Can we talk about how I was welding bad for 3 years before someone said something?

I'm a third-year apprentice and I finally realized I was running my MIG gun at the wrong angle on vertical-up passes. A journeyman in Gary, Indiana watched me one morning and just said 'you're fighting the puddle, not helping it.' He showed me a 10 degree push instead of the 15 I was doing. Has anyone else had a similar moment where a simple tweak changed everything about your work?

3 comments

3 Comments

evan_burns9515d ago

Wait, wouldn't a 10 degree push actually give you a shallower angle than 15 degrees?

chen.casey15d agoTop Commenter

Evan, that's exactly what I'm trying to wrap my head around. If we're talking about the angle from vertical, 10 degrees is less lean than 15, but if you measure from the ground, 10 degrees is actually steeper. Which reference point are you using for "shallower," because I feel like half the arguments on job sites come down to people measuring from different starting points?

the_adam15d ago

You know, it's funny you mention angles because I was just thinking about this the other day when I was trying to set up a temporary fence for my neighbor's dog. I had this whole thing in my head about how a steeper angle would make the posts lean more, but then I actually tried it and my brain just short-circuited. I swear, geometry is one of those things that makes sense on paper but then you get out there with a tape measure and a level and everything flips around on you. But yeah, you're probably right, a 10 degree push would give you a shallower angle than 15 degrees, assuming you're measuring from the same starting point. It's like when you're trying to explain this stuff to a new guy on the crew and they keep mixing up vertical and horizontal, drives me nuts sometimes.

-1