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Why does nobody talk about preheating your plate before welding in cold weather
I was working a job in Fargo back in January and one of the old hands on the crew asked me what temp my plate was at before I struck an arc. I said cold, it's steel, who cares. He just shook his head and walked off. About an hour later I had a crack run right through a root pass on a 3/4 inch plate. He came back over and explained that anything under about 50 degrees F is basically asking for hydrogen cracking, especially on thicker stuff. Now I keep a cheap infrared thermometer in my rig and hit the plate with a rosebud torch until it reads at least 70 or 80 before I start. Cut my rework rate way down on winter jobs. Takes maybe 5 extra minutes per joint but that beats grinding out a crack at 2am. Anyone else got a temp threshold they stick to for cold weather work, or am I being too careful here?
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