Welder testing 1

[DeleteriousPhases]

As I am going through the process to join the welding examiners in our company, I posed the question to my senior staff members, "Why do you prohibit the use of die grinders in welder qualification?" As of now, die grinders are prohibited for use during qualification tests on pipe coupons. (example: 6G 2nps sch 160)

I've been flipping through section IX where I have a spare moment, but I can't seem to find a paragraph that prohibits the use of specific tools. Our quality manual and approved testing procedures do not address specific tool usage either.

I can understand that for pipeline welds - one must have the necessary skill to get a good root the first time since there's often no ability to repair it. They get one shot and then it's radiographed.

but here in a shop (pressure piping) production setting - the parts are often small at first, and easy to access the root if a repair is required, or if they need to grind out a section and re-run it.

Could anyone with more experience with section IX (or other applicable) clue me in at all?

 

[Horty]

I am a welding examiner for my company, and have been through a couple audits. My Audit representatives and I look for what we require in our shop settings. In the field it is required no die grinding because that is the application used in the job. In the shop we require to see the root as per section 9, therefore no die grinding, just to see if the penetration, porosity, or visual undercut are at all rejectable. It is completely up to you if after that point they may die grind it for testing either volumetrically or cut for bending.
For us we want to see what they " will do" in the shop un supervised. so we judge on how it looks before they grind, and after.

 

[DeleteriousPhases]

Horty,

Thanks a lot for your response, very useful.

 

[Horty]

Your welcome, P.S. if you do a 6G 2 NPS 5/8" thick boiler tube instead of 160 schedule 2 NPS pipe you can qualify for max thickness as well as min OD on the same test. eliminates multiple 2" tests or plate substitutions...

 

[DeleteriousPhases]

I'm not sure why they (this shop) is so hung up on their sch 160, I hope I can persuade them to do the thicker coupons someday (just makes sense). I see almost every other shop doing this. Maybe it's because they ordered a few lengths of this stuff and just need to use it all? Couldn't say. Will try to talk them into it.