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Showerthought: I used to skip the root pass on flux core and a stack of failed X-rays in Gary made me quit
For about a year I ran flux core without a real root pass, just cranked the heat and laid it in thick, because my first foreman said it was faster and nobody checked. Then we sent 14 coupons to an X-ray guy in Gary, Indiana and 11 came back full of porosity and incomplete fusion right at the root. The tech showed me a cut section under magnification and the gap was tiny, maybe a hair line of unfused metal running the whole length. Now I do a proper root, let it cool, then cap it, and my reject rate dropped to almost zero on the same wire. Anybody else get humbled by a radiograph instead of a visual?
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sandralee15d ago
A hair line of unfused metal running the whole length is wild, that means the thing looked fine on the outside and was basically two separate pieces of steel sitting next to each other. I can't believe a foreman would push guys to skip the root just to save time, that is a failure waiting to happen. The cut section under magnification is what does it, you can argue with a guy about a visual all day but you can't argue with a cross section.
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