Unpopular opinion: I skip the preheat on my welder and go straight to work

Been running 7018 rods for 12 years now and I found that skipping the 15 minute preheat on my Lincoln Idealarc saved me 2 hours on a boiler patch job last month and the weld passed X-ray just fine so what's the big deal about that rule anyway?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_adam6d ago

Isnt that how most "rules" in life actually go though like recipes or directions on furniture you figure out what actually matters after you ignore the warning labels a few times? Ive seen guys get away with skipping steps for years until one day the stars align wrong and it cracks, but honestly if your xray passed then you proved your point for that specific job. The real trick is knowing which rules are hard limits and which are just "cover your ass" suggestions from someone writing a manual 40 years ago.

derekjenkins6d ago

I mean, the one angle nobody's really touching on is that skipping preheat on certain alloys actually changes the cooling rate enough that you're basically heat-treating that metal in an uncontrolled way. If you're lucky you get a pass, but you also might be setting yourself up for hydrogen cracking down the road that won't show up on X-ray or even a bend test for months. Idk, maybe I'm overthinking it, but welding rules were usually written by metallurgists who watched stuff fail in real time, not just to make your day longer.