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Up Topic American Welding Society Services / Certifications / Welding above your qualification, your fault or employers?
- - By delarosa74868 Date 12-24-2012 12:40
Passed my bridge welding cert on Friday. I tell my boss afterwards and now he is talking about me welding on a job he bid on that is an elevated platform inside a manufacturing plant.  I tell him that im only qualified for bridges and he says that a cert is a cert.   Cant really argue with the boss. Who is responsible for knowing my cert limits.  I can voice my opinion, but at the end of the day I have to do what he says or I may be sent on down the road.
Parent - By js55 (*****) Date 12-24-2012 13:17
You don't qualify for bridges. You qualify as a welder under specific requirements with specific variables. If the EOR accepts the quals you are good to go.
Parent - - By jwright650 (*****) Date 12-24-2012 15:46
JS is right, you are qualified to weld using a specific code....typical when welding on bridges they will qualify the welders to AWS D1.5 structural welding code for bridges. For buildings and other things they may elect to use AWS D1.1 structural welding code for structural steel.
To be perfectly honest, there isn't much difference in the welding qualification portion of the test between the two codes(D1.5 only allows manual chipping of slag, no mechanical cleaning processes allowed). However for dual qualifications for both D1.1 and D1.5, the testing person needs to make certain that all of the variables for each code are being followed, for each code, at the time of testing.
Parent - - By eekpod (****) Date 12-26-2012 11:36
Didn't we just go through this same question last week?
Parent - - By delarosa74868 Date 12-26-2012 14:05
Yes, I didn't quite understand if the question was answered though. Who is responsible for knowing my limits? If the boss puts me on something that I'm not qualified for, is it his problem or mine?
Parent - - By eekpod (****) Date 12-26-2012 14:59
As long as you work for him, he is responsable for the work that you perform, as long as he assigns this work for you to do. 
I don't see any reason you could be personally held responsable.
Now if your certified for SMAW and you decide you want to use FCAW becasue it will get done faster and your not certifed for FCAW then, you could be in trouble becasue you did something that was wrong.
As long as your boss tells you to do it, and since he pays the bills, I'd say your all set.
Now if an inspector comes and asks for your certs and they don't met the requirements of the job, your boss will have to respond to that, and he will have to incure any costs to correct that situation, not you personally.

But also having a conscious, if you know your doing something wrong or illegal then I would certainly point it out to him, to make him aware.  Then you have a personnel decision to make whether you want to work for a person like that or not.  Do you have access to your weld certs? Do you know what code you were tested to?
Parent - - By delarosa74868 Date 12-26-2012 20:25
yes, I have the paper and I went to the department of labor today and got my license.  Position is up to 3G and process is SMAW. It doesn't say anything about D1.5 on it like I figured it would.
Parent - - By Dualie (***) Date 12-27-2012 03:49
at the end of the day its his money, his liability.
Parent - By eekpod (****) Date 12-27-2012 11:29
delarosa
It sounds like you got your certs through a goverment department like the NYC DOB (dept. of buildings) for instance.

That's brings up a good point since they administer the test and they give the certification.  I haven't been through that system myself so I'm not familier with it but I would guess that they don't have the ability to give a welder cert from one test but for two different codes.  Like we mentioned in other posts, yes it can be done and alot of us do it to save our companies money and time, but now that I think about it I doubt the DOB would be willing to to do, just a guess on my part because I don't know specifically.
Parent - By welderbrent (*****) Date 12-27-2012 14:23
Ultimately, as others have mentioned, it is up to the engineer who is responsible for reviewing submittals prior to the start of a job.  If he says he will accept your existing certs then you are good to go.  And, yes, for the most part your bridge code applicable certs would also be applicable for D1.1 Structural Steel.  It would be nice if the testing company, person, would write everything up that way, test that way, and then fill out the paperwork with two separate certs so that you have no dispute with anyone when getting approved for a job. 

But, bottomline in your particular instance, yes, if the boss says he wants you to weld on it, do it.  While he is wrong about a "cert is a cert", he can use you on any job he wants.  But when a job gets reviewed by the engineer they may want both certs instead of just the one.  It's all up to them. 

Good luck.

Have a Great Day,  Brent
Up Topic American Welding Society Services / Certifications / Welding above your qualification, your fault or employers?

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