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Old timer at our shop told me I was pouring too hot and it was causing microporosity in my castings | Foundry Workers - Vivisector

karen_carter•4mo ago

Old timer at our shop told me I was pouring too hot and it was causing microporosity in my castings

I was running my aluminum pours at 1400°F because that's what my mentor taught me, but after this guy with 30 years in the trade showed me how to read the fluidity test properly, I dropped it to 1300°F and my reject rate fell from 15% to almost nothing - has anyone else gotten similar feedback that went against what they learned?

4 comments

4 Comments

charlies374mo ago

Man that part about letting the puddle "breathe" really hit home... same thing happened to me with cast iron repairs. I was running hot and fast like I learned in school, then an old machinist told me to slow down and let the puddle "sweat out" the contaminants, and suddenly my repairs stopped cracking on me. It's humbling how much there is to unlearn when the old guys share what actually works.

pat_murray534mo ago

You ever notice how the old guys have this way of making you feel like you've been doing it wrong your whole life... even when you thought you had it figured out? I had a similar thing when I started welding aluminum, my first boss swore by a really tight arc and fast travel speed. Then this crusty old pipeline welder watched me for about five minutes, shook his head, and told me to slow down and let the puddle "breathe" a bit. I thought he was nuts, but my welds stopped cracking on the cool-down, and I wasn't chasing porosity with a grinder every time. It’s funny how sometimes the stuff you learn as gospel just ain't the whole story, especially with tricky metals like aluminum.

torres.blair4mo ago

Honestly I feel like every old guy I've met in welding has this superpower where they just watch you for 30 seconds and immediately know exactly what you're doing wrong, meanwhile I've been out here blaming my machine settings for months.

ericw934mo ago

Man yeah I read something about this. There's a study out of some trade school that found experienced welders can spot mistakes within seconds just by watching the arc color and puddle flow. It's crazy but they've got thousands of hours of pattern recognition in their head. The machine settings thing is real though, I fell for that too. My old mentor told me the machine is almost always fine, it's the technique that's off.