What welding projects are you working on? Are you proud of something you built?
How about posting some pics so other welders can get some ideas?
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Well, here's the patch section. I got a near-perfect fit (to the boss' amazement). I fit it to be a butt joint all the way, since the material is 12 ga., then welded the inside first with an ESAB Miniarc 90i (it would fit through the manway and baffles). I got about 75% penetration.

In this pic, the welds have been back-ground to remove "sugar" and open the outer seam to the inner weld joint. At this point, I'm purging the inner to nitrogen and twiddling my thumbs. I did get about 2/3 of the outer welded before quitting time...

I had about 8 hours on the inside, and expect about 6 total on the outside.
GEDC0706.JPG
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Hey,

What did the boss expect.....? :lol: Did you need to dye pen after back grinding?

Mick
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The boss has no clue how to apply my industrial experience to what he asks me to do, and no clue what I've done before this job, so it's not hard to surprise him.

Evaluations and raises happen in April, and he's particularly impressed this month... 8-)

We'll see... :roll:

Steve S
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Hey,
Good luck on the pay rise. Its obvious to any half wit that you are worth alot more to a company than they are to you.

Mick
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Hey, Mick,

My evaluation was completed yesterday. I got glowing praise, and a dollar raise (Whaddaya know... I'm a poet, and, um, wasn't aware of it ;) ).

I got home and told the Mrs.

Her first remark? "You're aware it's April Fool's Day, right?" :lol: :lol: :lol:
She's been around my sense of humor too long...

Anywho... The repair passed it's first, and most basic test today. I pressured it to 25 psi and soap-bubble tested it. I had no doubt it would pass this one, but it's still "procedure". Next is to add helium (to about 1 psi additional), and "sniff" the welds with the mass spectrometer. No word yet on if there will be x-ray, but I sealed the tools I'd need for a repair in the vessel just in case (I have to re-open it for oxygen-clean procedures, anyway, but today realized I'd sealed my damn welding hood in there, too!). I just dropped all the power cords and the argon line for the TIG inside the manway, rather than dragging all that equipment out, just in case I should need to make a repair, but I was cussing leaving my hood in there!

Steve S
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Hey,

I thought for a second that you welded your stuff in there :( But that would have been accompanied by many more of these :twisted:

Mick
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LOL!

No, this one has an actual manway, with a bolt-down lid. I didn't lose my keys....
delraydella
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WeldingSyncrowave 250,Millermatic 252,30a Spoolgun Cutting12" Hi-speed Cutoff Saw, 9x 12 Horizontal Bandsaw MillingGorton 8d Vertical Mill TurningMonarch EE Precision Lathe GrindingBrown & Sharpe #5 Surface Grinder
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Hey,

Thats a definite on the doh. Glad it has an access hole. But then again Id say in the work you id say there would be little chance of such absent mindedness.

Mick
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Got the word today, they're actually going to x-ray this one. Tenatively scheduled for Wed. next week. Fortunately, they'll x-ray all of it.

I hate 10% x-ray samples... All they gotta do is find one tiny thing, and I'm self-concious about the other 90%... :lol:

Tonight I get to trim my goatee & moustache for my respirator. Been brand-new in the bag for 2 years, a (expensive) gift from the tool-room lady at a shutdown I did, who liked my jokes and friendly attitude. Tomorrow I crawl in that tank and remove all the masking tape we used to label photographs, and I'll be wiping with laquer thinner to remove tape residue, "Sharpie" marks, and any grease I might have tracked in, so I'll need my organic vapor cartridges.

There's not anything of interest on this project until x-ray is complete. After that, I'll post up some pics of the re-assembly of the outer vessel. That might be interesting, for the steps I'll take to re-align everything.

Steve S
delraydella
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What sort of apparatus would be used to xray such a large area? All I can picture would be one of those rolling xray trucks that are at border crossings.
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Naw, Steve,

They'll break it down into small, slightly overlapping sections and take many films.

I wish I'd taken a picture of us removing the perlite from the trailer. It's a fine white powder, and the guys were in Tyvek, respirators, and goggles. The floor was covered, and it was thick in the air. I'd have captioned it, "Border Patrol Makes Record Cocaine Bust!"

:lol:

Steve S
delraydella
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What happens if they find a flaw? Would you have to redo the whole piece, or just that section?
WeldingSyncrowave 250,Millermatic 252,30a Spoolgun Cutting12" Hi-speed Cutoff Saw, 9x 12 Horizontal Bandsaw MillingGorton 8d Vertical Mill TurningMonarch EE Precision Lathe GrindingBrown & Sharpe #5 Surface Grinder
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I'd just make a repair where this alleged "flaw" is... ;)

Why rework 20' of "passing" weld for one spot where a gnat Kamaze'd into my puddle...

Steve s
delraydella
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Not that you would have one, of course!

I was just asking out of general curiousity. To try to get the bigger picture, as it were.... :)
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I'm glad they're x-raying all of it.

