Oil Rig

[Parm]

Been on an oil rig in the North Sea, weather has been pretty bad so all works are limited to essential activities only.

Got chatting to a plater last night and as he had nothing to do today I had a welding lesson with some proper big boys welding equipment.

I think I burnt about 100 rods of sizes varying from 2.5 to 6mm, gotta say there's nothing like a bit of tuition and constructive advice on what I'm doing.

Now to get back home soon and try some more practice now that I've been shown what to do and how to do it.

Metal I played with was 3mm to 15mm plate and both butt and fillet welds with root passes and cap welds. Quite impressed with my self that I can make three passes and it all looks like one weld after the last one.

He even cross sectioned one weld and did some sort of penetration check

Happy days

 

[J.B. Welding]

Must be great to have access to that kind of gear, I agree that there is no substitute for having some there to keep you right and show you instantly how you can get better fast, saves a lot of head scratching. I have a course coming up if you want to try mig or more arc! Got another rig man booked in too, says his welds look like chewing gum

 

[J.B. Welding]

I generally use a press for testing, don't have any radioactive material to hand for the x-ray booth.

 

[Rrunnach]

On my courses, I will use, in order.

Visual, as soon as welder lifts bucket, he/she should know if weld is decent quality?

Some, dye-pen.

Magnetic Particle, carbon only, of course!

Cross section would have been a "Macro Etch".

Then onto, destructive.

Root & Face bends on butt weld coupons, pipe or plate.

Nic Break on fillets & corner joints. Self evaluation on joint outcomes, with assistance, of course :-)

 

[J.B. Welding]

Wow thats great. The heat transfer test I use sometimes, see how heat travels through a weld. Do you run coding courses?

 

[Wedg1e]

I... don't have any radioactive material to hand for the x-ray booth.

I do
Could do you a good price on an x-ray set if you want to get away from the Ir192, Cs137, Yb169 etc....?

 

[J.B. Welding]

Generally not need in my field, anyone attending my courses are glad when it sticks-extatic when it starts to look good-and to try out different welders and tecniques gives one a much better feel of welding in general. Much better than a youtube tutorial but of course involves travel etc. Not into long drawn out testing sessions, i'll leave that for the coders. My Q.C. is done whilst I look out of my helmet!

 

[Parm]

Must be great to have access to that kind of gear, I agree that there is no substitute for having some there to keep you right and show you instantly how you can get better fast, saves a lot of head scratching. I have a course coming up if you want to try mig or more arc! Got another rig man booked in too, says his welds look like chewing gum

Yep that's true, I've just been learning from YouTube and reading around, but there is no substitute for one to one tuition. Being just a home hobby welder I cannot justify the extortionate prices for welding courses that I've seen near to where I live.

If anyone in and around Northampton wants to give me a lesson or two I will happily lay on a few beers and an awesome home cooked curry

 

[wheresmejumper]

The thing about one on one tuition, is when you are shown the right way to do one thing, you then need to to practice it over and over till you have it nailed.
there isnt much point in him looking over your shoulder for an hour while you try to get your arc length right.or weave etc.
2 mins of teaching needs an hour of seat time.thats why classes work better, he goes around the booths and gets back to you when youve had a chance to practice.
Courses here go for about €390 for two week 60 hours, coded test final day

 

[500e]

Seems a good price for say £350 for 60 hours with rods & test

 

[BrokenBiker]

ive been looking into a few welding courses in my local college and some of them can be quite cheap when you consider what is included

 

[Rrunnach]

Wow thats great. The heat transfer test I use sometimes, see how heat travels through a weld. Do you run coding courses?

Don't run coding course, have trained operatives up to a standard, then get the Lloyds guy in to invidulate.

Wow thats great. The heat transfer test I use sometimes, see how heat travels through a weld. Do you run coding courses?

No coding courses run, however, have trained operatives up to a certain standard, hen get the Lloyds guy in to invigilate weld proceedings.

Also examiner to H&V TR5 code of practice, be a class 2 pipe coding.

regards.

 

[wheresmejumper]

Seems a good price for say £350 for 60 hours with rods & test

If you are unemployed with a certain time, they are free.from the basic courses up to pipe.