somebody asked me how I know what to do when the weld suddenly makes a turn for the worst? Really, after years of experience and training you learn to train your vision and mind of what problem areas of any weld look like.
That is a benefit of my mistakes. I can relay to you the benefits you can receive from my years of painful mistakes and errors I have learned not only from my own mistakes but the mistakes of those around me.
One of the videos recently published from the crud trap series showed my weld gap opening up and the metal running the risk of falling in on the bevel creating what is technically called excess penetration.
Excess penetration is a result of pushing too much metal to the interior surfaces of the pipe. This is usually caused by staying too long in one spot while welding. The combination of too large a gap and high heat can also attribute to excess penetration.
It is almost a guarantee that young welders at some point will face this common problem. Even veterans get this on occasion.
The step around this is to try your best to evenly match the pipe bevels and the interior surfaces of the pipe.
An even gap all the way around the pipe makes life a lot easier.
The problem I faced in the video in question on the crud trap series was a hand beveled pipe surface.
Hand beveling is usually inferior to the factory or machine bevel. When two factory bevels are matched the gap is consistently matched and makes the weld path extremely uniform.
Because of this consistency the heat range won’t need to be adjusted as with an uneven hand bevel (if the bevel begins to open up too much).
What happened to me on the crud trap is that the gap was inconsistent leading to the place in the weld where my keyhole opened up to much and the high heat became my enemy. The keyhole opened up and the edge of the pipe was burning up before I could deposit metal.
When this happens if you don’t stop immediately and make some type of adjustment more than likely you will do a few of these things if not possibly all of them.
1. Burn the pipe bevel up and open up the gap
2. Leave excess metal in the weld path because you stay in the big gap too long trying to fill the crater
3. Lose the keyhole you had to the canyon that is created.
4. Draw back the rod while still welding because the heat is too much to handle now and by doing that you may not penetrate the weld and leave undercut on the interior of the pipe surfaces.
Either way it goes the thing to do is stop welding. You can change the heat slightly bringing the amps down usually 5 to 10 amps depending upon your skill and the problem. Maybe more, maybe less.
Stop welding and let the pipe cool off. Don’t push the rod into the bevel as much and begin to butter it around skipping over the bevel more causing less penetration.
The only way to be certain about what you do on the inside of the pipe is to make slight adjustments, weld a little, then look inside the pipe with a flashlight to see what you are doing. Hopefully if the pipe is not completely closed you may be able to look through the bevel to see inside the pipe. You may also be able to see the interior weld with a mirror and light from the outside if the pipe piece is not to long or closed up.
When the bevel opens up, grind as little as possible. The last thing you want to do is take away more of the bevel now. If the pipe is glowing red where you can see it after pulling out of the keyhole and the keyhole appears to grow, then let it cool and turn down the heat.
I hope this all makes sense. If it doesn’t you know I will try to clarify it or come at it from a different angle.

About the Author:
If you would like to see more articles about welding then pop over to my website at www.thewelderslens.com. I also have a blog for comments and ideas. You can see the address at my website. If you visit the website and leave your information you can receive a fresh ebook written by myself at no cost to you. Thanks again!

Article Stars: http://articlestars.com

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated