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Up Topic American Welding Society Services / Certifications / Inspection Experiences
- - By BCSORT (*) Date 11-01-2002 19:49
I thought it would be fun and informative if those of us who wish to do so could give some examples of their “Inspection Experiences,” good or bad. I for one would love to read about some of the conflicts the more experienced CWI’s have had over the years and how they dealt with them. This would also be a good way to let the up and coming CWI’s know some of the situations they may encounter.

I guess I should also start it.

I was recently given the task of taking over the welding inspection of a classroom addition project at a local college. When I arrived at the site and informed the other inspector that I was his replacement he said, “You’ll like this project, all you have to do is show up and stand around. Everything you learned in your CWI class you can throw out the window, this is all shit steel and it’s not that important”. I thought this guy was pulling my leg but it took me about 2 minutes to realize that he had no idea what he was doing or what was going on with the construction. As he left I realized I had a whole lot of catching up to do. The first thing I did was to check the rod the welders were using, ice cold 7018. So I then asked the welder where he was getting his rod. “Over there on that pallet.” On the pallet there were three opened boxes of rod that had been there for what I guess at least 2 days. As I was looking at the rod the welding supervisor came over and asked if I had a problem. “Hell yes I have a problem and soon it’s going to be your problem,” I said. I proceeded to tell him why he should know about having his rod in an oven and that I was going to report him to the Superintendent and also to the Building Official. The supervisor with a red face and hate in his eyes picked up a handful of rod and chucked it straight at my face, then he chased me off the decking throwing more rod and screaming, “you little SOB if it was a problem the other inspector would have said something, now get the f__k outta here.” Needless to say the next day there was a new supervisor with a brand new rod oven.

Parent - - By WBI (*) Date 11-12-2002 16:03
Interesting story. I've seen or heard of that sort of thing happening many times over. Most stories may sound familiar to someone. My most recent experience was on a large mixed use project that involved welding shear clips to plates embeded in precast concrete. The specs noted the embeds were to be painted before casting the concrete. I told the steel contractor to remove the paint but he and the precast concrete contractor pointed out the specs book. I countered with AWS D1.1.

Against my better judgement, we agreed to a test. The welding contractor started to set up with an extra embed plate furnished by the precast contractor. I told them to use one already set in concrete as a "representative sample" because the concrete would act as a sink. The best welder on the job tacked our sample together and tried running a single bead. He looked at me and shook his head, then looked at his boss and shrugged. It took about two weeks with a rosebud and wire brush to prep all those embeds. I insisted on having an inspector watching the cleaning process process.

Then we discovered that many of the embeds were as much as 6" out of position and the whole mess was sent back to the engineer who had to spend a few days re-calculating his design and arguing with the architect for putting stupid specs in the general notes.
Parent - - By jwright650 (*****) Date 11-12-2002 16:39
Speaking of embeds and such, I was wondering if other fabricators are having to fix base plates on columns because who ever sets the anchor bolts can't seem to get the pattern square or even remotely close. We have had to get the erector to cut off bolts that are set wrong and alot of these bolts we could not slot because it was set outside of the perimeter of the plate. Does anyone survey these bolts to make sure they are set correctly anymore?
It amazes me that they could call it a fabrication error when beams on one face of the column won't make to the column, and on the other face the errctor can't get the beam to fit between the columns. Now they have lasers and electronic equipment to help them set these bolts but don't have the accuracy of the old guys from yesteryear with string and line levels and a framing square. Where have all these old guys gone to help out this new crop?
Parent - - By rpoche (*) Date 12-03-2002 15:39
We recently performed the fabrication on a Public Works project where 20 of 55 column templates were anywhere from 2'-0" to 1/4" off - The GC never had the site surveyed and thought the fabricator was responsible for checking the layout prior to fabrication to correct these problems - what a mess. Most jobs, as of late, the concrete sub creates real problems with improper layout and the GC just keeps piling on trades on top of problems with no real concern for correcting the problems.
Parent - By jwright650 (*****) Date 12-03-2002 17:45
I know what you mean, we arer running into the same thing. More often than not, the anchors are set wrong, not only positions on the column grids are wrong, but wrong elevations as well. Like you said, "What a mess"
All of the complicated skewed and radius areas that don't fit, makes it look like we can't fabricate anything right. It all goes back to the anchor bolts, get 'em right and the job goes so well. When these tough geometric jobs go through our shop, I praise our fitters for doing great work. Then comes the field reports where nothing is fitting up. Give me a break! Now that I've gotten your shoulder all wet, I'll quit crying for now and say I know how you feel.
John Wright
Parent - By ziggy (**) Date 05-19-2003 19:43
We have had similar experiences with incorrect installation of anchor bolts.
One side note, however, when it comes to any repairs or replacing of anchor bolts (rods), with the new OSHA Steel Erection rule, (1926.755.b.2) the controlling contractor must provide written notice on any anchor rods that were either repaired, replaced or modified.
We have our own form that we have the controlling contractor complete and fax back to us before we erect steel. The same applies to the concrete footers.
We lost a column during erection because of a modified anchor rod failed. Fortunately no one was hurt or injured. Still, during the safety inspection that followed, the controlling contractor amazingly supplied us with a list of other anchor rod modifications that we did not know about.
ziggy
Parent - - By UCSB (**) Date 05-23-2003 19:58
I was on site at a Coast Guard facility for erection of a new hanger. The columns beside the doors both had a 32 anchor bolt pattern. To my surprise, both columns were set without any rework required.

