Welding

Understanding Weld Quality Evaluation at Welder School

February 27, 2018

Welding looks pretty easy in the movies. Take two piece of metal, apply heat, then just stand back and admire the way they melted together. Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that in real life. There are a number of things that can go wrong in a weld, and mistakes in welding can have expensive or even dangerous consequences.

Fortunately, the risks of error are greatly minimized for graduates of welding training, and learning how to judge the quality of a weld further ensures that rare mistakes are caught right away. For the curious, here’s how welding professionals do it.

Graduates of Welder School Know to Be Wary of Pores

Even small holes can have a significant effect on the structural integrity of a weld, so new welders quickly learn to look out for the presence of this defect in the work that they do. The presence of very small holes – a quality known as porosity – is a subtle indication that a weld isn’t of the highest quality.

There are a few potential causes of porosity. The metal may have been contaminated with dirt or grime, for instance, or insufficient shielding gas may have been used during the weld. Whatever the case, porous metal is something to be avoided, so it’s important for professionals to use their experience from welder school to ensure their materials and equipment are fully ready each time they start a job.

A Good Weld is an Even, Clean Weld

Since welding means joining one edge of molten metal to another, the weld probably isn’t going to look perfectly clean. It should, however, be free of slag and other debris, and the weld material shouldn’t be too skewed to one side. Welds that have too much slag or an uneven distribution of materials were likely not performed correctly.

In the case of slag or other debris, it’s sometimes possible to chip away the waste material and thereby gain a cleaner look, but uneven welds can be a more difficult task to fix. Sometimes, it’s enough to add some extra metal to clean up the look. Other times, it might be necessary to grind out the weld and do the job over.

To become the kind of welder who only needs to do a job once, it’s important to complete electric arc welder training at a school that will give you plenty of hands-on experience. To learn by doing is to build the real skills employers demand and that will serve you well in a welding career. With this education and a little luck, having to go back and redo a weld will be a rare occurrence.

Clean, even welds such as these are the goal for welding professionals

Pros With Welding Diplomas Know Just How Risky a Leak Can Be

When welding professionals are inspecting their work, there’s a pretty obvious sign they can look for when working on some projects: is the weld leaking?

Welding is often used for structures that hold water or gas, so having a leak spring can be inconvenient and even dangerous. Detecting leaks of water will, of course, tend to be relatively straightforward. For gas leaks, the precise location of the problem can be detected in a number of ways. This is a topic well worth running by your instructors at welding school, who will likely have their own recommendations and justifications to share.

It’s worth noting, however, that many professionals swear by simple, soapy water. Just spraying a water and soap solution onto the weld and seeing where it bubbles up can be a surprisingly effective verification method.

Here’s a video from Northwest Ohio Home Inspections that demonstrates the concept on a pipe that is leaking gas:

Do you want to learn more about creating quality welds?

Contact North American Trade Schools to find out about getting your welding diploma!

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