[plain ol Bill]

I was working for Chicago Bridge & Iron welding on a nuke containment vessel. We were welding overhead on the dollar plate about 20 ft. up on staging. Metal thickness was 2 1/4" welded from the bottom first on a double bevel and then backgouged to good solid metal from the top and finish welded. Can't say I ever enjoyed working for CB&I as they had a lot of yellers and screamers for supervision a lot of the time. But I will give that company one thing - when it came to welding they flat out had their act together!
Anyway we were welding overhead on the dollar plate when one of their weld inspectors yelled up at me to give him a 2" stub. So I reached in the stub bucket and threw a stub at him. Well he let me know in no uncertain and profane terms that he wanted me to burn a stick down to a 2" stub. When I started he clicked a stopwatch and stopped when I did. He checked stub length with a set of cheap calipers, did some figuring and told me I was right at the high end for amperage allowed for 5/32 7018 rod. He knew exactly what my amperage was. First and only time I ever had a weld tech check amperage that way.
When starting work for CB&I and you thought you were a pretty darn good welder you were a much better one when you left! We backgouged using a gigantic old Lincoln torpedo generator turned wide open and 1/2" half round carbon. That generator would almost jump off the floor when you touched off that carbon and you sure wanted ear plugs.
One of the most impressive things I ever saw was when they heat treated an entire containment vessel at 1200 degrees in one burn using gigantic diesel, propane and compressed burners

[TRACKRANGER]

Love this kind of stuff Bill. That's what it's made from.

Whether or not we liked that welding inspector, he seemed to know what it was all about. That's where it comes from, eh?

[Boomer63]

Thank you again, Bill! This is another of your stories that I will tell my students!!! Seriously, I wish you were closer to Indiana, I would invite you into the classroom for pizza, a cold beer and a long chat so you could talk about your experiences. If we couldn't do the cold beer in the school, I would move the class down to the local watering hole!

[Otto Nobedder]

Amen, brother!

We need more of these stories. There's so much to be learned from the experiences of others, but so many of today's kids seem to have little interest or short attention spans.

Listening to one's elders can shorten a learning curve by 45 degrees in a heartbeat.

Steve S

[Boomer63]

Well said, Steve!! Bill, you need to keep the stories coming! Thank you brother!