Post Welding Operations to Ensure Productivity

Post welding operations is crucial to the quality control. Smooth them to ensure your weld quality and success.

In pursuing the careers in welding, rather, being a fitter welder, there may be nothing more satisfactory than having your job done and admiring your creation with the clever hands. Still, to enjoy that moment, you should make sure the job is well done, on time and aligned with all requirement. Any qualified work would scream professionalism, time and waste reduction and customer satisfaction. Then let’s see what post welding operations to ensure productivity are.

Your weld done?

By the time you have finished your weld, just clean and have a visual inspection of your work. Utilizing a fillet gauge or flashlight to find for abnormalities or defects, inclusive of flaws, dimension errors, shadows.

Following are problems that you should care about:

1. Underfilled groove welds, oversized welds or undersized fillet welds.

Solution: add to the existing weld for requirements met and re-measure using fillet gauge.

2. Porosity: There may appear holes within the weld or on the surface due to trapped gas.

Solution: first check with QC, then carbon arc your weld and reweld, or grind/ chip away slag. Ensure you make carbon arcing disengagement as soon as possible for injury prevention.

3. Undercut welds (over 1/32’’): They result from the welding arc without being backfilled. This problem, sometimes, occurs when you weld too fast or weld at bad angle. Relies on the material thickness.

Solution: Add 1/8”- 3/16” to the weld’s top toe area. If the weld comes with concave throat, or tall top-toe and short bottom-toe, attempt some addition to the bottom toe first, then repair the top toe. Check how qualified the weld bead is. Don’t grind out, oversize the base metal, or fix the undercut using the air chipper to peen the toes, unless directed by the QC.

4. Wire whiskers: The wire is fused to your weld, causing holes.

Solution: Grind away the holes, and reweld.

5. Lacking fusion (roll over/ cold roll): This can induce cracks, and affect the weld strength.

Solution: Grind away unwanted metal, measure again and weld again.

6. Cracks: This would do harm to the weld strength, and must be definitely eliminated. For example, 

• Crater crack occurs when your weld is stopped, and there appears the star-shaped pattern at the weld end.
• Face crack occurs when there is weld surface tension. It’s observable, especially in the concave weld bead.
• Heat-affected-zone (HAZ) crack comes from a flaw in the material worsened during the welding process. Sometimes, it’s visible. If not, there may need Non-Destructive Testing techniques.

Solution: Check the condition with QC, but commonly, cracks are required to be eliminated and weld refilled to address requirements.

Your weld done!

Ensure you fill out the inspection wheel and get your material inspected by the QC. Just check with the shop lead, and work well with the place that will next send your material. As far as safety comes, alert the next station (shipping, painting or blasting) whether your material is hot.