[Otto Nobedder]

Hey, If you found a solution, no one can argue with facts!

Good on ya!

[Otto Nobedder]

I can't tell you how pleased I am, not only that you found the answer, but that you shared it here!

We are all trying to learn a bit more, and this is something we can learn from.

I'm paying particular attention, since heavy rigging is in my "list"...

Steve S

[Superiorwelding]

Steve
If you only knew what goes on else where! Our parent company in Brazil is a total loss when it comes to quality and safety. The things I have seen come from there would blow your mind!! They just basically just get it done with no thought or concern (at least from our point view) for the safety of their employees. Just last week we were sent pictures of one of our cranes that they laid on its side. It took two of our other cranes to get it upright again. As far as their weld quality, well lets say they stick things together. We are going down next month to do a repair on a unit and have shipped everything we need ahead of time because we don't trust what they have or may not have down there.

So with all that said yes I was not afraid to lift this considering there was over 24" of "good" weld left to hold it however from a safety aspect we shouldn't have.

[Otto Nobedder]

Be safe, next month, if you are part of that repair!

Steve S

[weldin mike 27]

Hey,

A face book friend, who is a welding inspector/ supervisor talked us through a problem similar to this, called solidification cracking, and is caused by more depth to width ratio, among other things, when a fillet is not in the correct proportion, the centre of the weld stays molten for a second before the outsides, leaving any impurities no where to go, so they cause a crack right though the guts of of the weld. also called centreline cracking.

Mick

[WerkSpace]

Some info on why welds crack.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/159968256/Welding-Technology

[Superiorwelding]

Thanks for the info guys.
I was digging through old pictures and found this one of the cracked weld I repaired. Thought I would post this to finish up this thread.
-Jonathan

[AKweldshop]

What process do you weld it up with???

~John

[Superiorwelding]

As far as the fix for the welds, what I did for the last repair is pre heat the material to 250* and began welding from the root up. I kept the interpass temps around 200-250 and welded it all as quickly as I could. The material cooled very quickly between passes. I also used a wire wheel on my grinder in between all passes (habit of mine). When I reached the correct weld size I did a final wire brush and covered with a welding blanket to slowly cool it off. I had absolutely no problems with this procedure..... Also on the note of MIG welding, we use Lincoln L-59 exclusively on our heavy weldments in my shop and will say I absolutely love the quality we get from this wire. just going from L-59 to L-56 we all can tell an huge difference using the same welder settings.

John,
This is how I did it using the MIG process.
-Jonathan

[AKweldshop]

1/4 7018 or 8018.

I'm a stick-man though.

~John

[Superiorwelding]

To prove I am as human as the next guy and because Tony didn't think I would post pics of it, here is a weld that cracked on me today. This weld was filling in around a 3/16"-1/4" gap using pulse spray. As you can see, it cracked at the toe of the weld. In my opinion it was because of a seriously small "throat" at the toe and all the stress created when Tony welded the groove behind it. I actually am blaming him for this one as it was fine until he put to much heat into the part and stress that exceeded what my small little weld could handle. We fixed it and put two more passes to make the weld bigger.

Lesson learned; follow the code book when it comes to gaps and prove out what a gap can handle. And put more passes on before I call it done.