13
Had a chat with an old hand from the shipyard last Tuesday
He told me I was overthinking my weld prep and wasting time with all those extra passes, and it hit me different because he showed me a 20 year old tank seam he did with half the grinding and it still held pressure.
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
tylerpark15d ago
...but is it really that serious though? Like yeah, an old timer showed you a tank seam from 20 years ago that still holds. But that's one seam. How many of his other jobs cracked or leaked over the years that nobody talks about? Survivorship bias is real. People remember the stuff that worked and forget the stuff that failed. I'm not saying grind it all down to nothing but there's a middle ground between that old school "good enough" approach and the overkill you were doing. Modern welding has better standards for a reason.
2
jamesroberts15d ago
Exactly, that survivorship bias thing makes his one good weld look way better than it probably was overall.
6
the_faith11d ago
Has anybody actually tested both approaches side by side on the same job?
6