A 30-year welder at a Kansas plant showed me a rod trick I still use

Back in 2019 at a boiler outage in Wichita, this old guy named Ray watched me struggle with a stubborn root pass on a 2-inch schedule 80 line. He walked over, grabbed my rod, and told me to keep the arc tight but drag it slower than I thought I needed to, then he tapped the bevel with his glove and said 'let the puddle tell you when it's ready.' I tried it on the next joint and the difference was night and day. Anyone else had a veteran hand you a technique that just clicked after years of doing it wrong?

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the_eric10d ago

Old timers always got that patience thing figured out, hardest part is trusting it and not rushing the puddle. Mine taught me to count to three before moving and it fixed my undercut for good.