Welding in the Soviet Union. Anyone know anything?

[William Payne]

We all hear about welding history and tech from the western world but not much about Eastern more secretive countries in history.

Russia and historically the Soviet Union have always had access to a lot of Titanium. They also invented underwater welding.

I was reading the other day about when they constructed the titanium hulled Alfa class attack submarine they built massive sealed rooms and filled them with argon gas so that they can weld the hull in a purged atmosphere. The welders had to wear “space suit” like equipment to breath.

Would love to learn more about the things that were done in countries like this that did not have as much access to western

[Kelvin]

In Mutha Russia, arc strike weldor!

[jrporter]

William, this much I do know (or believe I know) about welding on Russian subs. When the Soviet Union broke up there were some Russian subs that were sold as scrap. Some US titanium suppliers melted the scrap and make various shapes to sell, some of it large spools of wire that went to the aerospace fastener industry to be make into bolts. Somewhere along the way after lots (hundreds of thousands) of fasteners were made it was discovered that some contained tungsten inclusions. I was in involved in figuring out what to do with fasteners that were installed on delivered product. In the course of the investigation we were told that the tungsten inclusions came from contaminated welds - that the inner and outer hulls were held apart and in position by thousands of clips that were tig welded in place. Not having TIG welded at that time I did not really understand how you could contaminate a weld with tungsten - that was before I became a serial dipper
If the welders were in a hazardous atmosphere and had to wear restrictive equipment it might be easier to understand how that many contaminated welds were present.
It was interesting how the process of heating and drawing the titanium ingot into wire (most of what we dealt with was 3/8 down to 5/32) stretched the tungsten blobs into very thin "stringers" maybe the diameter of a human hair. On X-rays the inclusions showed up as very bright white lines (linear inclusions).

[William Payne]

William, this much I do know (or believe I know) about welding on Russian subs. When the Soviet Union broke up there were some Russian subs that were sold as scrap. Some US titanium suppliers melted the scrap and make various shapes to sell, some of it large spools of wire that went to the aerospace fastener industry to be make into bolts. Somewhere along the way after lots (hundreds of thousands) of fasteners were made it was discovered that some contained tungsten inclusions. I was in involved in figuring out what to do with fasteners that were installed on delivered product. In the course of the investigation we were told that the tungsten inclusions came from contaminated welds - that the inner and outer hulls were held apart and in position by thousands of clips that were tig welded in place. Not having TIG welded at that time I did not really understand how you could contaminate a weld with tungsten - that was before I became a serial dipper
If the welders were in a hazardous atmosphere and had to wear restrictive equipment it might be easier to understand how that many contaminated welds were present.
It was interesting how the process of heating and drawing the titanium ingot into wire (most of what we dealt with was 3/8 down to 5/32) stretched the tungsten blobs into very thin "stringers" maybe the diameter of a human hair. On X-rays the inclusions showed up as very bright white lines (linear inclusions).

That’s really interesting!

[Woznme]

They probably drunk a bottle of wotka before their shift which caused them to dip alot. ( A little bit dipsie)

[Freebirdwelds]

This place has a lot of interesting videos. I don't think there is a word for OSHA in Russian tho. lol

ЗАВОД КОВШЕЙ / BUCKET FACTORY - YouTube

[milomilo]

The ruskies developed electroslag welding.

[Oldendum]

The ruskies developed electroslag welding.

That's the one I was thinking of.

[Woznme]

From memory I think a Russian inventor prototyped the mig long before anyone else but it never got picked up.

[G-ManBart]

Not to mention that the first arc welding and first stick welding were both first demonstrated by Russians...

[farmersammm]

This place has a lot of interesting videos. I don't think there is a word for OSHA in Russian tho. lol

ЗАВОД КОВШЕЙ / BUCKET FACTORY - YouTube

Can't sleep, and I enjoyed a great deal of time watching a bunch of the videos from the factory. The setup work was amazing. Accuracy without a ton of fixtures. Incredible.

I can't believe they can do the work in a place that's probably barely above the outside temperature. Amazing.

[Freebirdwelds]

Can't sleep, and I enjoyed a great deal of time watching a bunch of the videos from the factory. The setup work was amazing. Accuracy without a ton of fixtures. Incredible.

I can't believe they can do the work in a place that's probably barely above the outside temperature. Amazing.

Glad you enjoyed it.

[MinnesotaDave]

This place has a lot of interesting videos. I don't think there is a word for OSHA in Russian tho. lol

ЗАВОД КОВШЕЙ / BUCKET FACTORY - YouTube

I've seen several of their videos - very instructional seeing how they get large pieces in position.

