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Up Topic Welding Industry / Inspection & Qualification / Oversized welds using multipass fillets
- - By jwright650 (*****) Date 09-01-2005 14:42
Just looking for confirmation from the forum....

Drawing calls for 3/8" fillet, sublet fab shop places a 1/2" fillet(this is not a lap joint). Material is heavy enough for the 1/2" fillet and there are no heat input limits in place, but an inspector on the jobsite is saying that we(actually, the sublet fabricator) has overwelded. I cannot for the life of me find anything in D1.1:2004 to reject this weld. I've looked in Sections 2, 5, and 6 without any reference to the fact that oversized fillets are a cause for rejection.

Am I overlooking anything before I show this guy the short pier?
John Wright
Parent - - By rsliker (*) Date 09-01-2005 15:38
John,
I'm going to assume your welding on A36.
If there are no requirements in the fab documents regarding oversized fillets or excessive heat input, the material thickness involved supports the larger fillet size and there is no obvious distortion created, I cannot see why the inspector should determine this a cause for rejection.
But if he is determined to do so, ask him to show you where in the documents or the code, this is stated as a cause for rejection ?
Tried to post a similar reply previously, hope this one doesn't duplicate it.
Rick
Parent - By jwright650 (*****) Date 09-01-2005 16:23
You are assuming correct, I usually forget to specify the type of material. Other types of material never enters my mind as mild steel is all we do.
Thanks for your reply,
John Wright
Parent - - By jon20013 (*****) Date 09-01-2005 16:31
Except for lap joints, D1.1 does not place a limit on maximum sizes so long as the weld does not interfere with mating parts. When in doubt, ALWAYS say "please show me the requirement." This usually shuts the "opinionated" inspectors up... Good luck!
Parent - By gkcwi (**) Date 09-01-2005 20:25
Just a thought,
Could the "Inspector" be thinking that this is a case of:
5.26.1.1 Overlap, Excessive Convexity, or "Excessive Reinforcement". in which case, "Excessive weld metal shall be removed." I sure hope that this isn't the idea he's going with. I'd ask him to show you how this is a defect because your allowed even in the worst case a max convexity in this size range of 1/8 in., so 3/8 + 1/8= 1/2, that's what you have, where's his problem.
Parent - - By dschlotz (***) Date 09-02-2005 11:51
Engineers Determination!
I inspected a building once that had continuation plates welded between the flanges of beams at moment joints. The continuation plates were 1/2" and the flanges were the same. Because of poor technique during welding, and the need to repair the resulting undercut, the reinforcement grew to as much as 3/4 fillet in some cases. These continuation plates were bowed so much that they resembled eyebrows. I rejected the shop built moment connections on visual when I saw them erected at the job site. The EOR accepted them without exception. So I think that when the code is silent on oversize welds I report resulting distortion and leave it up to the engineers to...?

