need advice

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Comment by Ray Moye on April 2, 2010 at 7:10pm

If you can run a smooth open butt root with no suck back, then when you take the EB Ring test just be calm. Keep your tungsten pointed straight in as possible to avoid suck back this will be your worst enemy with this test. Keep both coupons the same inside and out with a feathered edge. The hardest part of an EB Ring test is the fit-up. Keep it tight with no gaps. I also worked for 30 years in the Power plants, Chemical plants and Paper mills. The military (Navy) specs are a b----. I hope this helps...Ray

Comment by Bob Sampson on March 12, 2010 at 11:41pm

Jacob,

I worked in a weld school at a naval shipyard for about 15 years and administered weld tests to hundreds of applicants, many of whom clearly seemed to be out of their element. Unless things have changed since I moved on (10+ years ago) the first thing you need to do is to forget everything you ever learned about open root weld tests. Navy tests almost always employ a backing strip (or ring, if you are taking a pipe test.) Upon completion of the tests, the backing strips will be machined off and your test plates will be examined. Unlike so often happens in private industry, the navy is going to subject your test samples to X-ray examination, as opposed to a guided bend test.

Restarts can kill you so I recommend running stringer beads. Weaving might work well in the real world, but when you're facing X-ray examination at a naval facility, you really don't want to have restarts in your test sample, unless you're taking a pipe test, in which case restarts are unavoidable.

I guess the best tip I can offer is to learn to become proficient enough that you can tie weld beads together where the toe of one bead meets the crown of a previous bead, and undercut is held to an absolute minimum (no more than 1/64th inch.)