Talking about general contractors not setting anchor bolts correctly, how about the Architects being required to supply deminsions? That has been one of the biggest factors on the last couple of projects. The contractor on my current project has had to detail half the steel because of missing columns that are unclear on the "A" drawings and not even shown on the "S" drawings. The "A" drawings show grid lines at face of wall while the "S" drawings show grid lines at center of wall. I could go on about Architects and Engineers- ok, one more- We had a welding engineer detail the welding sequence of a difficult joint on a large door frame for a sound testing facility at Boeing. I told the shop foreman to build me a mock-up of the joint so we could set up a UT procedure for it. When they tried to fit it up, they found it to be impossible to weld as sequenced. I went up to the Engineers office to let him know about the trouble with his joint and he took his pencel and put it on the drawing to show me how to do it. I said "Damn, that pencel fits there on paper real good- now go try to get a welding rod in there." He came down to the shop and told the foreman to just get it welded any way they can.

Cheers,
Roger
Parent - By jwright650 (*****) Date 05-23-2003 20:09
Roger,
I'll have to agree with you on the missing dimns! Tons of steel gets detailed by our drafting dept and they have to do the design work for the A's and E's. Supplying dimns on contract drawings are a thing of the past. We estimate off of 50% and 60% complete drawings daily. RFI's are so numerous, the A's and E's can't keep up and usually tell the detailers to just work it out and make it fit. The A's and E's are 20 projects down the road by the time we see it and bid on it, so they no longer care about that project any longer. I wonder where this business will be in a few years at the rate things are declining.
John Wright
Parent - By TimGary (****) Date 11-12-2002 18:19
A few years ago I was performing a Bubble Test leak inspection on the perimeter welds of a ballast tank within the Hull of a barge. This was done by drilling a 1/2" hole in the top of the tank, then wedging a piece of pipe over the hole with compresed air feed and a 2 pound weight on top of the pipe. The idea is that when there is 2 psi air pressure in the tank, the weight is pushed up enough to allow excess pressure to escape, then you spray the welds with soapy water and detect leaks by looking for bubbles.
Anyway, while inspecting, I noticed there was a few inches of weld missing in a hard to reach spot in a corner of the tank. Just out of couriosity, I pushed my knife blade through the crack and found that the blade could go all the way through, meaning that there was no weld on the other side either. Realizing there was something wrong, I removed the air feeding pipe from the top of the tank and found that the 1/2" hole was never drilled in the tank top, meaning that no air could get into the tank!
When I reported the situation to the Yard Manager he just shrugged, patted the Foreman who set up the test rig on the back and said "Nice try."
Now I always inspect the testing apparatus first on any type of inspection.
Tim
Parent - - By DONK (*) Date 11-23-2002 15:49
BSC,DID YOU EVER HAVE ANY EXPERIENCES CHASING LEAKS ON TANK BOUNDARY WELDS?OUR LEVEL3 WANTS TO ALLOW POROSITY IN WELDS ON TANK BOUNDARY.HOWEVER THE SHIP BUILDER HAS A REQUIREMENT IN HIS OWN PROCEDURE THAT PROHIBITS POROSITY IN TANK BOUNDARY WELDS.MIL-STD-1689 DOES NOT ADDRESS THE ABOVE ISSUE.THE TANKS ARE TESTED TO 2 PSI HOLDING TEST AND A SMALL PIN HOLE INTO THE BOUNDARY WELD WOULD NOT SHOW UP.HOWEVER ON SHIPS DELIVERED LEAKS HAVE SHOWED UP IN FUEL TANKS AND THIS CAUSES A LOT OF REWORK. DON KUMPUNEN
Parent - By DONK (*) Date 11-23-2002 15:50
OOPS I MEANT TIM GARY. DON KUMPUNEN
Parent - - By TimGary (****) Date 11-23-2002 20:26
Yes Donk, I have dealt with this problem many times.
Trying to trace down the source original source of the leak is difficult.
