Carbon Steel Pipe Coupons & Welding

Winegrower said:
Eric, I don’t even know what a pipe coupon is…do you sell these, or store them up for the winter, or what?
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Welding coupons come in 2 varieties: flat & pipe. Welding coupons are used for intensive welding practice. The main benefit is “a *lot* of arc time with minimal prep time”.

The name “coupon” comes from the appearance of a flat, rectangular coupon: it is shaped like a coupon!

Flat coupons can be either fillet or groove. Pipe coupons are always groove. Flat, thick butt joints are always groove.

One characteristic of a groove weld on thick material is multiple passes (multiple stringer beads which make up a multi-pass weld bead).

A fillet weld can be a butt joint, T-joint, edge joint, lap joint or corner joint. A pair of flat welding coupons can quickly be oriented into any of these joints.

With flat welding coupons, you can easily orient them in the (1) flat, (2) horizontal, (3) vertical or (4) overhead welding positions.

Fillet is “F”, and groove is “G”.

So, for example, a fillet groove weld in a flat position is 1F. A groove weld (this would be thick material) in a flat position is 1G. A fillet weld in the overhead position is 4F, and so on.

Pipe welds are usually “5G” or “6G”. 5G is fixed horizontal, and 6G is fixed at a 30° angle. “Fixed” means that you are not allowed to rotate the pipe after it is tacked.

I sell the 8” coupons because I have never seen anything larger than 6” for sale.
 
At welding schools, most of the time is spent sitting at a bench welding coupons (either flat or pipe). At this point, the student has virtually unlimited access to a supply of coupons, weld wire, stick & tungsten electrodes, etc.

This is why people that go to welding school become such good welders, spending hundreds of hours welding without having to spend time prepping materials.

If there is a secret to how to get good at welding, it is maximizing the amount of time you spend actually welding whilst having access to a *lot* of coupons, weld wire, electrodes, etc.

Somebody who learns to weld by making projects, as functional as that is, will only spend 10-20% of their time welding. These people sure get good at prep & fit-up, though!
 
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Here are some screenshots from the web & YouTube videos that I have saved on my phone. They are so good, I am going to upload them separately.

All of these fillet welds are butt joints:

6B387CB8-B424-4CFF-9A88-939202D6EE3E.png
 
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Most of my welding machines only go up to 210A, so I need to increase these values slightly:

B2CCE6B7-E86C-4D14-9689-CD95760E877A.png
 
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They forgot edge joints. PA, PF, etc. is used outside the USA.

F3598C8F-CF80-476E-9A5F-6FE8A3393037.png
 
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Note the socket welds on the right side.

D8387B18-F1B5-4167-AA78-C4988F598CB3.png
 
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Again, socket welds (e.g. 2F pipe) on the right side:

D3171EDB-BD0F-4982-8017-B89BA2E98439.png
 
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