I was not the shop inspector. I however was able to determine that there was trouble with shop technique because the field guys were more than happy to tell me how much better craftsmen they were than the shop guys.
Parent - - By jon20013 (*****) Date 09-02-2005 13:06
John Wright, please let us know the outcome of this discussion.
Parent - By jwright650 (*****) Date 09-02-2005 13:40
Jon,
will do.
John Wright
Parent - - By jwright650 (*****) Date 09-02-2005 20:06
update:
I talked with our engineer earlier today and it seems that this job will be a real doosey. They were originally asking for us to provide the reason why these welds were changed from 3/8 to 1/2. "The sublet fabricator simply placed larger welds than required by the contract dwgs". Then they requested that we have the shop drawings revised to reflect the 1/2" welds. These are baseplate welds and the guys up there can't seem to interpet drwgs very well, so it has become an email/fax war to see who can create the most emails/fax's and questions out of what seems to me to be very clear information. Apparently there are some very green people in charge of this job at the jobsite and it is very frustrating for our people here, so they are ignoring most of these silly items for the time being. Have you ever heard of an Architech that has to ask the fabricator what does A.E.S.S. mean? This is the type of ignorance of the structural steel biz that we are having to deal with. We are sitting at the fax machine eagerly awaiting the next fax to see what will roll off of it next :insert sarcasm smiley here:
John Wright
Parent - By jon20013 (*****) Date 09-09-2005 13:29
John; I realize it is the perrogative of the Engineer to ask that the shop drawings be revised to indicate 1/2" welds instead of 3/8" welds but then ya have to wonder where does this stop? What if there are areas on the fillets that are 9/16" or 7/16"? It seems this request to have the shop drawings revised could be a very dangerous game... If I were the subcontractor, I would ask for a change order to do so; since you have not violated anything (including the drawings). Just a thought, sometimes when the almighty $$$ gets involved it begins making decisions smarter....
Parent - - By jwright650 (*****) Date 09-12-2005 11:32
Update #2,
I was called up to the jobsite over yet another weld question. Apparently , I was correct, no one at that site can read a drawing. This time they called saying there was yet another weld that is questionable. The inspector misread the drawing and mistook a full pen weld for a fillet weld, he didn't realize which joint he was looking at. When we looked at the set of drawings he was working from, we about had a fit. He was working from a set that was stamped in big red block letters "For Approval Only, Not For Construction". So we quickly pointed him to the drawings stamped in big red block letters that read "For Field and File Drawings". Lots of very green kids making big bucks running this multimillon dollar show. I realize they have to learn somewhere, but I didn't much care for dropping everything to drive that far only to find this. The real kicker is that they had an inspector complete a shop inspection and I was holding a fax in my hand showing these pieces were already accepted and signed off, by thier inspector. My boss wasn't very happy with these people calling all upset and making such a deal over these trivial matters. The sublet fabricator has a very good reputation with us and does excellent work, so I had my doubts before I left on my trip to the site.
John Wright
Parent - - By jon20013 (*****) Date 09-12-2005 12:29
John; any chance you can backcharge for your time and delays? Like I said, $$$ ALWAYS gets peoples attention... Thanks for keeping us in the loop, hope things smooth over for you real soon!
Parent - By jwright650 (*****) Date 09-12-2005 12:55
Jon,
My boss(our COO) went with me, and we took our VP along also to let these guys know that we take this stuff seriously. We called in the QC from the sublet shop and he flew out and met us at the jobsite. My boss gave them a little talk and let them know that this time this trip was on us but that they owed it to offer the QC guy from our sublet shop re-embursement for his trip. Hopefully they know we take these jobs seriously and before they call us, they best know what's going on. If we have a problem with something, there is no problem with us getting it fixed, but trips up the road for nothing are taxing on the nerves.
John Wright
Parent - - By CHGuilford (****) Date 09-12-2005 16:17
The sad part of it is that what you are describing is all too common. It sounds like your customer might not be doing as well as hoped and is eager to conjure up some backcharges to "improve" their bottom line.

Chet Guilford
Parent - By jwright650 (*****) Date 09-12-2005 16:34
Hi Chet,
With the tight schedule this job has, there is no room for any of that type nonsense. I can only hope the rest of this contract will go smoothly from here on out.<crosses fingers> :)
John Wright
Parent - - By QCCWI (***) Date 09-12-2005 17:05
Awe come on now they would not being doing that.(If only I could type in a sarcastic tone)
Parent - By jwright650 (*****) Date 09-12-2005 17:09
Other boards have smilies that you can add in to help communicate and you could insert a sarcastic smilie to show that tone :)
BTW, what part of Va are you in? I'm in Lynchburg.
John Wright
Parent - - By CHGuilford (****) Date 09-02-2005 13:35
John,
I too have not seen anything that specifically prohibits oversized welds, only undersized ones. I have seen situations where heat input restrictions required welds to be not larger than as specified, but that was also spelled out in the special provisions.

A change order could be the result if the engineer restricts weld size after the contract. But that is a 2 edged sword - there will probably be other issues (RFI's) for the engineer to gain leverage with.

On the fabricator's side of things, a 1/2 fillet is about 40% larger than a 3/8 fillet. If that gets too extreme then the following equation will apply: more material + more time + engineer's concerns = less profit + slipped schedule + lack of confidence for future work.

Chet Guilford
Parent - - By swnorris (****) Date 09-02-2005 18:25
John,

Like everyone else, I am not aware of anything prohibiting welds that are oversized, unless they exceed the maximum size for single pass fillets. This wouldn't apply because multi pass fillets were used.
Please note that C5.13 is the commentary for Conformance with Design, and should dismiss his rejection claim. It states "Either or both legs of fillet welds may be oversized without correction, provided the excess does not interfere with satisfactory end use of a member. Attempts to remove excess material from oversized welds serve no purpose. Adequacy of throat dimension and conformance to the weld profiles of 5.4 should be the only acceptance criteria". It would be interesting to see what criteria he bases his rejection on. Maybe its just personal preference. I had an issue with an outside inspector about some MTR's the other day. We were following the contract specifications and the related codes, but the inspector rejected them. When I asked why, he replied "It's not up to the owner, it's up to the inspector".
Parent - - By jon20013 (*****) Date 09-02-2005 18:29
For what it's worth, I once worked (as a CWI) to a construction specification that had -0, plus 1/16" tolerances on all fillet welds. I'm not sure that specification really served it's intended purpose, we rejected an awful lot of welds... for, in my mind at least, very little reason.
Parent - By vonash (**) Date 09-09-2005 01:13
jwright650,
I hope he's a good swimmer; Because you are correct!
Up Topic Welding Industry / Inspection & Qualification / Oversized welds using multipass fillets

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