Welding Tips and Tricks

What certs would give me a leg up on getting into this field?
What positions, materials and thicknesses do you aerospace guys find yourselves welding the most? I realize that there are likely several different paths within this industry. I don't really care if I end up welding chromoly fuselages, aluminum or titanium. I just want something that pays good without my hands hurting all the time.
My carpal tunnel is already bothering me from just two weeks on the job in this fab shop and I find myself mostly doing cutting and grinding which isn't very satisfying. I like the stuff that I'm learning but I doubt that my hands are gonna be able to hold out more than another six to eight weeks. Besides that, the pay is extremely low and I get to do very little mig and no tig.
What is the best way to get into aerospace welding?
My friend has a buddy who welds at Delta and says that the guy can get my application expedited if I put one in.
I really need to switch gears and careers and I don't wanna screw this up. I'm a descent tig weldor and have surgeon's hands so I think this may be the career path for me at the moment.
Again, I don't wanna screw this up and do wanna put my best foot forward and be well prepared.
Thanks in advance for any and all help.

Hi Ray,

I worked for an Aussie airline for 24 years as an engineer (A & P mechanic to you guys in the US) but not as a welder. I knew a few of the welders that worked for us though and most of the work they did was engine based ( burner cans/combustion chamber liners, turbine blades, engine core fairing panels etc) repairing cracks. The materials were mainly titanium and inconel/monel. There were probably others but it was all TIG and some of it was extremely precise.

From memory they also had to submit test pieces regularly for x-ray examination to maintain their welding approvals. I am also pretty sure that they had to complete a welding trade apprenticeship.

I'm not trying to rain on your parade but aerospace welding is not the same as repairing farm equipment.

Flo

I applaud your desire to work in the aerospace industry, you get to weld some very interesting components. Each manufacture would have specific tests required to meet whatever part configuration, material etc...

Some years ago I work for a company welding aircraft engine components, worked on parts for the F16 and F18, titanium, Inconel, waspalloy and a few others, it really upped my TIG skills.

We did work for GE and Pratt Whitney, I had to certify for a given material for each company even though the tests were based on the same MIL spec.

If there are any companies local to you that you want to work for do your research (learn about what their looking for) and accept that it may take time for an opening, but be ready. Write and rewrite and polish your resume. Have one ready to address that specific company.

This is a pic of an argon chamber used to weld a titanium actuator ring for the F16, part of the afterburner This is inside the chamber, there are two welds, you can see the tacks for the weld closest, and the torch here is setup to do the back weld which could only be seen in the mirror

Thanks for the replies, fellas.
Today my buddy took me to a friend's house who happens to work as a pipe weldor. This guy answered a whole lot of questions for me that I have had for a couple of years concerning pipe welding. I mentioned my videos several times and he asked me who makes them. I told him "Jody Collier". He said that Jody was his supervisor, CWI, CWA and several other things when he worked for Lockheed. He was also shaking his head in awe.
He showed me how to make 2G welds on boiler tubes but told me that the test would be given in 6GR. He told me to follow Jody's 6G 2" pipe welding video and I should be able to do it with a little bit of practice. He told me that not walking the cup on boiler tubes is total B.S. because he does it all the time with a 17 flex head torch, jumbo gas lense and #6 or #7 cup with his helper feeding wire from the back side of the furnace wall. Then he showed me a 2" boiler tube coupon from a test that he had taken and finally showed me what a furnace wall looks like so that I would understand what he was referring to and why his helper feeds wire from the other side of the wall. He told me that he isn't willing to put on his hood for less that $31/hr either. I also asked if he has to fit his own pipe and he said no. Said that he takes his own fitter with him wherever he goes because they are a well oiled team and won't accept a job unless he can bring his fitter with him. Said he welds either steam lines or cooling lines (can't remember which) with a 5/32" to 3/16" gap at about 130 amps with 1/8" wire and about 1/4" stickout on his tungsten and burries the root about 1/8" through the back side of the pipe. I asked if that would fail the joint and his reply was, No.....it will keep you from failing due to suck back. Said he never uses lay wire because that is a good way to fail due to suck back. Said that the pipe has to be preheated to 450 degrees and there is no pause between passes because the pipe interpass temp has to remain elevated. I believe he told me that the pipe is 4140 but I could be confusing that with something else he told me because he downloaded a whole lot of info on me.
He told me to chuck my pipe sections up in the little turning setup (it's a lathe chuck on an armature and belt driven by a little electric motor) at my buddy's house and hit em with a grinder and hard rock and they will turn down in about a minute (I have 4" schedule 80 carbon steel pipe).
Since I've had the pipe for over a year I'm going to get started on that next weekend and I'm gonna grab a stick of 2" schedule 80 pipe to practice the boiler tubes.
In the mean time I think I'm gonna get a certification with titanium but im not sure what position or type. I'll just have to see what the test facility offers.
That was the most eye opening conversation that any weldor has ever had the time to give me. He said that power plants pay very good.

