Saw a guy in Cincinnati weld a patch on a steam drum and it made me rethink preheating

I used to skip preheating on thicker joints if I was in a rush. Then last week I watched this older boilermaker in Cincinnati spend 20 minutes heating up a 2-inch thick steam drum before he even struck an arc. He told me every crack he ever saw came from skipping that step. Now I'm thinking twice about it. Has anyone else had a job fail because you didn't preheat enough?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_patricia4d ago

That old boilermaker knows his stuff. I watched a foreman rush a job on a 3 inch wall back in '19. Skipped preheat because the customer was breathing down our necks. Six months later that exact seam split open like a zipper. Had to cut the whole section out and start over. Cost the company triple what the original job paid. Preheating isn't just a suggestion in my book. It's cheap insurance against a world of hurt later on.

margaret_gonzalez254d ago

Same thing happened to my uncle on a school boiler job. Totally agree.