Welding Certification test Q&A and tips and tricks
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Probably setting myself up, but, a PM coming your way...

Steve S
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Superiorwelding wrote:
Anyone else wanna have a go? I have around 50 extra tests :lol: :lol:
-Jonathan

I'll take a couple, I don't have a mig, but I can stick them :)
Or were you joking?

~John
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hillbilly welder
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just to let you all know we are not inexperience welders between the two of us that have the failed tests there is over 40 years welding experience and as everyone knows if you have never failed a weld test you haven't taken very many at all. I suggest that before you rattle on about somebodies skill level learn something about them first.
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AKweldshop wrote:
Superiorwelding wrote:
Anyone else wanna have a go? I have around 50 extra tests :lol: :lol:
-Jonathan

I'll take a couple, I don't have a mig, but I can stick them :)
Or were you joking?

~John
Sending some out, resend me your address.
-Jonathan
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Superiorwelding wrote:
AKweldshop wrote:
Superiorwelding wrote:
Anyone else wanna have a go? I have around 50 extra tests :lol: :lol:
-Jonathan

I'll take a couple, I don't have a mig, but I can stick them :)
Or were you joking?

~John
Sending some out, resend me your address.
-Jonathan

Done.
Just a couple welders and a couple of big hammers and torches.

Men in dirty jeans built this country, while men in clean suits have destroyed it.
Trump/Carson 2016-2024
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In the mig certs we do,

The most common failure is in the 2f. Horizontal fillet 3 run. From lack of fusion. Too small a wire and not hitting the arc into the plate are the main reasons.

Mick
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Superiorwelding wrote:Steve,
Care to give it a shot if I ship you materials and WPS? :)
-Jonathan
I would like to see the WPS.
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hillbilly welder wrote:just to let you all know we are not inexperience welders between the two of us that have the failed tests there is over 40 years welding experience and as everyone knows if you have never failed a weld test you haven't taken very many at all. I suggest that before you rattle on about somebodies skill level learn something about them first.
I have apparently been misinterpreted, or communicated poorly, so I'll restate.

If experienced welders are having fails and "barely pass" welds (as you don't usually ask Joe Average to write the procedure), the WPS may need adjustment before it goes to a shop floor for everyone to test on, or there will be a lot of fails.

No offense was meant.

And, yeah, I've busted a few. Usually after a long expensive drive. :roll:

Steve S
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Hey,

We did a test with 309 flux core in a single bevel butt joint. The nature of the wire led to an extreme failure rate in very experienced welders, upon xray. It was so high that the test was changed to a single V butt. Making it a lot easier.

Mick
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I broke my first ever bend. Was done for fun.
Single bevel 2g, mig root, dual shield fill and cap.
Cap was good, root cracked. Was a little speck of something in there.
Didn't do any grinding during, just wire wheeled the flux off.

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Two more tests were sent out and both failed the exact same way as pictures before. This time my settings were duplicated, again they were not that far away anyway. I did find that I messed up the WPS, I put down a range of 90-120 amps. I ran two test plates today and my amperage was 80-90 amps for the entire run. No big deal since I passed with that amperage. The lab said this time one bend broke as to where you could still see the bevel in the plate. It is obvious that there is not enough amperage but I have a theory. I set up one plate and me am another guy ran beads together. I ran on the bottom and he on top. I immediately noticed a lack of dwell time on the sides. It was just a evenly times sweeping motion. I also noticed that in relation to the bevel, he might have overlapped the edge a very light 1/16", probably less. I was in the 1/16"-1/8" range on both sides. When I showed it to him he denied it and ran to grab another piecs he had done earlier. Handing it to me I turned it lookin down the profile and you could see clear as day that the weld was not penetrating the base material. The weld was stopped short of the end and you could see the edge if the bevel and thus how far out the weld did not go. So I think one problem is technique. As most have suggested, there I not enough dwell on the sides. We talked to the lab about switching to stringers and he laughed and said that he has not seen much success in 3/8" plate with stringers because of the void that can be created from a crowned weld. The mig weld won't penetrate into that void causing lack of fusion/cold lap.

