Welding question

[sandytoes]

Hi All -

I have a novice question...

When we received our still (800 Liter) didn't have temperature ports in the heads of the dephlegmator or product condenser so we added ports for the temperature probes (1/2" NPT). Is it necessary to grind and polish the welds or is a good cleaning and passivation adequate? I wanted to ask before we put this back together. I have attached pictures.

Thanks!

[Southernhighlander]

That weld looks like dogshit, however if you grind it down and polish it out it may be okay.  If you leave it the way it is it will probably rust out or maybe even contaminate the spirit.  It is a borderline weld and it certainly isn't sanitary.  If one of my people did it I would have them cut it out and start over. 

[Southernhighlander]

The below is what a good sanitary tig weld looks like.  Note that the bead looks like a stack of dimes, stretched out.  Also note the color of the bead.  this is what you want.

 

[twalshact]

Southernhighlander is correct. 

[sandytoes]

Thanks for the confirmation! We went to a shop with a "good reputation"... We have found someone that can fix it.

[indyspirits]

19 hours ago, Southernhighlander said:

That weld looks like dogshit

Just spit out my coffee laughing so hard!  Clearly they haven't heard of or were too lazy to back purge.  

[richard1]

In fairness, yes it was a crappy weld ..... not everyone is a welder and he obviously does not know better.

 

But the other weld of the male butt to the pipe is also not perfect.  Great colour but too much undercut.

[sandytoes]

When I originally posted this I realized that there was a high probability of getting flamed. I felt that was worth the trade for helpful information.

Full story -

I took the pieces to a local fabrication shop that was "highly recommend". I was not happy when I picked them up and couldn't see how that was considered a finished product. Rather than come on here and dump on them (not really my way) I wanted to get input from folks that know better than me. I did and it was helpful.

Yesterday I found a welder that specializes in sanitary welding of stainless and he is currently fixing the "work" of the previous shop. I will post photos when fixed. Lesson learned.

Thanks for the help as always!

[Southernhighlander]

1 hour ago, sandytoes said:

•  

In fairness, yes it was a crappy weld ..... not everyone is a welder and he obviously does not know better.

 

But the other weld of the male butt to the pipe is also not perfect.  Great colour but too much undercut.

You should reread what the OP wrote.  He did not weld it.  A welding shop did. The pic makes it look like there is a lot of undercut t when you look at it strait on in the center but if you look at the sides  will see that there is very little to no undercut.  It's sort of an optical illusion.  It's a thousand times better than the dogshit weld.  Anyway that is not one of my welds.  https://imgur.com/r/Welding/MykRN  Anyway let's see yours and I will show you mine?

[Southernhighlander]

1 hour ago, sandytoes said:

When I originally posted this I realized that there was a high probability of getting flamed. I felt that was worth the trade for helpful information.

Full story -

I took the pieces to a local fabrication shop that was "highly recommend". I was not happy when I picked them up and couldn't see how that was considered a finished product. Rather than come on here and dump on them (not really my way) I wanted to get input from folks that know better than me. I did and it was helpful.

Yesterday I found a welder that specializes in sanitary welding of stainless and he is currently fixing the "work" of the previous shop. I will post photos when fixed. Lesson learned.

Thanks for the help as always!

Who flamed you?  You asked for consultation on the weld and we gave it.  No one directed anything negative toward you that I see.

[mendodistilling]

I welded this my first day Tig welding... the guy above has a heavy foot and no control over his temp, it’s too hot and has porosity.  

If that guy runs a welding shop... I hope he isn’t doing structural stuff... or critical work. 

I was at the community college and after maybe an hour or so I was able to do this... 

3A sanitary welders will have much more heat affected zone covered weld control which improve the color along the weld line and keep a consistent metal structure vs. inconsistent heat and choppy depth of the penetration.

welding is glorified oxide producing glue.

if it looks glued it’s bc it’s glued... if it’s welded to the correct depth it’s going to look good but also will hold.

you can polish it but if it’s poorly joined then you may grind through an area poorly penetrated and have a leak or porosity may be exposed leaving sanitation concerns.