I thought the same about OSHA...some things could definitely be improved there.

[William Payne]

Cool video I found. Had to laugh when I saw that Lincoln electric logo on one of their machines. Especially as it’s a Soviet era video.

[ttoks]

Not just all of the above, but the Soviet's developed SAW (Submerged arc welding) as well in 1935 at the E O Paton Electric Welding Institute in Kiev, and perfected it in 1942-43 welding T-34 tank hulls.

[Welder Dave]

William, this much I do know (or believe I know) about welding on Russian subs. When the Soviet Union broke up there were some Russian subs that were sold as scrap. Some US titanium suppliers melted the scrap and make various shapes to sell, some of it large spools of wire that went to the aerospace fastener industry to be make into bolts. Somewhere along the way after lots (hundreds of thousands) of fasteners were made it was discovered that some contained tungsten inclusions. I was in involved in figuring out what to do with fasteners that were installed on delivered product. In the course of the investigation we were told that the tungsten inclusions came from contaminated welds - that the inner and outer hulls were held apart and in position by thousands of clips that were tig welded in place. Not having TIG welded at that time I did not really understand how you could contaminate a weld with tungsten - that was before I became a serial dipper
If the welders were in a hazardous atmosphere and had to wear restrictive equipment it might be easier to understand how that many contaminated welds were present.
It was interesting how the process of heating and drawing the titanium ingot into wire (most of what we dealt with was 3/8 down to 5/32) stretched the tungsten blobs into very thin "stringers" maybe the diameter of a human hair. On X-rays the inclusions showed up as very bright white lines (linear inclusions).

Interesting to note that Canada were pioneers in using titanium and using a vacuum chamber (I think) to boil impurities out. Avro Aircraft purchased the bulk of titanium available in the mid 50's. I think I read where only 53lb's. or so was available(export) in 1953 but after that the supply went up. The Iroquois engines for the Avro Arrow were the 1st jet engine to be designed around titanium. It was also the most powerful jet engine at the time. Other jet engines used some titanium parts but the engine wasn't designed around titanium. Not much is said about the Arrow because the gov't. wanted everything destroyed when they cancelled the project. One Iroquois did make it to the UK and it is suspected the basis for the engines that powered the Concorde. Here's a little bit on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orenda_Iroquois

[Oldendum]

I think they invented foot welding, or at least perfected it.

[smithdoor]

We just need to look at the great job Soviet's did on SUB.
They movie on one great jobs of welding on a nuclear sub K19.

Dave

Not just all of the above, but the Soviet's developed SAW (Submerged arc welding) as well in 1935 at the E O Paton Electric Welding Institute in Kiev, and perfected it in 1942-43 welding T-34 tank hulls.

[SweetMK]

We watched the mini-series "Chernobyl" on HBOMAX this last week.

Simply watch that show,, and you will be convinced that VERY few welds in Russia have ANY quality,,

Supervisors, and quality specialists are not promoted for what they know,
their ENTIRE system operates on "WHO" you know..

A (literally) shoe maker was promoted to a high position over a nuclear physicist,,,

You can watch it with a free preview ,,
then watch the movie "MIDWAY" while you have the free preview,, that was simply amazing looking at ships built before WWII,,

Between those two movies,, you will look at welding in a different light.

[Welder Dave]

Not unlike a show I watched showing how poor the welding was on the fancy Olympic buildings in China (Birds nest). Experts were predicting it will come crashing down at some point. No quality control at all.

[farmersammm]

Not unlike a show I watched showing how poor the welding was on the fancy Olympic buildings in China (Birds nest). Experts were predicting it will come crashing down at some point. No quality control at all.

Aw Hell Dave, you really can't dispute that the Russki's out produced the Nazi's...........and put out a better product. Same is true today. You can't discount those people. I think they're a threat because they have the can-do attitude. It's something to think about I guess. Unique designs, not stolen like the Chinese do. It's going to ultimately come down to a battle between East, and West. I fear both countries.

[jrporter]

Another metallurgy related story - I heard this from an old timer years ago. He was visiting an foreign aircraft factory when he saw someone welding on a landing gear component - it was attached to the airplane which was not on jacks, meaning the gear was bearing weight. When I asked him why it was a big deal he said assuming the gear was high strength steel it was a double no-no, as you can't bake any hydrogen out of a part without putting it an oven, and you never weld on a high strength part when it is under load as hydrogen migrates to the area of highest stresses. The reason I remember the story so well is he said he got so excited he broke away from the tour escorts to run over and see what was happening up close. He was nudged back into line with a rifle barrel in his ribs