Many times it seemed that the primary cause for the leak would be either porosity or in complete fusion in the interior tank boundry weld, which would allow fluid to travel inbetween joined plates that were welded with fillet welds on each side of the plate. Then, of course, if the fluid finds any type of opening in the outer boundry weld, it will come through. Sometimes the fluid may travel great distances in this manner. Additionally I've found that Diesel fuel will leak through holes that are too small for water to escape from. Maybe it's because diesel is thinner, or perhaps the diesel can dissolve solids such as trapped slag that water does not. For this reason, I always do a very close bubble test inspection with air on a diesel tank, prior to hydrotesting with water.
Having to drain, clean, and ventilate diesel form a leaking tank sure is a time consuming chore...
It seems that the most probable place for a leak to originate from is a corner where two bulkheads and a deck plate intersect. Often, a Welder will start his bead in the corner and then move out. This has a bad tendency to create a difficult to detect incomplete fusion defect right in the corner where the three separate welds did not fuse properly, mostly due to a cold start and trapped slag. Therefore, I will not pass an interior tank inspection unless all of the corners have been "double wrapped". By "double wrapped" I mean that the corner is reinforced with two separtate welds, one above the other, which start about 1 1/2" away from the corner on one plate, and continue through the corner to about 1 1/2" along the other plate. This helps alot. Also I always instruct Welders to never start a bead in a corner, meaning that they should start the bead a couple inches away from the corner and continue through. Also, it's a good idea to place the vertical weld first, and then cap over it in the corner with the flat weld.
As for porosity in tank perimeter welds, either inside or outside, even though the Code may allow some porosity before it is considered a defect, porosity cannot be allowed on tank boundary welds. The potential for a leak either right away or one that develops months away is too great.
Performing a tank inspection using the 2 psi holding time period method only, on any tank larger than 50 gallons, is asking for trouble. This method is only good for finding large leaks and will not help with pinhole leaks. Additionally any differences in temperatue of the tank or it's surroundings, such as ther sun going down or rising, will affect the pressure reading. Personnaly, I only use this method while hydrotesting piping systems, and then only to reinforce a thorough visual inspection.
Your Level 3 sounds like he is good buddies with the Production people....
Good Luck!
Tim
Parent - - By DONK (*) Date 11-27-2002 16:21
TIM GARY,I am curious as to which ship yards you have worked at?Your information on wrap around welding in tanks is very enlightening to me. It would be good if it was implemented here at the ship yard in MISSISSIPPI. DON KUMPUNEN
Parent - By TimGary (****) Date 11-29-2002 03:10
Hi again DONK,
I've worked on ship/barges/Jack-Up Rigs for Dixon, Elmwood, Pool Offshore and SEMCO, all out of New Orleans.
Additionally, I was a Hull Technician for the US Navy on the USS Ticonderoga.
Tim
Parent - By pipewelder_1999 (****) Date 12-15-2002 19:26
I've got a few pictures with a short description of the picture that may show some experiences. Here is the link http://www.weldinginspectionsvcs.com/WorkPictures.htm

You can click on the thumbnail to see the full size picture. My favorite is the backing strip.

Gerald Austin
Parent - By pipeliner1 (*) Date 06-24-2003 22:22
pipeliner1,,cwi,12/15/2001
Parent - By pipeliner1 (*) Date 06-24-2003 22:25
opps,,wrong post,,
thanks ,,pipeliner1
Up Topic American Welding Society Services / Certifications / Inspection Experiences

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