D1.1 welding certification.....

Who here knows exactly what the D1.1 certification consists of? Planning on using 3/8"stock, will certify for 1/8" to 3/4". Thinking of going to Hobart in Troy ohio....Anyone got any tips on overhead welding??? Not to good at that part....

http://www.aws.org/w/a/

Give T_Bone a shout on Tool Talk......

First tip for overhead welding....turn the heat down and lots of practice.

What rod????Big thing to remember is You whip a 5P(6010)....You weave low hydrogen(7018) Whip the 5p half way out of the puddle then back in, weave low hyd. from side to side, never leave the puddle . Chip or grind or wire wheel all slag before makein the next pass

I'm not familiar with that certification but I never really paid attention to the actual desigination of my tickets. I probably have it or something equivelent to it. Anyway, for overhead there's a couple of things that can help you. First make sure you are comfortable and can see what you're doing really well. It's not good to be stretching your arms as far as they can. If you can use something to rest your other arm on to help control the stinger is a big help. Trying to do a one handed crash and burn overhead test weld is very difficult. A lot of test booths have an arm to hold the piece and also a table or other arm on the same pipe support. Slide the table/arm up so you can rest your arm on it. When doing pipe a lot of guys will stick a file in the end of the pipe to rest their arm on or clamp a vice grip on for the same reason. Don't turn your heat down too much because you need the arc force to push the puddle up to get good penetration. Almost the same heat as flat position. Keeping a little closer arc and not as much angle on the rod can help to hold the puddle up and don't go so slow that the puddle gets too big. Don't be positioned right under the weld unless you want hot slag/grapes dripping on your arm or back of your neck. If you go to the Hobart institue or other recognized training center, they will be able to help you out a lot. Oh, and make sure to adjust your helmet so you're not having to twist your head funny trying to look up. Almost all helmets have an adjustable stop for how far the helmet comes down. You don't want your helmet resting on your chin so you have to tilt your head all the way back to see what you're doing. Wrap your stinger cable around the arm your piece is on to hold it up so you don't have the weight of the cable pulling your arm down. Some guys will loop it over their shoulder. Leave a long enough loop of free cable to the stinger though. You don't want the cable to go tight as the rod burns down. Strike your arc ahead of where you want to start the weld and get the arc established, then move to the starting point and weld over your arc strike. It's not easy to strike an arc right where the weld begins and not have a flaw in the start. Some other welders on here will probably have some more tips that could help you as well. Hope this helps. Dave

It depends on what process you're planning on testing on. When I tested on 3/8 for stick it was open root w/ 6010 root pass and 7018 hotpass and cap. It just takes a little practice. Make sure your root face is as uniform as possible and keep a short arc lenght on your root. Not sure what you've been taught but I was always taught to keep the rod as close to a 90deg. angle to the work as possible and push so you barely see any light from the arc. On your hot pass and cap, the z-weave works well pausing for about 2 sec at the ends and moving rather fast thru the middle (dont leave a dip though) If the weave isnt your style, ask the test administrator if they will allow you to run stringer passes. With GTAW the root face even more critical. Make sure and clean the scale and junk off of both sides of the plate. (especially using GTAW but doesnt hurt using SMAW either) On GTAW using a dia. cup works well to kind of weave the puddle to avoid burning thru too far. Then keep getting larger in cup size the more passes you add. If you've got more specific questions feel free to shoot me an email.

Hi Sparktrician,

Reask this question on the tool forum if you would. 99% of the welding questions are asked on that forum so if someone was searching the archives then it would be easy to find.

I can answer your questions there very easy.

T_Bone <----29yr AWS CWI (Certified Weld Inspector)