Welding Tips and Tricks

I just finished job corps welding trade and im supposed to start a job next week with my dad My dad didnt tell me much about the job except its at a paper mill and i will be welding for electricians and that the job will give me 3 welding tests My question is what will I be doing? Does anybody have any experience welding for electricians? What will the tests be like? Any info will be greatly appreciated

MidnightMusic.

Only a guess.
Prefabricating and/or installation of supports for electrical cables, boxes, etc..
Modifications of secondary and non structural items in order to faciliate the cable installations.
Welding of the grounding connections.

Alexa

Yep, MidnightMusic,

Alexa has it almost dead on. For an electrical crew, one of the biggest things you'll do is weld Unistrut to columns and beams, and possibly build extensions. You'll also build simple box supports off of columns and beams from angle-iron to hold wire racks. You may even work with the instrument crew, building supports for instrument packages.

You should be able to stick-weld 6010 and/or 7018 in any position, but the test will not be very strict, as these are considered "non-critical" welds. I would expect no more than a "visual" for your test.

Steve S

You might be doing some Cadwelds too. No big deal, clamp a mold around the fixture with a piece of clad ground wire, poor in a change and set it off. We use to use them for a ground ring on towers all the time.

MidnightMusic.

To avoid problems and back charges for touch-ups from the coating sub-contractors, try to leave the welds clean too (no spatter, etc.). So they do not need to return to make repairs and clean-ups.

Electrical installations are often installed in vicinity and above existing structures, piping and equipment ... all in various phases of work. To avoid conflict with these other mechanical operations, make sure you do not allow weld metal to fall freely, nor to allow grinding sparks/fragments to hit these other items. Use the protective fire repellent tarps or other temporary barriers to avoid contaminating these items. The remedial work to correct these types of mistakes is very costly and may cause delay, and these will be charged to your employer.

If you are doing the prefabrication then accessibility to the joint should not be a problem. Instead, if you are doing the erection of the pieces, then there may be some difficulty to reach joints to weld. Even though it may only require a fillet weld, an acceptable weld might be difficult to perform. If you are lucky enough to be the one also prefabricating the pieces, then you might be able to change the configuration of the piece, in order to facilitate its erection. You may need to use a mirror to see the joint. You may need to have a leather helmet to get your head close enough to see. The biggest advice, is to make a practice run of a difficult joint, in order to see if you are able to weld it.

Make sure you understand the size of the required fillet weld to help you plan the pass (or passes).

Alexa

Thanks for all the info everybody. Here is an update, the job is for Jacobs at Rayonoir in jesup,Ga. The welding test was A vertical v groove and an overhead v groove both with a 309 rod all the way and they are x rayed. I passed my vertical and havnt done the overhead yet.