umab35•21d ago

TIL the hard way about weld prep on old pipe

Been doing this 14 years and just realized I was skipping a step on dirty pipe that cost me a redo last Tuesday. I was wire wheeling and just hitting the obvious rust, but the mill scale underneath was still there and my root pass kept blowing out. A old timer watched me for a minute and said, 'you're burning clean metal, not painting over rust,' and it clicked. I started using a flap disc first to get down to bright steel before the wire wheel, took me an extra 15 minutes per joint but my x-rays passed first try after that. Anyone else ever get humbled by a simple prep step they thought they had down?

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1 Comment

coleman.jade16d ago

14 years and a flap disc just taught you that? Damn.