In this campaign I am welding just the root, then cutting the weld and re-prep'ing. Much quicker re-prep'ing, enabling more root runs to be practiced in a day. Find must run the root all the way around - no part is deserving of more attention than others.
This is driving the rod much harder. Following advice of nuclear industry welders - please avoid seeing May efforts ;-) Now going on weld pool appearance - looking for fluidity and "the fingernail" - however took note that on welding machine (running DCEN per std. 7016 rooting practice) shows 85A on lower "overhead" sector, 75A on the middle "vert-up" sector and 80A on the top "sloping" sector. Which I believe could be called "maximum burn", "mid-burn" and "high burn", respectively.
I did not feather the stop starts, as stop/starts not my usual
problem.
So one lurid slag inclusion can be seen for outer bead, plus lumpy
restarts.
But penetration faults (insufficient or excessive) are penetration faults, no arguing.
There is still "plenty of room for improvement".
Shrinkage had closed up the upper sector root gap despite bullet-tacks, giving poor penetration.
Each position - "normal"/square-on shot and oblique/angled shot.
"lower" is obviously gruesome. Need to adjust technique to have good sight of weld pool when setting-off in the lower sector.
Seriously need to improve technique!