Another theory I have. The pieces are still breaking because of extreme brittleness. When me and the other guy ran beads on the same plate I noticed that not only was his weld a smaller width and taller height but his HAZ was completely different than mine. Mine was what I would consider normal, even blue heat soaked out pretty far. His was probably 3/8" wide and deep blue/purple. So question is, is he concentrating his head so much in the bead that the heat stays right there causing the extremely brittle HAZ?

We also had a 6" sch 80 fail with the same symptoms as the plate, lack of fusion and brittle HAZ.

Guys I need help with this, any ideas??
-Jonathan
Last edited by Superiorwelding on Wed Sep 24, 2014 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Here is my plate I sent up and passed. Don't know if it will help. In one you can see the coloring of the HAZ, the other was wire wheeled already, only pics I have though.
-Jonathan
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(Post review says you've posted pics since I wrote this)

I don't suppose I've yet asked,

a) What alloy is the base metal? (nothing unusual, I assume, or you would have noted it...)

b) What alloy (and brand) Is the filler metal? (Also nothing unusual, I assume, for the same reason.)

... but asking these questions helps eliminate the obvious. If the parent metal, filler alloy, and associated sources are all familiar and proven, then the potential issues are reduced to process-related.

Steve S
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You're not using an anti-spatter spray, are you?

I would think "not", but it's one more thing to check from the "obvious", list.

Steve S
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What about pre heat and inter pass temp. If it is a special alloy, some cannot handle being to hot for too long.

Mick
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Steve,
The material is plain old A36. We did get the certs, heat and lot numbers with this material so it is all from the same batch.
The wire is Lincoln L-56 ER70S-6, .035. Again nothing out of the norm. As a side note, Lincoln advises using this or a lower quality wire for vertical up and pipe roots, the puddle is less fluid and thus less susceptible to dropping out or through.
I am not sure if I or they use anti-spatter. I might have here. I used it off and on throughout the testing processes. I know for a fact I used it on the 6" 6G test for SMAW as I didn't want the mess inside associated with stick welding. No problems there. I can ask if it was used by others. Curious though, what effect do you think that would have?

Mick,
There was no pre-heat and interpass temps were anywhere from 100-300*F. Tony would have to answer exactly what he used. I did the root and cover back to back with only wire brushing in between and let plate cool to the touch for the cover pass. Code allows min of 70*F if I remember correctly. Being that it is A36 no special requirements needed. All plates were air cooled, no quenching.
-Jonathan
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If its just good old mild steel, its odd that it would become brittle or hard in any extreme way. I haven't done many destructive tests but it sounds as though you were right on it. The only one I can really weigh in on is the the 1 g mig, because I have seen failures at ultra sonic on welds like that. The were caused by using ..035 at voltage settings for .045 and laying in too much wire. And not arcing into the plate but " surfing" the wave of molten metal.

Mick
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I have some steel around the shop that looks like 'regular old A36', but I happen to know it has a higher carbon content. I give it to the guys as practice V-groove material; but if they can pass with this material they can pass with 'regular old A36'!

I have a lot of guys fail the 3G GMAW short circuit (.035) in exactly the same way that these are failing ... humm ... I always attributed it to the fact that they weren't holding long enough on one side of the groove - not holding long enough to completely penetrate.

But what do I know? This is a very interesting thread, and I will be keeping an eye on it! So far, lots of very well thought out input!
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Ok, we have been working on this all day today. Here is where we stand. I bought some Naval Jelly and we did our own etching of previous practice tests as well as one new one we did together to figure out what is going wrong. We did find a few things out. First, the WPS that I made up had a few flaws in it. I had wrote down the wrong amperage range and didn't have enough wire speed included to match the amperage range. Not a big deal but glad we found it. Next, we ran the test plate where you can see the three distinct weld and watched each other for techniques and travel speeds. We used my Lincoln 350MP (which everyone says runs better) set at 165 ipm, 21 volts and 85 amps. Now the first argument, I mean discussion was that I was running to low of a amperage. My rebuttal was I passed using these settings. While it might be on the low side, it can be done. So we each ran about 2.5" on the test plate and then cut them and etched. What was interesting was we all had a little fusion issues at the toe of the root, not a killer but still needs addressed. Two welds had serious fusion problems in the root pass and between the root and fill pass. My conclusion (after a heated debate) it it all falls back to technique. The sides are not being held long enough and from what I can see, cold lap caused by running up on the puddle of the weld.

