How do you guys do your vertical ups? Or whats the best, most structural sound way. I do the Christmas Tree like bead and think thats good. But the company I am working for now say that you are supposed to just hot tack it all the way up. To me that seems like the easy way out and weaker. I mean anyone can just run a bunch of tacks up a seem. So what do you guys think or how do you do them. I am just curious. I guess a gorvernment inspector or whatever told them the hot tack method was stronger, but I just dont believe it yet. So whats your input guys. Thanx

 

what type of welding process are you using? what is the material, the joint, ect.? depending on the situation i'll use different methods. i'm guessing the company wants you to do the welds quicker and with less filler metal, and that no "government inspector" told them anything about the welds. i'm not completely against trigger welding with the mig like some people are, but if you are going for the strongest method possible structurally, its not the way to go.

 

You’ll be hard pressed to show a situation where “hot tacking” will give you a better weld than running a proper bead, the only place that I can think of when welding vertical is on some thin sheet metal with a mig, but in that case I’d suggest trying actually running the bead vertical down, and this isn’t exactly a structural application.

In a lot of cases vertical ups can be just plain ugly no matter what you do with the exception of using a few stick electrodes which don’t flow as much as others, but a lot of the question is what are you welding, how heavy is it and what are you welding it with?

 

hot tack if done right will be as strong as a bead weld. the only reason i see for a hot tack is the metal is kinda thin and if your run a continueous bead up you will either warp the metal or burn though. top to bottom is a cooler process but not as much penitration as bottom to top. Im asuming your mig welding.

 

Yeah I am mig welding. Its on pretty heavy steel, 3/8 inch and up. So burning through is not an issue as it would be on sheetmetal. We have ou welders cranked up to over 28 and it never blows through. They are dead set on telling us its stronger, but I dont feel good about sending welds out the door that i feel are inferior. So I just thought I would get your guys opinions on it.

 

I dont know if you have run 7018 rod before, but you run it the same way. Hold on the sides and jump the middle. **_____** 1,2 jump, 1,2 jump
Remember that you dont need as much heat running up as you would running down or flat. If you start getting cratering, or a crown in the center hold your sides longer and slow down. Turn you machine to about 160 amps and go from there. That would be a good setting for .035 wire and C25 gas. If you are using C100 gas you dont need as much heat. Try it and post a picture, I can tell you what you need to change if needed.

 

tell them to blow it vertically up their ***. weld it down, or switch to flux-core and let it flow baby!

 

An uphill weld is much stronger than a downhill weld. Going up builds the heat as you go creating deeper and more uniform penetration. Downhill runs away from the heat, much less tacking that is next to nothing penetration wise and a bunch of cold tie-ins. If it is 3/8" material and considered structural, the only way to do it is uphill. Any inspector that says otherwise is a fraud.

 

most inspectors are frauds to begin with. 90% of the ones i've worked with knew NOTHING about welding, so they would just point out stuff to fix that they thought wasn't right, leaving real problems like poor starts/stops, cold lap, and porosity unattended to...

 

Each of which is highly likely with every tack. The best that I can figure is that the hot tack method was started by somebody trying to copy the look of TIG welds. The problem with MIG welding is television. That girl on Extreme 4-wheeler proved that you can be cute, and still not know anything about welding. Anybody can pull the trigger, any perform some type of metal fusion. I definitely would not ride in one of those four wheelers that they built when she was popularizing the hot-tack (I think she is learning to weld now, though). DrivenWS6, does any of this welding you are doing have the possibility of endangering even one person in the event of weld failure? If so, consider how mutilating or killing somebody will weigh on your conscious just because your retarded boss made up the government inspector story just to increase productivity using shoddy workmanship.

