Welding ground...don't do this!

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ACME SS

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A little while ago I was looking for a good ground for welding up an exhaust repair. Then I remembered a story from a welding instructor I used to work with. This guy was an excellent welder and a great instructor. He had a maintenance pit in his shop and one morning he told us this story. He was about to make a weld under a Mopar with a torsion bar and without thinking through what he was doing, he put his ground on the torsion bar. When he struck his first arc, the ground arced, causing the torsion bar to break instantly! The car dropped a few inches and struck him in the head.

And while I'm on this subject, I should mention arc spatter (its spatter, not splatter). Arc spatter (those little beads that stick to surrounding metal) will weld itself instantly to whatever it lands on, and then cool instantly. This can cause crack propogation from these sites. It's not a big deal on sheet metal or low carbon steel but keep it off torsion bars and the like! If you do have weld spatter on something critical, it does not go deep so if you take a file and remove it with a few extra strokes of the base metal you should be OK.
I am a certified by the American Welding Society as a weld inspector in case your wondering of my credentials. Here is a picture of what I'm saying NOT TO DO. This ground was put on this torsion bar for photo purposes only and the cable was NOT connected to a welding machine. Hope this keeps you safe!

IMG_6616.jpg
 
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Be careful to not connect your ground in a fashion that could run the circuit across a bearing, like rear end. It could arc across a bearing destroying it.
 
Anti spatter spray aerosol works well to control spatter sticking. Also when welding remove any ring you might be wearing, you will know why if a large spatter sticks to it.
Yote
 
Yeah, always wear no gloves, wear short sleeves, shorts, and flip flops. Who needs a shield when tacking? just close your eyes. Be like all those guys on tv and u-tube. All that safety clothing and stuff is for sissies...:rolleyes:
 
Many people forget that welders generate lethal voltages. Open circuit on a stick is enough to kill you in a wet/ very conductive situation.
 
Many people forget that welders generate lethal voltages. Open circuit on a stick is enough to kill you in a wet/ very conductive situation.
My Vo tech teacher also had a welding business that I worked a day or so at a veneer plant. He told me how he was in chest high water in a soaking tank welding a pipe there.
Ain`t no way, no how, he`d get me to do something like that:rolleyes:
 
Yeah, always wear no gloves, wear short sleeves, shorts, and flip flops. Who needs a shield when tacking? just close your eyes. Be like all those guys on tv and u-tube. All that safety clothing and stuff is for sissies...:rolleyes:
LOL.....Funny you should say this. When I was a kid (13), I decided to use my dads arc welder to fix my bike while he was at work. I put on the face shield, welding jacket and gloves and crouched down and did my welding. That night the burn and itching was intolerable. Note to self...........Don't wear shorts when you weld.:BangHead:
 
My Vo tech teacher also had a welding business that I worked a day or so at a veneer plant. He told me how he was in chest high water in a soaking tank welding a pipe there.
Ain`t no way, no how, he`d get me to do something like that:rolleyes:
I went to college with a guy who was ex-navy. He taught scuba diving and underwater welding. I took his scuba class but didn't have any desire to weld underwater. Kinda like jumping out of a perfectly good plane
 
I went to college with a guy who was ex-navy. He taught scuba diving and underwater welding. I took his scuba class but didn't have any desire to weld underwater. Kinda like jumping out of a perfectly good plane
Yeah, those guys probably make the biggis buckis:D
I`ve heard storys like having a rope tied around your ankles dropped into a large underwater pipe welding upside down. Oh hell No:eek:
Worked for a guy that told us about a scuba worker in a sewage treatment plant that used some kind of worm that helped break down the crap working on the agitator that came up for break, lifted his mask and started eating his sandwich with crap and worms on his head . LOL:eek:
 
Yeah, those guys probably make the biggis buckis:D
I`ve heard storys like having a rope tied around your ankles dropped into a large underwater pipe welding upside down. Oh hell No:eek:
Worked for a guy that told us about a scuba worker in a sewage treatment plant that used some kind of worm that helped break down the crap working on the agitator that came up for break, lifted his mask and started eating his sandwich with crap and worms on his head . LOL:eek:
I worked for a major electric utility and can relate to your story. Lots of gross stuff in hydro plants when they de-water them and thats on a clean river. I worked with a guy at one of our nuclear plants who had been a contractor in Chernobyl after the accident. He had some pretty unbelievable stories of poor anti-contamination protocols being followed (or not) from that experience. Crap and worms...thats a new one for sure.
probably the closest to that story from our company was our garbage to fuel processing plant workers would be sick for weeks when they first start and then they were pretty much super-immune to about everything.
 
A little while ago I was looking for a good ground for welding up an exhaust repair. Then I remembered a story from a welding instructor I used to work with. This guy was an excellent welder and a great instructor. He had a maintenance pit in his shop and one morning he told us this story. He was about to make a weld under a Mopar with a torsion bar and without thinking through what he was doing, he put his ground on the torsion bar. When he struck his first arc, the ground arced, causing the torsion bar to break instantly! The car dropped a few inches and struck him in the head.

