Pro tip: That trick with a garden hose saved my weld test in Omaha last month

I was at a job site in Omaha doing a vertical weld test on a boiler tube panel and my flux kept spalling off because the humidity was through the roof. An old timer told me to run a light mist from a garden hose over the area for 10 minutes before striking an arc to knock down the static and moisture imbalance. Has anyone else tried pre-wetting the work zone like that or do you just fight through the spalling?

3 comments

3 Comments

riley_schmidt23d ago

DUDE that trick is GOLD. Worked for me on a humid pipe job in Houston last summer.

kaiharris22d ago

Hold up, I gotta push back on calling that trick "GOLD". It completely failed for me on a similar job. That whole approach relies on the humidity being stable and the pipe being perfectly clean, which is almost never the case in practice. If the surface isn't prepped just right, that trick just makes a bigger mess and wastes more time. I'd rather spend an extra minute with a proper tool than gamble on a shortcut that leaves you stuck in the heat.

-1

angela_grant19d ago

Right? People love a trick till it makes a bigger mess.