 

i pretty much agree 100% with MikeGyver. there are too many TV shows "teaching" ignorant yuppies how to be "handy" around the shop without any REAL knowledge being gained. i'll stop there because i don't want to rant.

i think hardwire MIG welding WAS invented, or perfected through shielding gas usage, so that any monkey could pick up a gun and stick two pieces of metal together. that's the point, BUT even still there is a right way and a billion wrong ways to do it.

i basically build radiators for nuclear (and othe fuel) powerplants at Thermal Engineering, Intl. there's a lot at stake when it comes to the quality of my welds and everyone else's that work there. i had to pass a X-ray test on several processes and in many positions including hardwire vertical up. i gotta say, that was probably the hardest to do just because of nature of the puddle under those conditions in that process.

i've never welded hardwire up since i took that test.

 

I am a AWS certified structural and API certified pipe welder. There about 1 of 10 applications that downhill will be accepted in a structure or high pressure envirnment. ER70 wire and 7018 rod are the usual options, both of course run uphill. What thickness material are you running and what kind of strength parameters are you trying to meet?

 

3/8" thick...? 7018 stick vertical up is the only really good way to do that. I'm pretty confident of my ablility with a MIG but I'm also pretty sure that I'm not going to pull that off with some normal ER70, get it hot enough and still get a nice looking weld.

 

7018 is for sure not the only way. Most big structural crews are atleast partially running wire. I sure do when I can. E-71 series wire is very popular in self shielded, and dual shield forms. Usually I am running .052 self shielded wire through the LN-25 for structural. You think that 7018 really is better than wire? In general thats not true. You cant carry as much heat with LH as you can with wire, its easy to hold and build the puddle. Just using plain ER70 wire uphill I have no problem one passing 3/8". Downhill is nothing alike. Sometime, try running two beads on the same test material. One uphill and one downhill. Then do a destruction test in a vise or whatever and see which one breaks and HOW it breaks. That will tell the tale.

 

we had a guy who welded in the Army come and do a weld test he did the same junk tack, tack, tack crap he got told to weld a normal bead and he could not..........then he got told bye bye.

 

Thats exactley whats going on here. The main crew leader as far as welding goes is from the military and I think thats how thei whole hot tack method came about. Everyone in the shop just praises this guy and thinks hes the best builder to ever be and he cant even do a vertical up. The sad part is he acts the same way, has the cocky attitude like I am supposed to bow down to him and that just bothers me.

But Yeah MikeGyver the welds we are doing are very important. We are building Mining Equipment, the big chipping plants, washing plants, and screeners with a lot of mass, most of our plants leave the shop at over 125,000 pounds. I dont think I could or want to deal with the fact that one of my welds could break killing someone just cause they wanted they're welds done a shotty way cause most of their team leads could not weld properly. That is why I wll be looking for a new job here real shortly.

When I started another welder started with me and he was certified and everything and when he found out that they did this hot tack crap he was about ready to walk out right there. They put both of us on this project and we welded the way we wanted to and the next day the shop superintendant was there along with this "military" leader to tell us we were doing it wrong and that hot tack is soo much better and stronger and then they proceeded to make us do it the hot tack way. Ever since then I have been very questionable on the quality of their work. I am just not sure I want to be a part of it anymore, theres ather places I could be working I am sure. Sorry for the long post guys, I'll try and get ya some pics also, I dont know how well they'd like me takin pics of their welds but oh well.

 

the process and the welder should be certified in that case, i would think. i don't know if there's an agency that would oversee that or which one it would be, though. i'm sure one of these other guys might have a better idea.

 

The AWS (American Welding Society) is the largest governing body for welding in the US. AWS D1.1-1.8 Cover most aspects of welding that apply to everyday shop type work. If there is something that is non-standard, you are supposed to write a procedure, submit it, get approved by AWS, and basically create a new standard for a welding situation.

 

i understand that, but i was wondering if anyone actually enforces the need for there to be a certification? after looking it up, it seems that in a situation like this, unless the client calls for it or the shop wants to be an iso 9000 shop, the main incentive for a cert would be for liablility reasons. the aws or ansi can't recquire conformity, can they? it just seems off to me that so much welding certification is done out of fear of a lawsuit rather than actual concern for safety. thanks for the info
-josh

 

The requirement, cert, whatever............is determined more often than not, by the end user or their insurance company. ISO 9000 is common for government work. Liability is for sure decreased is the work is inspected and the burden put on the inspection company.