Well Rambo. It seems like you have enough people around you to find out what you need. You are lucky to have found all of these highly skilled people so close to show you and give you advice and tips on the spot.

I just met the guy today. I've been hearing about him for years. My buddy had to go get a video from him that belongs to his dad. It was a video where his dad had been interviewed on the speed channel for having the fastest street legal 4 wheel drive ever built.
Yeah.....I feel like I was real lucky to have had that conversation. Jody only lives about 45 minutes from me and this guy is the second guy who I have met who knows him. The other guy is the man who runs my LWS in Hapeville GA. He told me that Jody used to come in there a lot when he worked for Delta.

For what it's worth I think it's great that you want to give something new a go. Nothing ventured..nothing gained! I hope you succeed in what ever it is you choose to do. Passion only gets you so far. Tenacity. perseverance and a willingness to learn will hold you in good stead.

All the best with your new career!

Flo

FWIW- I have the 17.1 cert in Stainless, Carbon and Alum the actual testing was rather easy personally, vertical up, full penetration, then bend 3 test strips from each piece

Rick_H wrote:FWIW- I have the 17.1 cert in Stainless, Carbon and Alum the actual testing was rather easy personally, vertical up, full penetration, then bend 3 test strips from each piece

I spoke with the lady from the school on Monday and she said that those were the only materials for which they offer certs. I think that I'm going to get one for aluminum and 6G pipe at their school. Then maybe get titanium and inconel at some other testing facility (GA Trade School offers very cheap testing compared with most other places I've looked into). Meanwhile I'm working on my first 4" schedule 80 pipe coupons......

That looks like pretty good, clean, prep-work on that coupon. What do you use to bevel the edge?

4" angle grinder. It's the only option that I have. Flap wheel in a cordless drill to clean it up. I've had the pipe for over a year and never ground it because i thought it would be much harder than it turns out to be. Thought it would take 30 - 45 minutes for each pipe but it only takes about 15 minutes.

RamboBaby wrote:4" angle grinder. It's the only option that I have. Flap wheel in a cordless drill to clean it up. I've had the pipe for over a year and never ground it because i thought it would be much harder than it turns out to be. Thought it would take 30 - 45 minutes for each pipe but it only takes about 15 minutes.

When your done running the actual joint, try to just walk beads around the outside of the pipe, its good practice. Id use a 3/32"-1/8" gap, 3/32" filler, 1/16" flat on the bevel max. Agreed good looking prep on the bevel, Id go out about 1" from the edge as well. Bevel around 37°

The angle of the bevel is questionable because I don't have a protractor and I just tried to hold it around 45 degrees. Knife edge but it's a little bit of wavy gravy because it's done by hand. I'm watching Jody's 2013 series on 6" 6G right now before I tack these things together. Probably watch some of it again before I lay the root. I'll post photos once I have it tacked together. If it doesn't turn out well then I have two sets of pipe beveled and Ill just keep cutting them apart, grinding them and rewelding until I'm satisfied that I have the root pass under control.

