Ahhh, I don't get excited by teasing. Fact is, most of the young kids, once they realize how useful it is to have an older worker around them, they fall in line. Well, most of them.
I've met some of the younger guys who come on the job thinking they are something special, try to take welding leads, sabotage stuff on the project, throw fits and try to start fights, and all that stupidity. If they don't fall in line I report them and tell the supervisor I can't and won't work with them. Then shit gets real hard for them when no one's around to lean on.
One younger guy I worked with started showing an interest in learning so I made special attention to ask him how he was doing and every time he had a problem I would show him how it's done. It was a pleasure teaching him. When I first met him he could barely weld and he only got on the job because the foreman was married to his sister.
He was a good sport even when other coworkers who were older played a prank on him and he gave as good as he got.
There's an old prank some guys like to pull on the newbies where they tell them to go get a Matterdaddy. The kid ran off to the tool trailer a couple times I guess before he came to me and asked me, "What's a Matter Daddy?".
I had forgotten that prank because it's so old and I turned to him and told him to quit messing about and get back to work. He walks off a couple steps and turns back to me embarrassed but asks me again, "But, what's a Matter Daddy?". Then I noticed the other guys kind of grouped together snickering to themselves.
I had such a hard time keeping a straight face as I said, "You do know I'm not your daddy, right? And nothing's the matter."
He followed my gaze over at the other guys on the other side of the tank and then looked at me even more embarrassed.
Me: "Yep, the guys are having a bit of fun at your expense".
I told him one day to never coil up a welding lead he was using as the flowing current sets up a magnetic field that messes up your voltage and drops the amps as well when it's too close it can totally scramble your welding bead.
Next day I'm busy welding with him as my assistant standing watch on the other side of the tank wall. My current was way off and I had him reset my machine.
Nope, it's still messed up and even worse. Finally, tired of having issues I went out and checked my machine also, put the settings right and went back inside. Still messed up. How a machine can go from working fine and then being all messed up had me really frustrated and when I said something about it he doubled over laughing his butt off. He called me outside to show me how he coiled up my welding cable just outside where I was welding.
He claimed it was for science to prove out my "theory". Smart kid and he went on to do very well in the steel construction industry from what I hear.
Some learn, some don't. I love the ones who want to learn.
we are all grown ass kids just tryna find out spot in life.
Great story, thanks!
He followed my gaze over at the other guys on the other side of the tank and then looked at me even more embarrassed.
Aww. Should've sent him back to the first guy to ask for a "long-stand."
He called me outside to show me how he coiled up my welding cable just outside where I was welding.
Ohh, so it was like an inductor? Isn't that dangerous though?
I'm just a welder so I barely know what an inductor is. I'm assuming it's a coil to control voltage?
I found this out by accident when I was new in the trade. Having a long cable for welding it sometimes is longer than what you need and it's just laying about getting underfoot while you might be in a small space so one day I had it coiled up and placed it on a beam I was welding on.
I started welding and instantly the weld puddle went all crazy with molten metal just being pulled out or flung out of the puddle. I assumed the coil might have something to do with it so I took it off the beam and suddenly, I could weld normally. Put it back and the same thing happened.
I figured it was like an electromagnet? Later I started reading up on it and realized what I was doing and how even if you put the coil away from where you are welding, it still throws your voltage and amps off what the meter on the machine is telling you your settings are. So, it doesn't matter what you put your settings on, you won't get a smooth bead. Just very aggravating to the welder.
The best technique for dealing with your excess cable is to lay it out and not coil it up or at least lay it out in such a way as you are not making tight coils.
When air arc gouging out bad welds we use a carbon rod in a holder that shoots air along the rod to blow out the weld as the rod melts it at the tip. The current we run for that process is much higher than welding, say around 300 to 500 amps.
At that amount of current it's so much more you can easily see it's effect on loose metal bits.
One day I happened to touch the rod to steel while I had my hood up and noticed a that where I had the cable in a coil a bit of welding rod stood straight up in the center of the coil. Very interesting. Also, every tiny bit of metal fragments stood up on it's tip to align with the magnetic field. Just like if you put a magnet close to steel shavings. Same thing.
Also when just welding normally steel shavings will line up along your welding cable. When you stop welding and move to a new area if it's a nice smooth plate of steel you are working on, when you move your welding cable to get to the work that needs to be done you can see a nice outline of weld shavings where your cable had been.
No matter what you do, as your current flows through the cables it's going to create a magnetic field around your cable. That is a natural thing that applies to any metal you run a circuit through. Wires in electronics use this to control current, modify it, change voltage, etc. An electronics engineers knows all about this. This is how they make current for microwaves and other stuff. When I've taken apart such things I can see the design of some of the components. Same principle in motor windings. Current goes through the wires and creates a field around the wire.
Coil up a welding cable and you are just replicating some of the components in a motor winding. Concentrating the fields into a larger stronger field.
Oh, BTW , did you notice Poal went down last night ?
Yeah, all electrical wires generate magnetic fields. If you coil it up it enhances the field and makes it bigger, it also resists change in voltage (that's what inductors are for) and generates a lot of heat. They can go on fire if there's enough power running through them.
Didn't notice it no.
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