So I included a few pics of the etching, I apologize for the pic quality, they were hard to get a good picture of. I will include comments under each picture of what you are looking at.

Also, this is pulse vertical up. Someone asked about that.

Again, any help is appreciated!!
-Jonathan
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Here is the information submitted for the WPS
Here is the information submitted for the WPS
photo (17).JPG (99.55 KiB) Viewed 1774 times
This stuff works very well, Thanks for the tip Jody!!
This stuff works very well, Thanks for the tip Jody!!
photo (15).JPG (123.83 KiB) Viewed 1774 times
You can see the three passes here. I did the bottom pass. We cut these through the middle and the fllowing pictures are the results. For sake of argument we are going to call the welds A on the bottom B in middle and C on the top.
You can see the three passes here. I did the bottom pass. We cut these through the middle and the fllowing pictures are the results. For sake of argument we are going to call the welds A on the bottom B in middle and C on the top.
photo (11).JPG (121.24 KiB) Viewed 1774 times
Last edited by Superiorwelding on Thu Sep 25, 2014 3:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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And here are the results of the cut and etch. It is hard to see everything in the pic.
-Jonathan
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Weld C
Weld C
photo (13).JPG (101.46 KiB) Viewed 1774 times
Weld B
Weld B
photo (14).JPG (104.19 KiB) Viewed 1774 times
Weld A
Weld A
photo (12).JPG (139.91 KiB) Viewed 1774 times
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And for kicks, here is three previous practice tests we had laying around. The top is Welder C, middle welder A and the bottom welder B.
-Jonathan
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Tony (hillbillywelder) asked me to post this on his behalf. This is a retake at 95 amps, 197 ipm and 22 volts . What do you think?
-Jonathan
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Hey,

This is the exact test that we did at work. The easyest way I find to pass them is to open the gap to the max allowable, ours is 6mm. Then in your weave technique, make a upwards c motion like this ))))))))))) this will allow you to chew into fresh metal every time . And also turn the wire speed down till it seems that its almost too low, (almost hissing) this will allow the volts to do the penetrating with gravities help, and not force too much cold metal into the joint. Though this can cause issues with undercutting on the cap.

Mick
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I'm separating fly sh#t from pepper here, but there's a mis-print on the WPS...

Last item, "Trim".

In your pic, as well as the copy I recieved, there's a decimal misplacement. Using the example you posted in the pic, Trim range is expressed as .94 - .106, as opposed to 0.94 to 1.06

Just a minor detail. I'm still getting over my shock that the USPS got it to me today, as I was expecting tomorrow at the soonest.

I'm digesting the WPS specs tonight, and deciding how to proceed tomorrow, as none of my machines can meet the "pulse" requirement. I may experiment on some of our scrap leaning toward a "globular transfer" solution, and I even have a twisted idea in my brain for a "spray-arc" root in 3G.

Steve S
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Otto Nobedder wrote:I'm separating fly sh#t from pepper here, but there's a mis-print on the WPS...

Last item, "Trim".

In your pic, as well as the copy I recieved, there's a decimal misplacement. Using the example you posted in the pic, Trim range is expressed as .94 - .106, as opposed to 0.94 to 1.06

Just a minor detail. I'm still getting over my shock that the USPS got it to me today, as I was expecting tomorrow at the soonest.

I'm digesting the WPS specs tonight, and deciding how to proceed tomorrow, as none of my machines can meet the "pulse" requirement. I may experiment on some of our scrap leaning toward a "globular transfer" solution, and I even have a twisted idea in my brain for a "spray-arc" root in 3G.

Steve S
Steve,
What's funny is I was talking to Lincoln Electric today and when I told them my trim settings they flipped. They were like "if your machine says .1 something we got a problem!" I neglected to fix it today even though I edited it. As you will see, the amp range and wire speed are the only other two items that changed. Thankfully I didn't change anything to drastic as to void my precious test. Thanks for pointing that out though!

I am surprised it made it already too. Take your time, no huge rush. I am thinking the best "test" will be to cut and etch. This seems to reveal the most. Doesn't show what effect the HAZ has but it gives enough info to let one know what needs changed.
If you need more plates let me know.
-Jonathan
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