RamboBaby wrote:The angle of the bevel is questionable because I don't have a protractor and I just tried to hold it around 45 degrees. Knife edge but it's a little bit of wavy gravy because it's done by hand. I'm watching Jody's 2013 series on 6" 6G right now before I tack these things together. Probably watch some of it again before I lay the root. I'll post photos once I have it tacked together. If it doesn't turn out well then I have two sets of pipe beveled and Ill just keep cutting them apart, grinding them and rewelding until I'm satisfied that I have the root pass under control.

I use the back and forth tech for my pipe roots, Ive passed Xray that way (keyhole and add) and laywire walking the cup, both have there advantages and disadvantages. If you take a pipe test it most likely will be 2" pipe, 6G..learn to use both hands will make life much, much easier IMO. Dry runs help...

There is a range of allowable pipe prep angle to permit personal preference. Here in Oz the pipe prep angle is usually between 30 and 35*. I try to keep to 30* because the wider the angle the more filling and time you have to put into it. 45* bevel is usually for structural prep. You can print off your preferred prep angle from google and transfer it to a piece of skinny sheet metal scrap for template.
Put your coupon on a flat benchtop protruding off the side. Hold your grinder in a comfortable fixed position to get the right angle, grind in one spot, check the angle with your template, correct and then slowly rotate/roll the coupon all the way round while grinding for a uniform fast prep. you can get it down to 5 mins this way. Maybe longer for a 4" grinder.

Coldman wrote: Put your coupon on a flat benchtop protruding off the side. Hold your grinder in a comfortable fixed position to get the right angle, grind in one spot, check the angle with your template, correct and then slowly rotate/roll the coupon all the way round while grinding for a uniform fast prep. you can get it down to 5 mins this way. Maybe longer for a 4" grinder.

That's sort of what I did except I put it in a vice vertically and it worked fairly well. I'll try making the sheet metal angle and I do have a 7" angle grinder at my disposal. I wanted to get a feel for it with the 4" grinder before I went hogging it off with that 7" beast. I can also weld with both hands. I started learning that early on so that I wouldn't be one dimensional.
First set of coupons went haywire on the first tack and I couldn't starighten it out so I went to the second set of coupons. I tried to sneak up on the amperage starting at 75, then 95, then 110, then 120 which was too hot and I settled in on 115 which seemed just right. 115 made the only good tack and it was the last tack so nothing was trying to draw at that point either. Im thinking that it's gonna take me about five of these things to get the root pass down before I proceed to try welding one all the way out.
These things seem to need a much steeper torch angle than I am accustomed to using as well. The tack that pushed through like a ball of doo-doo is the 120 amp tack and I had the torch pointed nearly perpendicular to the coupon......stupid me. I'm skipping 2G & 5G and going straight to 6G. I propped this thing up in the 6G position after it was tacked up and did a couple of dry runs with my left hand and it honestly felt WAAAAY more comfortable than it was when I layed those damn tacks in. I had to contort myself due to a cluttered work bench. Walking the cup inside that beveled gap is so much easier than trying to do it on a flat plate. No wonder pipe weldors use that technique. The cup really walks itself through when the gap is that deep. The one good looking tack appears to have undercut in the photo but it's actually a bit of cold lap. I need to clean off my bench and get the coupons up a bit higher because I was anything but comfortable when I tacked this thing up. I'm gonna go ahead and lay the root in spite of that doo-doo ball tack.
It also seems that these coupons draw and twist like hell if I put in a tack any larger than 1/4". The drawing really amplifies deficiencies in the uniform edges of the gap but I managed to get it fairly uniform in the end with almost no high-low. Yay for me.
Can't lay the root until I get a test stand built tomorrow.

Your preps look quite good. 7" grinder is too big for one handed coupon grinding, stay with your 4". (5" is ideal if you have one.)
My advice is not to take short cuts. Get proficient at 2G and 5G - they are your bread and butter welds on the job. Then go for 6G. You have to pass the test yes, but you have to be able to do the work once you get the job and muscle memory is what you need.
Also check your relevant test codes. Some require 3 tacks, some 4. They also state how long they need to be.

