Just because you can doesn't mean you should or should have to.

by Dave Lewis
(Ft. Myers FL)

Just want to share a rant and ask if this irks anyone else. Have you ever been given a horrendous fit-up and when you look at the fitter and say WTF his intelligent response is "Well, I thought you were a good welder?" Here is what I did to a fella years ago. Was putting in a chilled water system, cake work schedule 40 C.S. a lot of prefab roll out stand work flanged, etc. Got this smart ass, you know 30 years of experience done everything but working out of a labor pool guy. Isn't good enough to cut a bevel on a pipe with a torch so he's using a porta-band and beveling with a grinder, it's 4 inch what ever. I tell him to use a wrap around and circumscribe around the pipe not try to go straight through etc. Oh well he knows better, set's me up two sticks and a 90 to tack up on the stands. Tack up one side of 90 then the other squaring it up.....one side is ok but when we square it the front side is 1/8" gap and the back of the 90 is between a 1/2-5/8 inch gap and I look at him and said geez dude and before I can say re-do this Sh*t he say's "I thought you were a good welder". I didn't say a word, I just tacked the good gap, bridged two tacks at noon and six, closed up the back with stringers and put a pretty cap on it, it took me 30 minutes longer than a 4 inch should of took but, no problem. So I sent him off on some B.S. mission and cut a piece of pipe about 12" long and stood it up and tacked it on a steel table on site. When he came back I just pointed to the table and said "bevel it" he goes over and bevels the top of it and as usual one side no land, middle dime, the rest nickel width and he say's there you go. I said what about the other end? He gives me a smirk and picks up the grinder and start to grind off my tacks. I said hold on there son, if your a real fitter you should be able to grind that bevel where it's at. Well it went from bad to worse and we ran him off.

The moral to this story was. Yes, I can and have welded in some nasty predicaments when there was just no other way. But if your a professional welder doing critical work, just because you "can" doesn't mean you should. It's not a test of you personally it is all about the quality of the end result.