An old timer told me my weld prep was 'clean enough for a barn, not a boiler'

This was about eight years back on a job in Toledo. I was grinding a bevel and thought it looked fine, but a guy with forty years in the trade stopped me. He said, 'That's clean enough for a barn, not a boiler. You leave that scale, you're asking for a crack.' He made me redo the whole edge until it shone like new metal. I started using a dedicated stainless wire wheel just for prep after that, and my x-ray pass rate went way up. Anyone else have a piece of advice that stuck with you like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

allen.amy1mo ago

Oh, perfect. So my weld was only good enough to hold up some hay. That old guy saved you from a world of callbacks and rework. Guess some lessons have to be learned the hard way.

tessa_hunt421mo ago

That old timer knew exactly what he was doing. A bad weld on a gate gets stressed every single time it swings open. Better to grind it out and do it right the first time than fix it after it breaks.