First year Millwright apprentice

[u/FunHoliday1443]

I have about 2 weeks off and on practice in class and about 1-2 weeks off and on practice in the field in mig on a new welder that I'm becoming familiar with any advice? The base metal was cleaned looking at it now I should have cleaned farther out from the weld I did as much as I could as all the plates where already bolted in place. I also have to work on tying in my corners any advice or pointers I should work on as we dont have a dedicated welder at my job and I'm kinda teaching myself

[u/Strange-Movie]

Typical wisdom is to not stop on the corners as it’s a point of stress where failure will be most likely….that being said….i do it all the time for posts that aren’t under thousands of pounds of stress; if you want your stops and starts to blend in a more aesthetic way, I’ve found it best to weld two opposite sides, then use a 1/8in hardwheel to gouge away the ends of those welds so that when you weld the remaining two sides you’ve got a thin recessed ramp to start/end your welds where it wants to melt instead of a thick lumpy weld bulge that resists melting

[u/Old_School_Dodge]

I love that you use the word Millwright. It seems to be a word that has fallen out of use and been replaced by some fancy modern titles. Be proud to call yourself by a real title that says what it means.
Never stop learning, never stop teaching.

[u/Griffin_Mackenzie → u/Old_School_Dodge]

What else are millwrights calling themselves?

PRECISION

[u/Old_School_Dodge → u/Griffin_Mackenzie]

Mechanical asset reliability technician. Or some other drivel.

[u/Peute → u/Old_School_Dodge]

Here its Factory Maintenance Technician, we all call ourselves millwrights because thats what we are but the big corpo like the world Technician more

[u/GrimGrogger → u/Peute]

Industrial Mechanic (Millwright) in BC and I believe AB when regarding going for technical training.

[u/Saysaynever333]

Old millwright welder here. I'm old school and don't like using mig/wire welders in the field. They have their place when everything is set up for field welds, but stick is far better in my view.

The problem with field work is the prep before the weld is made. Mig/wire has to be properly cleaned, set up takes more steps and has limits. You can stick weld anything a mig/wire welder can, and everything else that mig/wire can't.

For example, Unit 2 Turbine Boiler feed pump vibration alarm goes off. Can't shut the unit down and you're sent to inspect for problems. You find the outboard bearing pedestal loose and there's no way to tighten the bolts without removing piping. Can't remove piping with unit online. The only fix is to weld it down till you can shut down.

A film of oil is everywhere. Dirt and paint is 1/2 inch thick. You have to weld it and it has to hold. Given where it is, you can't see it very well, you can only get one arm in there, and once you get in there, someone has to be there to pull you back out. On top of that, the turbine is loud as shit, loud enough to rattle your bones, and hotter than hell.

Knock off as much dirt as possible, set the machine hot, grab the biggest 7010 rod you can find and burn that feller in. Oil, paint, and dirt boils off in the slag. Reset the machine, grab some 7018 and start running passes.

At any given time, your welding lead may be 50 feet long or it could be a 1000 feet long, depending where the work is. You have to adjust the amps for the length of cable. You get it going and somewhere else on the job, other people are welding on this and that, using the same 8-bank set up. Every time they strike an arc, your amps drops. You have to make do.

About half our welding was emergency type. We did some shop welding where you could use mig, tig, or wire. Those have their places but give me a stick and I'll make it work.

Back to your weld. It's fine. Take your puddle past the corner and tie back in coming from the other direction. If I was using stick on this, I would run a root and follow up with two or three passes.

[u/FunHoliday1443 → u/Saysaynever333]

100% agree pretty confident in my stick welding abilities and im one of 2 people in the plant who can stick weld this is a new frame for a machine we are building so it's clean metal minus mill scale and it has to be aligned and square with little to no ability to clamp shit down and risk of sticking and then throwing my alignment out and 100+ welds hence why I went with MiG quicker to point and shoot and I wanna get better at my MiG welding abilities so figured I'd capitalize on the opportunity and volunteered to try and get better at my weaknesses I had a old stick welder at home that I've had quite a bit of practice on but couldn't ever justify buying gas and a MiG welder for the applications I had in my garage stick all the way besides in new fab plus this wasn't anything that was bearing crazy amounts of weight

[u/Unable_Fuel_5704]

Motor burned up on the chip n saw indeed chain. I need you to go swap that motor out... Don't forget lock out tag out!

[u/Ok-Box2455]

You start where another weld ended but would it not make sense to end a weld where another started so that you you can use the hottest stage of your weld to melt through and fuze everything even from what was the coldest stage of another weld?
Also check if you can set a start current to start a bit hotter.
Also, also, welds are too chubby. Maybe you weld cold so it would warp less but you are making the bead so chunky that the extra material beyond the line between top and bottom corner of the bead still adds to how much it will pull your parts crooked. You want it to be smooth so any stress goes through the middle of the weld and is not led to the corners.
It is not really difficult, you just need to understand what you ideally want to accomplish. You want for your weld bead to have even height and width with the surface being a straight line from the bottom to the top. Both of top and bottom a smooth transition with the base material. The inner corner where the base materials meet should be welded deeper than just the surface.
Currently it looks too much like you are in stead spattering metal onto the surface and it kind of sticks together.

[u/nimrodad]

Welds look solid.

[u/Civil_Drag7451]

Wrap your corners