So glad I could join you both for the live session, and a big welcolme to Aren.

Aren was very clear that college wasn’t the route he wanted to take: he wanted to use his hands to make things . But it was also clear he understands metallurgy to quite a deep level, and I wondered if he’s studied it formally eg at night school, or if he picked it up along the ways, such as from the excellent Lincoln Foundation books?

And a thought for a future Zoom: we learn best from the mistakes we (and others) make. How about a topic “The Lessons I Learned the Hard Way”? This could be about things that went wrong, why they went wrong, and what you learned from it so that it never happened again.

As always, I enjoyed the live session with the ability to ask questions, anc many thanks for the answers.

Future topic suggestion: idendification of aluminium (or magnesium) alloy. I came across someone needing to weld a large crack on the alloy subframe of his Audi. His welder wanted to use 4943, but they ended up using 4043. How would you deal with that? You don’t know the composition or heat treatment of the base-metal forging; it’s a safety-critical component, how would you handle it? Would you turn the job away unless they can provide details of the base metal? If the part failed because of the repair and resulted in an accident, you, as the welder would be held accountable. So how would you deal with such jobs?

As Jody mentioned in his latest video, with carbon steels and stainless steels of unknown composition, 309 filler would possibly be a safe choice, but with aluminium alloys, I feel sure there’s no simple equivalent filler, and things are much more complex

Excellent video, Jody. Here in the UK, the only rod they use in welding school is the 6013. And as for 6010 and 6011, good luck trying to get hold of those from welding supplies. I too couldn’t tell the difference between the puddle and the flux on 6013 and thought it was my fault or my helmet wasn’t up to the job. I also remember on a cut and etch being picked up for not getting enough penetration into the root, no matter how high I set the current. And i’ve also chipped the slag off a 6013 weld to see porosity or an gap down the middle. If you wanted to disillusion/frustrate stick welding students and make them think they’ll never get to grips with welding, 6013 is the rod you want. On the other hand, if you can master the 6013, then mastery of other rods should come easy, but no-one told me that. I think the secret with 6013 is use the highest possible/practicable current (and tight arc, as ever). I fell in love with stick welding when I discovered 6010/11 and 7018.

Sow, Sam. What an interesting job. I didn’t realise you could MIG silicon bronze.

How would the settings differ for silicon bronze over solid steel MIG wire at the same diameter?

Did you have to take any special precautions with the cleanliness of the base metal?

You put it back in the oven after welding to cool, was that simply to ensure the casting coiled gently in a draft-free environment?

Great video, thanks

Martin

Smart! 👍👍👍

All of the options are. interesting, but you’re doing such a good job as it is, that it wouldn’t make any difference to me.

Thanks, so much, JD. I really appreciate that. I’m going to watch that part of the video again: I can’t remember ever having seen such close-up, detailed views of an MMA arc and puddle. And having tried not very successfully to take photos of TIG arcs myself, I know just how skilled and difficult a job it can be, but the results are stunning. When they say a picture’s worth it thousand words, it’s a big understatement. Thanks again for your reply, JD. And a very happy Christmas and 2024 to you and your wife and the puppy.

Thanks, JD, for such a detailed explanation not only of how things are at the company, but also how they’ve got where they are. I’m glad the company’s doing well; your comments make me realise too much growth too fast can be a bad thing.

My only concern was that the firm should try to shift any blame to you should there be an accident because someone didn’t know what they were doing. But I’m overthinking it: it’d be like a bad driver trying to blame the car manufacturer because he came off the road when driving too fast.

It reminds me of one or two of your previous videos when you showed the correct way to use an angle grinder, and I then realised I’d never had any formal training on using an angle grinder - hardly anyone ever does, and then we’re all surprised how complacent and ignorant we are when we have our first accident with one.

Thanks, JD. I love these videos in the industrial workshops.

JD,

Was this the same system where you recently installed 2 dryers into the pipework? Do they have all these modifications properly documented? It looks as if it could end up like a load of spaghetti with no-one really knowing what some of the circuits do and why they’re there. I guess that’s how many/most systems evolve, but without proper documentation and circuit diagrams, is it not a recipe for disaster? Are the high-pressure systems marked clearly to distinguish those circuits from the low-pressure circuits? Do they have to go through a proper evaluation before modifications, or is like I suspect: someone says, “JD, can you take a pipe from there to there for us?”, and that’s all there is to it?

Where do you stand if someone does something stupid later on and there’s an accident and it’s determined that a modification should not have been done because it had introduced some sort of danger. Would you be in the clear because you carried out the instructions?

Excellent close-up arc shots, JD. I see the dangers of the flux running ahead of the puddle, and I can see why the manipulation helps avoid that. No doubt you act on instinct when you see the flux getting ahead, so you might not even know what you instinctively do to combat it, but when you do see flux getting ahead, what’s the immediate action you do to stop it? Or put it another way, if I saw the flux suddenly appear in front of the rod, my immediate action would be to check my drag angle and if I’ve lost it and gone too much straight in, I’d increase the drag angle; I’d also immediately do some manipulation of the arc, and I think I’d also possibly try to reduce the arc gap. Now, are those the right things to do? Which is the most likely to fix the problem, or the thing I should do first - drag angle, manipulation, or both at the same time?

Is there any link between welding current and flux getting ahead? Is it possibly a sign that the welding current is too low?