I agree with everything you said. I have to comment on the gas welding of pipe. I have only seen that done on my first construction job when I worked as a welders helper for a welder doing gas welding on some 2" pipe in 1968. Every job after that used TIG for small bore piping. The only reason for the gas welding was because of the antiquated specification of the compressor station owner (Transcontinental Gas Transmission ) that required gas welding of 2" and below piping.
By the same token, I worked on a job where I was a pipe welder in 1974 and the specs didn't allow TIG welding on small bore. I welded 1/2" buttweld hydrogen line with 6010 root. By the time you got it tacked up there was just about a 1/8 gap between tacks to fill with the root pass. It was all 100% xray so we had to be very good to pass those test. TIG would have been much easier and faster and possibly better.
Gary,
I was doing a lot of ammonia refrigeration piping back in those days. Gas welding was a production matter. 2" XH we could do in one pass, no cleaning between 2-3 passes. We could 2-3 more welds to the arc welders 1. Arc welding on small bore created more leaks also. I could do 100 gas welds and not have a leak.
One job I was called into from the hall was some 6", schd 40, vertical chilled and HW piping that had a horizontal weld every 10'. Total of almost 100 welds and every joint leaked. Old wood frame retail store 4 stories, fire department required all gas welding, and the elevator could only take the 10' sections. First crew never did get the lower point of the joint fused in, nice looking but overlapped the lower bevel. Oh, many of the welds were only 3" from the walls and some in corners. Due to the fire danger had to chip out and file the whole joint.
Put 4 fitters and apprentices working that, went to the union training shop and brushed up on my horizontal welding, ordered out some #4 short bend and standard tips. Some places I had to cut a window in the front and welded from the inside, had to fill out the bevel first on those. We were still using asbestos blankets for heat shielding. I did all the welding myself as there were no certified gas welder available from the hall.
They also had close to 100 threaded joints on 1 1/2 pipe at the coils. malleable fittings and the had the idea you had to screw the threads all the way in. hat was a lot of ruined fittings . Super asked me what would I do to keep from replacing all the fittings. Recommended trying Expando joint compound as we used a lot of that on threaded ammonia piping when Litharge was outlawed. It is a cement based paste thinned with water, sets up like a rock. Threads have to very clean with no oil. another fitter cleanup job. Supervised fixing the first set of coils. Low and behold, no leaks. Set up 3 crews and finished it all out with no more leaks and a happy boss.
Luckily I had demanded they pay me foreman pay up front and if the first riser had any leaks they could take it away. The company owner himself came out at the end and handed me a $5K bonus check. That job took a total of 6 months and now 5 months behind schedule and I was able to catch up one of those months. Stayed with that company for over a year doing mostly gas welding. They lost their shirt on that job, with an unhappy customer due to the delays and running the job into the summer.
Ron
