tank sucked too tho!!
Hardest weld for me was the Dreaded 'R" stamp test. Had to weld a Peice of Aluminum to a peice of Brass and the hang it from a Full Pen Weld to a 1" carbon plate. All done with a Bailing wire root and a JB Weld fill and Cap. With a Mirror on a Branch Connection
Holy crap now that's hard cactus bet that vantage didn't have any problem tho
Cactus, Be honest...You borrowed some dyn-O-mite from Wiley Coyote, when he got tired of chasing the Roadrunner, and used explosion welding to get that sucker to stick all of those dissimilar metals together...didn't you? :-)
By kcd616 
Date 12-13-2010 04:44
Edited 12-13-2010 05:04
For me it was the killer Bud stamp.
Had to weld 24 empty cans of Bud, after they started full
The killer was to braze the last can to the stainless flask of Chavis.
Took me four hours. And they said most took eight hours, and failed.
Hope this helps
Thank you for your time and consideration
Sincerely,
Kent
1" socket weld, 1" above,and coming up thru the floor,under the catwalk.
Hanging over the side of the ship I was stationed on, from 0 to 10 feet over the water line depending on the height of the next wave, trying to repair a cracked weld around a CHT (sewage) discharge outlet, all while underway and cruising about 20 knots.
Tim
Drain stem off the forward escape trunk in the free flood of a Sturgeon class sub. Had to belly crawl through 20 ft. of free flood to get to it, torch cut the old flange off, then weld on a new pipe. All with about 16" vertical space, and belly crawl backwards to get out.
LOL Curt very good one at lease you were not turd chasing!
Been there, done that. Still can't get the smell out of my head.
For me, 15 degree's outside, standing on white line of road looking down in a 6ft ditch at a 2" gas line right next to the road with minimal clearance between the edge and pipe. Had to weld a service tap on. Not so bad, except for the ditch full of water and filling fast. One hay bale later and me standing on the wet hay bale, mirror welding the backside of the tap. Another mirror weld was on some 4" chiller pipe, ran the root pass with stubs I saved and looked thru the gap on the front of the pipe to watch the root go in on the back side, hot and fill not so bad, mirror cap with the left had and 2" stubs was about all I could get in the space between the wall. Cap turned out no so bad, didn't spray water everywhere or have any leaks for that matter. That was my first ever mirror weld, very interesting.
Hey Blaster, I just came across these pics when I was going through some of my files. Not the hardest weld for a lot of folks out there, but definitely a challenge for my old body and lack of mirror welding skills. Had to sleeve some fuel lines to meet EPA requirements, required welding inside of a containment box, my flexibility and out of position skills were challenged a bit.
Nice Allan
Good to know you are still nimble enough for that!
reminds me of the inside a pill days Allen I wish I could still bend like that nice
Nice pictures... That looks painful...!!!
RC
Had to make a repair on the foot rest pipe that ran around the bottom of the bar at this gentlemens club with dancing going on all around. It was ruff man. Trying to do 4 things at once was brutal. ;-)
I was thinking about this a little today as I was re-welding over a previous patch someone had put on a wood furnace. The guy had worked as a welder of some type but just didn't have it together when the spots were not easy, probably a small feeder running flux and didn't get any of the hard spots. As simple as it is makes one wonder doesn't it? Sometimes I guess there is no substitute for that "seat time" welding over crap in hard places over years, nothing really technically hard about it other than being tedious.
I do one the other day also where the repair would actually have worked had the guy been a better welder, where it was out in front of him he didnt do too bad but where it was a reach and hard to see the weld failed.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Toss up. Vietnam as a E-4 US Army welding a 2.5 foot by 2.5 foot hopper for a rock crusher 269 Eng Bn from inside of it. I was sweated through to the extent of electrodes being put in into the stinker by another soldier so I did not have a shocking feeling. The other was wet welding using super 18 x 1/4 inch electrode with about a 6 knot current. My position was somewhere between a flag to a hurricane or gale. I hope my views are helpful.
Sincerely
Len Andersen
212-839-6599, 4042 FAX / 914-237-7689 (H) / 914-536-7101 (Mobil)
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