How do you stop the coupons from bucking like a bronco on that first tack? I've seen some videos where they use a jig in the field for fitup and that makes pipe movement a moot point. But on these little coupons my gap seems to want to close on two sides and open on one, all of this is happening while it's giving me a ton of high-low. I can't imagine trying to straighten all of that out when there is already a 1" tack in place. I can barely move the coupons back into alignment with a 1/2" tack.

Maybe it's a job for a couple of big pipe wrenches?

First two tacks have to be 180 deg apart. Then you can use fitting wedges to even up the gap on the other sides.

Do your tacks in the 2G position. Bend a filler wire of the thickness to gap to your liking into a vee and lay it on the prep, sit the other coupon on top of it and use a short straight edge to line it up.
Put in one tack and remove vee wire. Get ready to tack the opposite side (N-S), knock it down so a straight piece of filler sits in there and tack, pull wire out.
Now you will find E-W sides uneven. You can do a couple of things here. You can hammer the big gap down, you can wedge the small gap open and don't forget to tack the bigger side first as it will pull in a little. You can also run a 3/32" cutting disc through the small side afterwards.

You can also make up a jig like the one I made from junk to do 3" coupons back in the day. You can tack in three places before releasing clamps, You use one straight piece of wire to gap that can be pulled out.

If your hammer is not shifting the gap, put the cobbler's hammer away and use the BFH.

I remember my teacher telling us to drill 4 holes in two square plates and use 4 threaded rods and nuts to squeeze and hold the coupon in place while tacking to prevent movement.
I never tried it but I recon you'd have a job pulling the gap wire out afterwards.

Here's my old 6G rig. Made from scrap again. Still use it for PQR's and 6 monthly cert requals. 1" pipe stand, 1-1/4" pipe runner, 2"x1" channel, bolts and nuts that were lying around.

When I was going for certs I decided I didn't have time to waste grinding preps so I got the cheapest length of 3" sched40 crap pipe I could find, cut it up into coupons with a customer's automatic hacksaw overnight and got mate to turn 30* preps on his lathe at work (foreign order). Everybody owes me favours so were happy to help out gratis. Ended up with over 60 coupons. Did a couple after work each day 1 x 2G, 1 x 5G. That got the muscle memory going. After I got the cert, I started doing coupons in each size 6G, worked out all my prep and setting preferences and recorded them on a spread sheet. Did the same for branches in various angles and sizes. Tabled them all. Now when I go out to site there's no guess work I just dial in my settings and get on with it. Done so many the settings are all in my head and never look at the spread sheet. Tried bashing them out with booze, nope they are stuck there good.

Coldman wrote:Do your tacks in the 2G position. Bend a filler wire of the thickness to gap to your liking into a vee and lay it on the prep, sit the other coupon on top of it and use a short straight edge to line it up.
Put in one tack and remove vee wire. Get ready to tack the opposite side (N-S), knock it down so a straight piece of filler sits in there and tack, pull wire out.
Now you will find E-W sides uneven. You can do a couple of things here. You can hammer the big gap down, you can wedge the small gap open and don't forget to tack the bigger side first as it will pull in a little. You can also run a 3/32" cutting disc through the small side afterwards.

You can also make up a jig like the one I made from junk to do 3" coupons back in the day. You can tack in three places before releasing clamps, You use one straight piece of wire to gap that can be pulled out.

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That's exactly what I did and it just disrespected my fitup wire. Maybe I should have waited longer for it to cool down.

Coldman wrote:If your hammer is not shifting the gap, put the cobbler's hammer away and use the BFH.

I'm using my buddy's $200 Snapon dead blow hammer. It doesn't give a care about the gap and moves it with ease. I just need a piece of angle to make a little jig like yours.
What gave me fits is this: I had perfect alignment before I layed in the first tack. After the tack I had more than 1/16" of high-low because one of the coupons pivoted on the tack. I had to put it in a vice to get it untwisted.