Just a quick reminder, trust your skills and yourself, if something doesn’t seem right it probably isn’t.
Today I quickly identified a bad tank of argon that could have been very costly if I had just shrugged it off and assumed I was having an off day.
What did you see, and what could have happened?
The moisture mixed in with the argon was causing the symptoms of poor shielding. Lots of color around a test weld and a very small amount of popping from the puddle. Once the weld cooled there was scaliness in the weld and a slight dulling of the weld bead.
Continuing would have resulted in contaminated welds and porosity. If I had tried using this tank on the titanium frames that I built last week there is a chance I would have scrapped at the very least a tube if not more.
This is why I always do a few test welds when I swap tanks.