6 months of practicing overhead welds and finally saw the difference

I've been a boiler tender for about 4 years now but always struggled with overhead stick welds. Last Tuesday I was redoing a header on a fire tube boiler and noticed I wasn't fighting the puddle as much. Started using a tighter arc length back in March after an old hand told me to try it. The slag just peeled off clean and I didn't have to grind any of it back. Has anyone else had a specific trick that clicked for them after months of trying?

2 comments

2 Comments

barbara_butler6d ago

Can't believe it took you 6 months to figure out a shorter arc.

the_sam5d ago

Six months sounds like a lot, but maybe they were dealing with foundation issues nobody talks about. I've seen projects where the arc calculation looked simple on paper but the actual concrete slab had a weird slope or a hidden pipe throwing everything off. Sometimes the "shorter" path means digging deeper into the ground, and that's where the time really goes. Could be they had to redo the footing or wait for an engineer to sign off, which nobody posts about because it's boring compared to the finish work.