Hello,
     My name is David McNeely,
I am a certified welder that works for a company that specializes in recreational architecture.
I am currently working on a job that requires intentive precision and have came across a process which has raised concern with me.

Allow me to explain;
The part I am fabricating calls for a 1” thick (8”×8”) base plate to sit flush with a 3/16” wall thickness (8”×8”) tube.
When told by other fabricators that we plasma cut a bevel into the base plate and smooth out by hand grinding leaving tabs to maintain the overall length of the part being assembled.
I found that the bevel is deeper then the thickness of the wall of the tube.
Thus creating a void between baseplate and tube of anywhere between 1/16” – 1/8”.
When I questioned it with other fabricators they simply stated that that’s how they have always done it, so next I went and had a talk with our engineering/architectural coordinators and they couldn’t give me a answer except that it was not their job to understand the welding processes that, that responsibility is of the certified welders/fabricators.

My gut instinct tells me that if the 1” baseplate is to sit flush with the end of the tube with a 3/16” wall thickness the bevel should be no more than 3/16” depth and a angle of 45° to allow proper fusion from one plate to another. (The way they go about prepping the plates the bevel they plasma cut and smooth out the depth of the bevel is anywhere between 1/4" - 1/2" and a angle of anywhere between 35° - 65°, leaving a tab on each corner)
When I stated this to my fellow co-workers they said that it didn’t matter because we are welding inside of the tube as well as on the outside.
Which brought forth another concern for me,
From the end of the tube where the baseplate and tube connect 3 ½” centered is a 4”×4” access hole cut by a plasma cutter leaving a 1 ½” clearance from the end of the tube to the beginning of the access hole.
We do not clean the inside of these tubes after plasma cutting the access hole before fabricating the baseplate to it.
So my primary concern is that with all the plasma splatter/scale inside the tube from the access hole being cut when we fabricate the baseplate to the tube (which has a void from beveling and not to mention if it is even square there already is anywhere between 1/16” – 1/8” void) When we fabricate the plate to the tube and weld inside filling that void we are welding contaminants from the inside into the weld and then running a root pass on the outside filled in with a fillet weld.
Is this welds integrity now compromised?
With there being such a big void in between metals is the weld now weaker because of lack of fusion?
Note that this part is a support column (which everyone is fabricated the same when it comes to the baseplate) and on top of that this once finished will be going to a state that is very humid and this building will be surrounded by excessive amounts of precipitation due to what the building will be once erected.
I’m sorry that I have asked you for your help as a certified welder, but my gut instinct tells me that this process in which we have always done is incorrect.
I wish to further my knowledge in this career and do things properly, I am young and have a lot to learn about this field correctly because I don’t want to be the cause of a “possible” failure in manufacturing of these parts.
I’d like to know these answers so that I may share them with the company I work for to strengthen our company.
I have tried finding the answer myself through minimal resources I have access to.
I do not have the funds to buy the AWS standards book.
Again I am sorry for asking these questions but I felt it was the only way that I will receive a authentic answer and reference for this task at hand.

Thank you for your time,
David M. McNeely