Welding Tips and Tricks

I am having trouble with the BCP 100 it is a alberta pressure test with very strict procedure. Here is a link to the exact procedure. http://www.safetyauthority.ca/licences- ... ure-welder . For those not interested in looking it up It is done on 6" shed 80 root tack in quarters no greater than 1/2" with a 1/8 6010 electrode. One quarter is to be rooted in the 2g then the remaining 3/4's to be rooted in the 5g position. Once a successful root is in the 3/4's in 5g to be welded is Hot Passed, Filled and Caped all with 7018 either 3/32 or 1/8. Then the test weld is placed back in the 2g and the final 1/4 is completed again with 7018 for hot pass, fill and cap.
The issues I am having are all in the 5g position and I have found 7018 for the hot pass is just silly and it is extremely hard to maintain a flat weld profile from the hot pass through the fills. Because of the convex profile i end up grinding nearly all the metal i am putting in and take way to many passes to fill up the groove. You get 3.5 hours from bevel to test coupon, need less to say i can hardly complete the weld in the allotted time let alone prepare test coupons. Any one out there with advice to speed up the process or maintain a more flat profile in the fills.

If you turn up your heat your bead profile will start to flatten out.

More heat. If you're using a machine with arc force maybe turn it up a bit.

Im surprised to see weaving specified
Anyway,i cant say turn up your heat as i dont know what rods and amps your running.
5g i would say hot pass always 3/32 and around 90 to 95 amps for me.if things are turning out too convex,it is usually a sign of too much heat.i weave an extra half rod diameter up the bevel,and hold a tiny bit longer.it gives the molten metal on the opposite bevel a chance to cool and solidify,so when its time to weave back over to that side you have a ledge to build on and progress up the pipe.

Don't know if it's still needed but I figure more info might help someone else later.

I did my B test back in dec (used tig root instead of 6010). When I started practicing it I had problems with metal bunching up in the center of the weld. I was using 3/32 7018 rod for the fill and cap for the hot pass I had to move real quick and lower the arc force a bit as we weren't allowed to add a reinforcing pass on our tig root.

It didn't always look pretty but I knew as long as I put enough steel on it so I wouldn't have suck back or blow thru the root or crazy undercut my next pass would flatten out by making sure to pause on the edges and zip across the Centre. That pass was the time to up the amps and AF a bit.

It usually took me about 3 fills after the root before I was ready to cap. Then I'd drop the arc force to like 10 and basically wash it on.

If there were any high spots I'd use a flapper to smooth em down or add a stripper pass to any low spots and again make em relatively even with the rest of the weld before I'd start my cap.

I passed visual and made it to the bender with plenty of time had 7 of 8 coupons bend no problem. 8th was the top tie in that opened past an 8th cus I left my amps at 140 on the tig root instead of going back up to 160 after I finished the verts section of the root. Oops.

Anyway to me sounds like pause more on sides and move faster across the middle it'll flatten out.