Technical On the Gas: A Welding Story

I worked maintenance in a chemical production plant at one point in my carrier. The entire place
was quite volatile flame wise. Smoking and hot work were carefully controlled. Of course certain
folks who are addicted to nicotine will find a way. The fab shop which was an allowed hot work
area with a constant permit for open flames. Welding, cutting, grinding and other spark producing
activities. The guys that did the majority of the shop work were pipefitters with other crafts
using the shop as needed. Smoking in the shop was prohibited, even with hot work allowed.
Rather than stopping their activities to walk the 100 feet or so to the smoke pen the shop guys
came up with a clever system to defeat this rule. Or so they thought. A small hole was drilled
in one corner of a steel table and a piece of pipe was fabricated to slide under the table on
a fixture to capture buts and ashes. This pie was about 6 inches in diameter and a foot or so
deep. When it got full the fellows would slide it out and dump it. This went on for a few
years undetected. Finally one disgruntled and very devious member of the work force
filled a plastic baggie with a combination of ox and acetylene. He then clandestinely
slipped the pipe out placed the baggie in and replaced the pipe. I was about to enter the fab shop
when said nefarious fellow stopped me on his way out. I was advised to not go in there for a
while. When work resumed after the lunch break it was not very long before someone needed a
smoke and used the secret smoking orifice to dispose of his lit cigarette but thinking the water in the can would extinguish the spark as usual. Wrong! the bang was to say the least thunderous! It blew the pipe off the bottom of the table and set off quite a commotion. This resulted in a very upset management staff and an extensive
investigation! Luckily the client which was the chemical plant itself did not become aware of this incident.
I am sure they would have ran the contractor right off their premises. The culprit on later reflection stated
" maybe I used a little to much oxy in my mixture." I just shook my head and walked away.

 

As a old retired tig welder, I tell everyone who wants to learn welding, to start gas welding first.

 

Joey, that work looks great!

My first attempt at gas welding was a fiasco, I was working a a bead cover for my Model A pickup, man did I warped it so badly I rendered it useless but I still have it leaning up in the corner of my old shop to remind me that you can learn by failure, I kept trying and eventually got better but in no way mastered gas welding.

I didn't use gas again until a couple of years ago and learned very fast that to achieve any consistency and improve your craft.. HRP