Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello everyone. My name is Charles. I taught myself to stick weld about 30 years ago with a miller legend in the construction trades. I'm recently looking to get back into the trade doing pipline stuff in the oil/natural gas industry in Colorado. I still have my old miller that I'm rebuilding the carb for the test to get back into the trade. It has a surge at idle indicating plugged jet. It still welds good at fast idle but want it tip top for the test. I plan to get a new bobcat or something similar after I get a job. In my shop I have an old 300 amp miller tig machine (just as old as the legend). My plasma cutter is from the same generation too (miller spectrum 500). I have to update the plasma torch as I can no longer get tips for it. My mig welder is recent, (hobart). Right now I'm practicing on some schedule 80 6 inch pipe to get into the trade. I don't know what they will want to test me with so I'm going to get refamiliar with 6010 and 6011. The 7018 is what I did most of so won't be too much trouble. Putting my truck together as a weld rig now. I currently build houses but need a change of pace. Good to be on this forum. It looks interesting.

Welcome, Charles!

On today's pipelines, as a rig welder, expect almost everything to be XX10 rods. I doubt you'll see 6011. 6010 root and 8010 out is pretty common, down-hand all the way for production. Expect the test to be the "Arkansas Bell-hole", a 6G-R.

I'm sure there are a few here with recent pipeline experience that can give you better details.

Steve S

There is no way I'm ready for a 6gr test yet. Never used 8010 so I need to practice. It should run similar to 6010 I'm guessing.

ctmaybury wrote:There is no way I'm ready for a 6gr test yet. Never used 8010 so I need to practice. It should run similar to 6010 I'm guessing.

It does. It's smoother and a little less aggressive, which is why 6010 is still used for the root. I like running 8010, though I've had little opportunity.

Steve S

6 g is an industry standard. Practice till you feel comfortable then practice some more. I do pipe work but not pipline stuff.

Also, there are variations on the 6G-R. In shipbuilding, you usually are welding with a simulated bulkhead about a half-inch from the upper edge of your bevel.

The Arkansas Bellhole is not like this; It's restricted access to the bottom 3rd of the weld by ground proximity.

Steve S

Charles, welcome to the forum.

Thanks guys. I just picked up a bunch of 6 inch schedule 40 at 2 inch long. I'm going to make a setup to bevel the edges then practice. I'm going to be using my dial arc until I get my legend running right. I got the stuff to make a fume extracter in my garage as smaw is too smokey. I don't mind tig or mig in the garage, but I've always done the stick outside. I'm going back to the basics firs and run a bunch of plate in all positions first. I'll start a post with pix when I start running beads. Work just always seems to get in the way of what you want to do.

It seems with this forum, you don't get an email when someone replies to your post. I'll try to check often. Been reading on the forum and watching a bunch of Jodies videos. Very helpfull. Lots of great info.

ctmaybury wrote:...It seems with this forum, you don't get an email when someone replies to your post. I'll try to check often. Been reading on the forum and watching a bunch of Jodies videos. Very helpfull. Lots of great info.

You have to "subscribe/follow" to your own topic to get notifications. Might seem primitive, but it's useful from the moderator's point of view.

Steve S