dieselman2300

Heres a spool piece I did today at work in about 3-4 hours.
Its 12" Sch. 80 pipe with 12" #150 flanges. Its 7" face to face of flanges.
This was a 6010 rod root pass and 3 stringers 1/8"-7018 rod, all stick welded.
It will most likely be x-rayed to make sure its %100 metal, no porosity, no trapped slag, or lack of fusion.

What do you all think?

I will try to get some pics of the 30" 304 Stainless Steel line I was working on last week. All heli-arced.

The old guy in the back is Ray, hes been a pipefitter for 35 years. He'll be retiring next year. Hes my fitter and I'm the welder.

Fronty Owner

looks good.
Maybe the pictures, but it doesn't look like you had much heat on it. I would like to see some nice deep blues on the pipe and flange. I also think you need another couple passes, get a nice 45* angle on your welds.

dieselman2300

Man, those flanges are 2" thick. the sch. 80 pipe is just unde 1/2" wall thickness.
Anyways us pipefitters dont weld that hot. Theres no need to weld on "barbque" or no offense "hillbilly hot". We get alot of pipeliner travelers who weld on the barbque setting.

We fitters like to carry the metal instead of having to rush things.

Also,
that was 140 amps for 1/8" rod.

Just curious what do you do for a living?

Dodge4Bo

Good Job Dieselman and looks like you have a steady hand !!! Looks good and after I viewed the photos the first thing I said to myself was self that sure looks like a bead run with 7018. :-))
I use to work in the mines for TU and had some old pipefitters as my mentors many years ago. If the machine is running good you don't have to chip the slag left behind because it peels right off.

Fronty Owner

Engineer for an oil service company.

We build pressure vessels to the boiler code..
we commonly weld wall thicknesses in excess of 1-1/2" to 18-3/4" - 10K API flanges. 7018 rod is used on some equipment, some equipment get 10018 rod.

dieselman2300

Cool!
I was doing some 9 chrome over the summer that had a J-Bevel 2 1/2" wall thickness, talk about burned up!

Dont get me started on boilermakers or millwrights.

The job I'm on CB&I is doing the tank. They all use microwire and stainless microwire, what a joke. All the welds are horizontals, I would like to see some of them do a 5g (bellhole) on some 18" or bigger or better yet 2" 5g (bellhole).

Clayten

Use 3/16 and one pass. Time is money.

Fronty Owner

we have a semi-automatic welder set up to do submerged arc. with a 400 Amp miller power supply. We can burn upto 1/8" wire. you wanna talk about lay a bead of weld.

Most of our stuff is done in 1g. every welding station has a weld table that tilts 90* and will rotate at up to 10 rpms

shecom3

I am a mechanic at a copper foundry and a few of my coworkers only wish their welds looked like yours.Previous job was offshore as a structural welder,I just never got that good at TIG or I might have gone on to pipe as well.

dieselman2300

Man, I'd be spoiled.

dieselman2300

I wanted 5/32, but its a pain in the butt to get anything around there.

3/16 is for ironworkers laying flat beads anyways.

Fronty Owner

They are spoiled.

but your doing a good job for burning 7018.
a lot better looking than my welds, even with a 6011 rod.

shecom3

We used 5P as a root (I think similiar to 6011)when it didn't need to be TIG welded.I welded pipe with is in the vertical,just stick it in the gap and run downhand,it basically put the root on the inside of the pipe then weld 7018 uphand for the filler and cap.The welders in the yard had rollouts that would adjust to a 90 and would prop their elbow on a jackstand and just run the foot pedal from their stool.

Alwaysworking

we have a 651 miller you can lay some beads with that, we've run 5/32 with it. i like the 100% duty cycle.

Totallyrad

Nice looking welds dm. I enjoy welding but I'm more of a recreational welder, only do it for repair of my equipment. Myself, I usually run 11018. It lays down the same as 7018 but lasts a little longer in the dirt. Anyway, I tend to over do it a little but the welds don't fail.