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Pro tip: check your purge gas line before every root pass, not just the first one
Was tacking up a 6 inch carbon steel spool at the yard in Gary last Tuesday, and the root on my first joint came out grey and sugared on the inside. I figured it was the wind, so I bumped the flow from 20 to 30 CFH and ran the next one. Same thing. That was when I checked the hose and found a pinhole leak about a foot from the torch, right where it rubs against the bench edge every time I set the whip down. The leak was pulling air into the line, so no matter how much gas I pushed, the shielding was junk. I cut the bad section out, re-clamped it, and dialed back to 22 CFH, and the rest of the spool laid in clean with a nice straw color. Cost me two roots and about 40 minutes of grinding, which is cheap compared to a cutout on a field job. Now I run a soapy water check on that hose every Monday morning. Anyone else got a spot on their rig the hose always rubs through? I want to know if it's just my bench setup or a common thing.
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skylercooper10d ago
Learned that lesson the hard way through a buddy of mine who runs a mobile rig out in Oklahoma. He kept chasing porosity on his aluminum roots for like two weeks straight, swapping cups and messing with his balance, and it turned out his argon hose had a tiny cut right where it fed through the wire feeder arm. Thing was sucking air the whole time and he never once thought to look at the hose cause it was brand new. Cost him a full day of rework before his helper finally sprayed it down with soapy water on a hunch. Now he zip ties a piece of split loom over that spot and checks it every morning with the rest of his gear. The rub points are almost always where the hose touches metal, so if you got a bench edge or a sharp frame rail in the mix, that's your trouble spot.
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