Mig welders, (Old School)!

Of course last weeks rusty boat trailer scab over repair using 6011 stick looked nothing at all like that

AWS says you can use any tool in the test booth that your craft would normaly use in the field for making in place weldments.

What normaly happens on the jobs that I've been on is you can NOT use a grinder in the test booth without premission from the weld Inspector. The inspector will look at the weld to see if "he'll" approve of the grinder use. I will almost always deny such requests as our goal is to see the ability of the weldor to over come common obsticles in the field.

Only on special requests from the employer, (I need certified weldors, PERIOD) will I allow grinder use. I have also went as far as putting another weldor in the test booth just to clam the nerves down of a tester so he will pass. That is legal according too AWS rules but that very rarely ever happens.

As too grinding weldments for stress relief. That really won't have any stress effect on the completed weldment. I've Tig welded 24ga SS SM and use a steel hammer with a back-up dolly for that.

What a hammer does is slightly stretch the weld face to remove surface tension that was created during the weld process. This works well for SM and heavier plate betwen each pass other than the cover pass on multi-pass weldments. This method is rarely spec'd tho. Usually a experienced weldor will know when a weldment needs this and usually mostly caused from a poor joint design.

I designed a SS shaker for seperating french fries that used a sub-frame made out of 4x2x1/4 304 SS tubing with a bed made from 16g 304 SS dimpled SM. It would shake at the rate of 900bpm(beats per minute) and would work harden in a years time. Even the frame was scrap after a years use. The scrap metal wasn't fit for anything other than the melting pot as the viberations totaly distroyed the metal grains.

T_Bone

I had this happen to me one time. I had to take an X-ray Innershield 1-inch plate test for the Navy, (can�t remember the wire #). When I got to the testing facility the only booth open had a water-cooled gun, (what a club) I had to run horizontal, vertical, and overhead. The gun didn�t bother me on the horizontal or vertical, but on the overhead I had to stop and clean the cup out after every pass. The last pass on the cover a big glob of spatter attached it�s self to the wire and went right into the weld puddle. I stopped tried to knock it off with a chipping hammer, but was not good enough. I went and found the inspector. Once I explained what happened and he looked at it, he brought me a grinder to clean it up, and also watched how I did it. He called the job site that afternoon to let me know I passed. :o)