If a
temporary heating oven has been employed, the work and oven should be
allowed to cool together while protected with the sheet asbestos. If the
outside air strikes the freshly welded work, even for a moment, the result
will be breakage.
A weld in steel will always leave the metal with a coarse grain and with
all the characteristics of rather low grade cast steel. As previously
mentioned in another chapter, the larger the grain size in steel the weaker
the metal will be, and it is the purpose of the good workman to avoid, as
far as possible, this weakening.
The structure of the metal in one piece of steel will differ according to
the heat that it has under gone. The parts of the work that have been at
the melting point will, therefore, have the largest grain size and the
least strength. Those parts that have not suffered any great rise in
temperature will be practically unaffected, and all the parts between these
two extremes will be weaker or stronger according to their distance from
the weld itself. To restore the steel so that it will have the best grain
size, the operator may resort to either of two methods: (1) The grain may
be improved by forging. That means that the metal added to the weld and the
surfaces that have been at the welding heat are hammered much as a
blacksmith would hammer his finished work to give it greater strength. The
hammering should continue from the time the metal first starts to cool
until it has reached the temperature at which the grain size is best for
strength.
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