What Are the Biggest Challenges of Pipeline Welding?

Tyler: I get to the yard and pick up my helper about 6:30 a.m., drink some coffee and attend the safety meeting at 7 a.m. After the safety meeting, the welder foreman tells us where we are going for the day and what we are welding. We load our ice chests with fresh ice, grab any welding rod, grinding wheels or consumables we used from the day before, and hit the right-of-way.

Jake: My day starts at about 5 a.m., usually six days a week. We have a safety meeting at 7 a.m. and then from there we all disperse. They’ll string pipe the day before and then one of us will bead and hot pass it, and the other one will fill and cap it. Usually in the morning we’re told “Hey, we need to get this many joints done today.” You’re required to do a lot in a day.

Tyler: The pipeline is a lean, mean operation and there’s not a lot of fat, so there’s no messing around. I normally work as a bullpen welder, moving around the job as needed — making tie-in welds, repairing welds, welding in the fab yard or helping out the firing line. I normally work 10–12 hours a day.

Klay: I do a lot of street work around Sydney, New Castle and Canberra, the east coast of Australia. We’ll do anywhere from a 2-inch gas line to a 22-inch primary pipe. It’s either natural gas or water — a lot of big diameter water pipes. On a typical day I get to work for a 6:30 a.m. pre-start meeting, so you go over what’s to be done for the day and if there were any issues safety-wise or production-wise the day before. I work on a day rate based on a 10-hour day.

Jake: Reliable equipment is the most important. Always having welders that start and perform and you don’t have to mess with them all the time. If that thing does not start, I’m in trouble. Arc characteristics and weld consistency are important when it comes to putting in a bead or a hot pass. If it’ll just stay the same all day, it’s way less of a headache.

Tyler: It is critically important that my machine fires up every single day and is consistent and welds good. If it’s inconsistent and all over the place, or if I’m always guessing about where to set it before I strike the arc, that’s a problem. There’s so much riding on the line for us. In an average year, you’ll put about 1,000 hours on your machine, so it’s super important that there are no hiccups. Hiccups cost money.

Jake: Everybody’s looking for a better puddle. Everybody’s looking for something that is going to speed up what they’ve got going to be able to move faster.

Klay: Reliability is number one. You show up as a contractor, you supply everything, and if your machine goes down when there’s a tie-in, that’s pretty embarrassing and detrimental to the job.

Jake: On a pipeline job, we’re usually told in the morning “We need to get this many joints done.” You’re required to do a lot in a day. When I’m working in facilities, the productivity is measured in inches. We’re usually required to get about 200 inches a day. It depends on the job and the deadline. If you’re really getting crunched on time and guys aren’t making their inches, they’ll just get rid of you. If the deadline is more lenient, you’ll get a couple of warnings.

Tyler: There’s a constant comparison between the repair rate and how many weld joints were laid that day. People are keenly aware of what we’re getting done or what we’re not getting done. You’ve got to be able to keep up, and you’ve got to throw clean welds. Welders take a lot of pride in their work. A pipeline is built with many repetitive movements. The productivity depends on your ability to get in the groove with the other welders and stay there. It’s always better to have a machine that helps you stay just a hair ahead of the other guys instead of a machine that holds you back and has you struggling to keep up.

Klay: Productivity is paramount because a lot of my pipelines are branches or bypasses or house connections, so they have to be hot tapped by a drilling team. If we miss that date, to get the drilling team back is another couple of months, so it’s very important to make dates that are set out.

Jake: Probably the biggest thing that’s going to slow me down is machines not functioning correctly. If I’ve got to walk back and forth to the machine and change things, that’s not going to fly.

Jake: I want a bead that’s crisp but soft at the same time, that just butters on the inside. I don’t want it to undercut the inside. If it undercuts anywhere, X-ray is going to see it. After the bead is my hot pass, and I want the hot pass to be really aggressive and pushing the whole time so it eats all the trash out of that weld. It takes care of all the slag and whatever else. After that you have your filler passes, and I want it to stack and put as much metal in it as I can, but at the same time still have enough push on that hot pass and cleaning the whole time. On the cap, I want the puddle to freeze where I put it because if it doesn’t, it starts to concave. I tell the helper as I’m doing the bead if things need to be adjusted and he’s going to control the heat for me.

Klay: For a 6- to 10-inch pipe, I can leave it on the same amps for the whole weld. Welding up a big spherical T, the root uses a 7016 low hydrogen rod specifically developed for open-root welds. You have to be on the remote for that, because it makes it a lot easier to go up and down. I put it all the way full dig for 7010, 6010, and I find I like a bit more aggressive puddle for downhill. It lets me manipulate my arc length. Your arc length has more influence on the puddle the higher your dig setting is. People might drop the dig down a little bit for fill passes, but I like it all the way up.

Tyler: Generally, we use a 6010 rod for the root pass, and for the hot pass it’s 7010 and 8010. When you start that root pass you start at the top. You need a little bit less heat at the top, generally, so you have your helper turn you up or turn you down as you’re putting in the root pass. Once you get the root done, the hot pass, the fill and the cap are pretty consistent, in that we’re going to need more heat on the top and the bottom and less for the sides, and so it’s really important that you have someone to make those adjustments. That’s the beauty of a wireless remote. I like a little more dig when I’m putting my root pass in than in my fill and cap.

Jake: They’re huge and heavy and you’ve got to drag the cord out. A few years ago, we had one that went bad and we were in a tie-in and we were strung out probably 70 feet down into a hole. We had to have two guys, one hollering down and the other sitting up by the machine trying to control it. Then by the time they got the heat controlled, I was blowing holes because by the time you can see a puddle starting to get too hot or too cold, you need that adjustment right now.

Tyler: In your traditional remotes, you’ve got to string out yet another cord for that remote, but the wireless remote absolutely increases productivity. You just grab that thing, put it in your pocket and go down there and start welding. There isn’t a whole bunch of setup or messing around you have to do with it.

Tyler: As a rule of thumb, you get three repairs and then they’re going to fire you off that job. If you get run off for bad welds, everybody’s going to know it. For Local 798 welders, our quality and productivity, that’s what we’re proud of. Every time you step up to that plate, you better hit a home run. You put yourself there with the best tools that money can buy. We need to know our welding machine is going to fire up every morning, we need to know it’s going to weld the same way every day. The Miller® machine does that; you don’t have to worry about it.

Jake: You always want to be called back. When you perform and you make it your priority to make the company money, people notice. When it comes time for a layoff, if you’ve been the one over there slacking, those other guys see it. They’re not going to invite you to the next one because their reputation is on the line as well.

Klay: If you can’t produce what you say you can produce, you are compromised in your position. If your machine is reliable and consistent, you can output reliable and consistent results.

Jake: On the technology end of it, if I can trust the machine and it makes me faster and makes me better at what I do, that’s a huge stress reliever.