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Vent: My old foreman told me to stop rushing my welds and it finally clicked
Honestly, I was working on a pressure vessel last week, trying to finish a 2-inch pipe weld in one pass like I always do. My old boss, who retired from the Philly shipyards, stopped by and said, 'Kid, you're putting down metal, but you're not making a weld. Slow down by half and watch your puddle fill.' I tried it on the next joint, and the difference in penetration was crazy. It added maybe 15 minutes to the job, but the X-ray would have been clean. Has anyone else had a simple piece of advice that totally changed how you do a basic task?
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grant.nina27d ago
I mean, it's a pipe weld, not open heart surgery. If your X-ray was gonna fail, then yeah, slow down. But 15 minutes on a single 2-inch joint starts to add up when you got a whole row of them to do. I've seen guys take all day on a flange because they're watching their puddle like it's a lava lamp and the job still passed inspection. Not every weld needs to be a museum piece, sometimes good enough is good enough. Plus, if your first pass looked like pigeon droppings, maybe the issue is more about technique than speed.
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