If I can do this in a hour of learning, your welder should do 100x this all day every day.  Otherwise he’s just playing artist..

 

 

[mendodistilling]

I couldn’t even feed wire yet in this pic... I was manually dabbing and holding it far away.  Once you see the southern highlander photos you realize what good welds are bc they look more machine welded than not and the way they are consistently laid down shows good temp control if it looks that good before welding.  

[sandytoes]

We ended up finding a really good shop here locally that fixed everything the way it should have been . He has done other work since and it has all looked great.

[niyoc382]

On 9/26/2018 at 6:13 PM, sandytoes said:

Hi All -

I have a novice question...

When we received our still (800 Liter) didn't have temperature ports in the heads of the dephlegmator or product condenser so we added ports for the temperature probes (1/2" NPT). Is it necessary to grind and polish the welds or is a good cleaning and passivation adequate? I wanted to ask before we put this back together. I have attached pictures.

Thanks!

welding atlanta

Are any of you guys familiar with trigger welding?  One of the members on our team this year builds rock crawlers and he trigger welds all his frames.  I have never heard of this before but I don't know much about welding either.  He said if you turn the heat up then the penetration is just as good as running a continuous bead but I'm still skeptical about how its just as strong as traditional MIG welding?

[Kindred Spirits]

Trigger welding, as far as I know is just a variation of MIG welding. The difference is instead of laying down a continuous bead, the beads are formed by pulling the trigger on the MIG gun and laying one stack of weld at a time. 

It looks nice, but it shouldn't be used on anything structural.

[jocko]

Since this was an old thread I never commented on it, but since it's received new life I thought I'd chime in.

As a hack welder myself, I make all sorts of things for the tasting room, and recently got another MIG welder that will be just for stainless.  I don't think it matters that much for distilling in general as long as its structurally sound. 

Unlike brewing, where contamination is a massive concern, I think that as long as it's a strong weld, it doesn't matter what it looks like.  With something like beer or wine where any risk of contamination could cause problems months later, distilled spirits are far less sensitive to comntamination, oxidation, etc.

What am I missing?

In our brewery, everything is the finest sanitary weld. Everything is mirror finished, no room for a spec of bacteria to hide.  We use co2 or nitrogen to flush bottles, to purge tanks, etc., nothing thats been sanitized has been exposed to air. Every connection, every hose ending, every clamp, is sprayed with isopropyl before use and brewers wear fresh nitril gloves that they also sanitize before touching anything. Zero tolerance for any contamination at any point in production or serving.

Now.... on the distillery side.  Not so much.  Bacterial infection is not nearly a concern.  Batches of are distilled long before an infection could make a difference.  Bottles will not have to be purged before filling, etc. Alcohol kills everything.  Unless you're doing low proof RTDs or liqueurs, what does it matter?

[Silk City Distillers]

Used to giggle a little when I’d see a new distiller using sanitizer in their still as part of their CIP routine.

The end products of distillation are going to be effectively sterile when the distillation is complete, both stillage and distillate.  Not much is going to survive that much time at temp.  Earlier in the process?  That’s a whole different matter.

The best sanitary welder I’ve ever seen used almost zero filler wire.  Every joint was perfect, impeccably clean, before the torch was even within reach.  Most joints were torch only, no wire.  It didn’t need it.  That guy was an artist - spent decades as a house welder at a major pharma plant.  Obsessive purging, he was telling me about how he’d pull vacuum on pipelines and then refill with argon to be sure.

 

[jocko]

My experience as well.  We have a sanitary welder we use all the time.  The joints are so perfect before any welding is done.  He never uses fill either (or very little).  I was amazed how he welded the flue on our brewhouse kettle while sitting on the pot 12' up in the air, and two guys were on the roof holding it in place (myself included).  He's also an inspector and a professor at a local community college teaching welding.  Absolute magician.