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I was using way too much heat on my root passes for years without knowing it.
I was working on a big pressure vessel job in Tulsa last month, and the inspector, an old guy named Frank, watched me for about ten minutes. He didn't say anything, just pointed at the weld bead with his pen. The color was way too dark and the grain looked coarse. He finally said, 'You're cooking it, son. Turn it down by about 15 amps and watch the puddle, not the arc.' I tried it his way and the difference in the bead profile was night and day. How many of you had a similar wake-up call on your heat settings?
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kim.stella17d ago
That "watch the puddle, not the arc" advice is spot on. I had the same thing happen on some pipe work. My beads were coming out flat and wide, and the cap was always a struggle. An old hand told me I was basically just pushing metal around with too much heat. He had me drop my amps and focus on letting the puddle fill in from the edges. The bead stacked up so much nicer and the tie-ins cleaned up way easier. It felt like learning to weld all over again.
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Totally get what you mean about the bead stacking up nicer. Once I slowed down and really watched the puddle fill, I stopped getting those undercut valleys on my caps. It's all about letting the metal flow into the groove instead of trying to race it with the rod.
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