I survived another summer of teaching.

The idea of paying for proper test plate is a good idea Ernie. You can justify it to students by saying that the stuff has its certs and any other plate that people practice on is not documented..... Which is true. I really like cutting a wedge of weld bead out of the practice pieces and doing nick break tests both face and root until there is no porosity, cold lap, or slag. I was told to do this when I first whined to an instructor. The line goes like this: "That's pretty good but you can see that spot of slag and look here where you got cold lap. When your breaks are clean we will do a test" Eventually it becomes a game of comparing samples among classmates and you don't have to listen to all the violins. The best thing about AWS or a CWB test in Canada is that it is portable. The foreman can't intimidate his welders into thinking they are only qualified in his shop. They still try that routine on the ones who don't know. I have had foreman tell me that the welding ticket is company property and it will be kept in the office. The idea being that the employee thinks he is chained to the shop by that small card when it is registered with the AWS and is only a piece of paper confirming documentation with the AWS. Randy

We are going to start doing AWS certs along with the WABO certs we already do. (WABO = Washington Association of Building Officials) The reason for the AWS certs comes from the railroads. The mechanics in the rail yards need to be certified in 7018 for railcar repairs, but WABO no longer offers a 3/8" 7018 cert, so we are using AWS D15.1 rail code to run them through a 3/8" 7018 cert.

It opens up a lot of possibilities as far as certs go. My boss and I both have our CWI's so it is all legal, but it does mean more paperwork and regular AWS audits.

Right now I am looking into getting our test plates mass produced by a local cutting shop.

That way we can just sell them to the students in the bookstore. It would be a better system to cover our costs and would stop some students from running piles of test plates on the theory that by some stroke of luck they happen to pass their test.

I try to explain to them that you can't really pass a 1" plate test by luck, but they rarely listen.

Now I get a month away from school to complete a pile of projects.

-- "I love deadlines, especially the wooshing sound they make as they fly by" - Douglas Adams