I once busted a shot on aluminum pipe, where they randomly x-rayed 10% of my welds. The rest of the job, I was self-concious of the 90% they didn't test... :shock:

Steve S
delraydella
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No kidding!
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Here's the way I spent my Friday:
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Everything without paint on it is new. The six-inch sch. 40 is not "let in", it had to be coped to the rear head so I had to scribe a compound curve, fit and weld an end cap that centered on the 2" pipe, then fit and weld the flange (which the boss insisted I "stovepipe", meaning I had to install the spool that goes there, then tack the flange.) I landed within 1/16" of my layout.

I had to stand on my head for some of this, here's where it's located.
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The original bell-cap that was in this location was leaking; It had cracked at (and through) the pipe, allowing air and liquid oxygen into the evacuated space.

Steve S
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Interesting read, many thanks for sharing...I'm sorta new here, and I will say, its very confusing when you don't describe your abbreviations.

What's a NDT? (from the title of the thread...?) Is that an abbreviation for a company name? National Debate Team (that's what the look up engines show...) I'm assuming Non Destructive Testing, but I'm not really sure.

The other confusing abbreviation is "S LA".. Are you located in South Los Angeles, California or perhaps in Southern Louisiana?

Perhaps abbreviations could be spelled out When First Used? (WFU)

Again many thanks for sharing this insight into different aspects of welding / fab work.

Zip.
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Zipzit.

Your guess is correct for NDT (nondestructive testing).

Alexa
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Hey,

You are absolutely right.

Sometimes we forget that people dont always "get" what we are babbling on about.

NDT- is as you thought Non Destructive testing. Also called NDE (Non Destructive Examination) in some countries, it can include the following
First and foremost: Visual inspection as well as Dye Penetrant, Magnetic Particle, Bubble Leak testing, Ultra Sonic, Radiography (x ray)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlE3eK0g6vU
This video explains the basics.... there are many more, more highly involved methods for specific areas.

I hope this helps and we will all try to be less technical in future.

Mick
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Though, as Mick says, we'll try to be less technical, please ask, as you did here.

Sometimes the terminology many of us use is used often only in a few specific trades. We get used to the jargon we depend on daily, and it's easy to forget that not everyone will know what a particular word or abbreviation means in the context of a post.

I'll try to clarify the context of his topic:

Most of my NDT work is specific to high-vacuum service (think Thermos bottle on steroids), and I use four main methods, in a sometimes complicated sequence. I begin with Helium leak detection, using a Helium-specific mass-spectrometer attached to a vacuum pump, and intoduce helium to the entire outer surface of the vessel, typically a semi-trailer (tanker, for liquid hyrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, argon, etc.) to prove whether a leak exists in the outer vessel. If no leak is found, helium is introduced to the inner vessel, under pressure, to determine whether a leak exists there.

The procedures differ for inner and outer leaks so I'll stick with "outer", which are more common. I'll divide the trailer into halves, and repeat the test for each half. (A huge tarp is used to contain the helium, for both the full- and half vessel tests.) Once narrowed by 1/2, assuming there aren't two leaks, which has happened, I isolate individual areas, such as cabinets and substructure and test again. Once I'm narrowed down to a "region", I begin visual inspection in that region, looking for previous repairs, excessive rust, and obvious damage. I then introduce helium to the small suspect areas, ruling out one at a time until I have a test area of a few sqaure feet, or sometimes a weld zone of a few linear feet. This continues untill I've narrowed the leak to a few square inches, then I usually break vacuum, buff off all paint or section out a welded structure in the way and buff to clean metal, and move to dye-penetrant. If I get a dye indication, I then pressure the space between the inner and outer vessel (a precarious operation... There must be more pressure in the inner vessel than around it, or it will crush like a beer can), and do a soap-bubble test to prove beyond doubt that's where the leak is. Failing a soap-bubble test (some leaks are simply too small), I can introduce helium to a very small area around the dye indication.

I hope this wasn't too long winded an explanation of the process I go through before I weld the stuff I take pictures of...
:oops:

Steve S
Zipzit
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Steve, thanks for the update.

I will say I did watch the video on non destructive techniques. One part of the movie sparked some old memories. When I first started at Ford Motor engineering in the early 1980's I wanted to look inside a complicate part without opening it up. Ford had an X-ray area at one of the off campus locations (Glandale Ave facalities ) at the time in Redford, Michigan. They had this huge room with 18" thick walls. Inside was a lot of testing equipment, including an overhead crane holding a very large x-ray source. They were testing a fiberglass vehicle (a two seater sports car, never went close to production...) Everything was glass and composite, no metal at all in the structure of the vehicle. I talked to the technicians for awhile. Turns out the room was built during WWII in support of the B25 bomber production. They could x-ray an entire engine at one shot. I think they shut that lab down in the Mid 80's .

That video also showed briefly how dye penetrate is used.

And yeah, its touch to understand mystery abbreviations sometimes.. thanks again for sharing your experiences.

Zip.
Alexa
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Zipzit wrote: (...) They could x-ray an entire engine at one shot. (...)
=====

You triggered my curiosity.

Tanks.
Alexa
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