Arc Welding 101: Put your finger on it

Q: I'm a welding instructor at a steel mill in northwest Indiana. We attended the “Train the Trainer” class at the Hobart Institute of Welding Technology 12 years ago to certify in all positions, limited and unlimited thickness plates with backing, using all shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) on a 7018 rod. We believe that we are able to qualify welders to weld anything structural in our mill. Does this sound correct, or are we missing something? A new instructor is saying we have to certify, but I do not believe this is accurate according to D1.1. Does D1.1 say you have to certify to weld structural or just qualify through the testing procedure?

A: Hobart is a great school, and the “Train the Trainer” program was a great idea.

If your company accepted the Hobart documentation as your welder qualifications and your company maintained a welder continuity log, and as long as there is no reason to question your ability, your welder qualifications will continue to be current.

Although the AWS Certified Welding Educator (CWE) program would require you to maintain your welder qualifications, being a CWE is not a code requirement for those of us who train and qualify our welders, so anyone your company deems competent to do so can train and qualify your welders.

As far as qualifying welders to weld anything structural in your mill, you would need to determine what governing documents cover the welding requirements of your mill (D1.1, D1.3, D14.1, etc.) and ensure your welders are being qualified to those requirements. Those welders would need to be qualified to a test procedure, which would need to encompass all of the essential variables listed in the codes being used (I know … it’s enough to make your head spin).

Bottom line, when someone comes to me with a code requirement that I don’t believe to be accurate, my response is to tell that person to “Put your finger on it.” Equally important, when someone asks about a code provision, I would never give an answer until I had all the required information and I was able to “Put my finger on it” too.