Weld inspector flagged my root pass, glad he did

Last Tuesday on a job in Gary, Indiana I laid down a root pass on a 6 inch pipe that looked perfect to me. The inspector came by, stopped, and pointed out a lack of fusion right at the 6 o'clock position that I had completely missed with my eyes. I honestly wanted to argue at first because I had a 10 hour shift behind me and we were already behind schedule. But I ground it out, rewelded it, and the X-ray came back clean. Anyone else ever get caught by an inspector on something you were dead sure was good?

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sethr112mo ago

And that's the thing, isn't it. We get so locked into our own view of things after hours of staring at the same piece of steel that we start seeing what we expect to see, not what's actually there. I've seen it happen with my own eyes on framing jobs too, where a guy swears a wall is plumb because he's checked it three times, but the laser says otherwise. It's not about being a bad worker, it's about being human. The ones who make it in this trade are the ones who can swallow their pride and listen to the guy with the fresh eyes. Saves a whole lot of pain down the road.

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