And while I'm on this subject, I should mention arc spatter (its spatter, not splatter). Arc spatter (those little beads that stick to surrounding metal) will weld itself instantly to whatever it lands on, and then cool instantly. This can cause crack propogation from these sites. It's not a big deal on sheet metal or low carbon steel but keep it off torsion bars and the like! If you do have weld spatter on something critical, it does not go deep so if you take a file and remove it with a few extra strokes of the base metal you should be OK.
I am a certified by the American Welding Society as a weld inspector in case your wondering of my credentials. Here is a picture of what I'm saying NOT TO DO. This ground was put on this torsion bar for photo purposes only and the cable was NOT connected to a welding machine. Hope this keeps you safe!
View attachment 1715911590
As a long time career molecular thermal fusion specialist wearing the proper PPE is critical. In addition proper grounding is a thing! Keep posting guy, there are a lot of folks just learning, and while us old hands chuckle the young guns need to know. Great post and so very true. Thanks, keep us safe!

B5E6135F-A50D-4C67-A6B4-E9817F9F7FAB.jpeg
 
Crap and worms...thats a new one for sure
Reminds me, when I was a kid just starting out, I was sent out in the field to a local to me Paper mill, actually cardboard. Out back of the plant were open inground concrete water tanks with skimmer blades for some purpose. On the edge of the tanks was a trough with water in them that had these freaky bugs in them that I guess was used to break down scum or what ever, that looked like they came from the depths of hell:eek:

Another story I find funny. Long time ago I was building/welding up a pump room.
The roof was not built yet and large pools of water was on the floor. I could see hundreds of mosquito larva swimming around in there. I`m thinking, man I got to kill these bastids before they transform to blood sucking vampires from hell and eat me alive while I`m trying to work. I thought, I`m going to electrocute them to death. I threw my ground clamp in the water and stuck the stinger with rod in next to them. Hmm, they just squiggled a little bit. OK, I`ll get you bastids. I cranked up my machine full tilt, put a rod in the ground clamp, and the stinger and dipped in the pool close to the swarm. Now they squirmed a lot. Never did kill them though, I had to get back to work.

:lol:
 
Years ago, I was at a shop where a guy was welding on an OTR truck. Don't remember WHAT he was welding on, but some weld spatter got on a can of penetrating oil under the truck. Yup it stuck to it and burned through the can. Before he knew it, he had a fire and explosion under the truck, because it burned through a fuel hose. Then it got the fuel tank. We had to push the truck off the jack stands with a forklift and push it outside so it wouldn't burn the whole shop down. That truck burned to the GROUND in about ten minutes flat.
 
You should take down that photo of what not to do. That image will stick in some idiots brain and then they will do it.
 
Another reminder when I was a yute, I worked for a small family shop where anything goes, from tea kettle to Caterpillars. Ol Floyd was an old CB from the Navy who taught me a ton, There for awhile we seemed to be doing alot of trailer hitches and he must of bought a bunch of random hitches we would modify to make work. Ol Floyd liked to just weld them to the frames instead of drilling and bolting.
One day he yelled everybody out of the shop! He come barreling out from under a newer car towards the bolt bin, grabbed a big screw and a driver and run back to the tank that was streaming gasoline to the floor. He had accidently hit the tank with his welding rod and burned a hole in it.
The screw stopped the leak and he soldered over it. He notified the customer and he was ok with it. :)

I had to do a few and man I was a nervous wreck striking an arc 1.5-2" away from a gas tank. I believe he told costumers to bring them in full.
A little wiser in my years, I`d do things a little different:lol:
 
As a long time career molecular thermal fusion specialist wearing the proper PPE is critical. In addition proper grounding is a thing! Keep posting guy, there are a lot of folks just learning, and while us old hands chuckle the young guns need to know. Great post and so very true. Thanks, keep us safe!

View attachment 1715911828
Nice TIG gloves! Oh, and I wonder if I may have tested you for one of our outages? :rofl:
 
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Mmmm... Natures little helpers, wastewater plant midge flies and their larvae known as bloodworms. Insects and plants (And Sometimes Fish, Read About Tilapia In Fish Farms!) do a wonderful job of cleaning waste out of water. Working wastewater will also put your acquired immunity through the roof. It takes a whole different mentality to do that whole "Wastewater Plant Maintenance Diving" though!
 
Many people forget that welders generate lethal voltages. Open circuit on a stick is enough to kill you in a wet/ very conductive situation.
Another story which may have involved a shock but not certain.
Ole Floyd as spoken above had his only son, he may have been a few years younger than me. Was working inside a dump truck bed welding. They had found him dead. This was shortly after I left for greener pastures. Jr was about the biker lifestyle, all tatted up hanging with dudes alot older. I think he partied allot even on work nights. He seemed to sweat more than normal and was a little over weight. He may of had a bad heart and possibly cokeing all night, who knows? A Fd up situation for sure
 
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