Welding Tips and Tricks

So about a month ago I daw some guy scrapped some 3/8" plate that was the perfect size for a test. So of course o picked it up from the tech school and now back at high school I want to try to make up my own weld plate test just to try it. I was wondering if with the 1/8" gap does there have to be a land or is it just straight bevel. Also if I have three plates can I put them side to side and use the middle plate for 3G and 4g or two 3G tests or would that compromise the test.

I figured it would be helpful to show a picture of the three plates to show what I meant by lining them up. Also how many passes for a 3G test like this.

Typically There is not a specific number of passes listed on any test. This allows for the various sizes of filler and to acomidate the amp range specked out in the test. It's up to you to set the welder in the outlined ranges and then chose how to lay out your beads to get the job done. If the plate is 3/8 then I would guess you could have anything from 5 to 10 passes maybe as few as 3.

You can absolutely put them together like that. We used to do that to get better arc time. Instead of running one plate fully, then fit up, etc. We'd run root, root, hot pass, hot pass, etc. It seemed to help to be able to correct mistakes right after you make them on the next plate, when it was still fresh in your mind.

Typically on 3/8 plate we'd do a 22.5 degree bevel, 3/32 land and 3/32 gap. 6010 root pass, then 1 stringer hot pass, 2 stringers to fill, and a 3 stringer cover. Hot pass through cover were done with 3/32 7018.