Steel quality and origin

[CompairHolman]

On 05/10/2018 at 21:15, zenataomm said:

Steel's all the same, don't worry about it.

Wrong. 

[CompairHolman]

I used to work in welding and fabrication. Imported Steel varies in quality globally, from products that meet all the quality specs the manufacturer codes and is traceable back to the works, to for instance Chinese or Indian products that meet no standards or have fraudulent standards. Chinese steel was rated as " abysmal" quality maybe a decade ago, though now they have a programme to improve it, I don't think they even use their own steel for bridges ect. Major Civil engineering projects like bridges, tall buildings, and ship building don't use unidentified imported steel as its not safe. Poor quality means less dense, inclusions, and delaminations, which also mean corrosion problems, you rely on good quality steel for the big long term investment you put into buying your boat.

 

As for the welding , its an insane situation that there are no standards for inland waterways craft and anyone can build and sell one , in fact I know of one boatyard where they do overplating and stretching where the "welder" has no qualifications, and would fail a city and guilds part time 2 week course in basic welding practice, he doesnt even know how to set the correct sheilding gas flow. Surveyors regularly pass his work because he uses a trick called ' manual pulse'  MIG welding which produces a nice looking weld but with no penetration or strength. Proves these surveyors know nothing about welding.  This person also built a hull which is basically a demo piece of bad welding, I'm sure one day it will be sold and there's nothing anyone can do about it, the new owner will end up with £1000 of scrap minus cutting up charges, ie he will have to pay them to take it away.

 

I also saw a survey from a well known boat yard on the Thames on a nb which declared the hull 5 / 6 mm thick, the new owner was happy,  bought it and dry docked it and the pressure washer went straight through the bottom, the owner faced maybe 4/5 years in litigation, no legal aid, and the boat on hard standing with more surveyors and lawyers arguing about who was right for years, they chose to sell it at a £15,000 loss and move on . Some surveyors carefully word their reports so that they're not legally binding. 

 

 

Two years ago i saw up close on hard standing a 60 / 70 ft nb that was condemned here the hull welds were just put in without any edge preparation on closed butted plates, say 2 mm of penetration on 10 mm plate only on the top, joins where the distortion had got the better of them were just left unwelded. And this boat was sold and fitted out and the owners were left to fight it out in court. 

 

I wouldn't buy any steel hull without proven steel origin certificates, and the qualifications of the welders on the job. Not much to ask for tens of thousands payment ?

[Captain Pegg]

4 hours ago, CompairHolman said:

I used to work in welding and fabrication. Imported Steel varies in quality globally...

If you had said "generation" rather than "decade" I would agree. The significant improvement in Chinese steel has been over a period of maybe 30 years but no doubt stories of it's abysmal quality abounded a decade ago as they still seem to today. A decade ago China became the world's largest steel producer and had to subject itself to the same Quality Assurance certification as any other country to enable it's products to be exported when steel became a globally traded commodity. However back then you would have done well to lay your hands on a piece of Chinese steel in the UK. I'd wager the number of people who will tell you it's rubbish is a good deal larger than the number who have ever used any. Today it produces more steel than the rest of the world put together and is by far and away the largest exporter in the world although it has only recently passed 10% of UK market share. If it's steel really was still of dubious quality I think the rest of the world would have good evidence of this by now. Any significant body of impartial evidence seems to be notable by it's absence although you will find articles in industry journals placed by groups with a position to defend that will raise the question. It all seems reminiscent of the British attitude to Japanese cars up to the point when the well being of our economy depended upon them.

 

But let's get back to narrowboats. What is the problem we are trying to solve in respect of steel quality? I would suggest there isn't one. Early leisure boats will have steel that is almost certainly riddled with hydrogen inclusions, will be more likely to suffer from chemical segregation from having been cast as ingots, and be more prone to lamination due to poorer desulphurisation, than could occur with any modern steel. Yet has any of them ever sunk because of it? I would suggest probably not. I have seen steel fail catastrophically and with significant consequences due to the above issues in my professional life but in my personal life on board my boat fabricated in 1968 I couldn't give a stuff about them. The worst that can happen is that my boat could sink in three feet of water and if I'm unlucky I might be on board at the time. But it almost certainly won't happen.

 

I think @zenataomm was right in principle if not in technical fact (anyway nearly all boats are built with the same stuff).

 

JP

[MtB]

5 hours ago, CompairHolman said:

As for the welding , its an insane situation that there are no standards for inland waterways craft and anyone can build and sell one

 

100% disagree. I think its an excellent situation and exactly how it should be. 

 

Can you cite a single instance of someone being seriously harmed by poor welding on a narrow boat? I can't think of one.

 

 

Edit to add: Have you never heard of the RCD? This is the standard anyone needs to build to in order to build and sell a narrowboat. 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2019 by Mike the Boilerman

[DandV]

Narrow boat construction makes only a low demand on weld strength. What is more significant is acheiving a seal of weld metal and  no inclusions to prevent water ingress behind and under the welds which causes corrosion issues, and in the worst case leaks. Also for new builds, obviously weld appearance is important for resale  value. 

Edited April 12, 2019 by DandV

[Chris Williams]

2 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

100% disagree. I think its an excellent situation and exactly how it should be. 

So you are quite happy to be following a welded up old banger on the motorway?  I don't think there are any standards for welding to get your car through the MOT.  I know someone who regularly bought crashed wrecks. did a bit of amateur welding, and got them MOT'd.  Another friend crashed his Jaguar/Daimler. It split in half - cut & shut job.

[MtB]

56 minutes ago, Chris Williams said:

So you are quite happy to be following a welded up old banger on the motorway?  I don't think there are any standards for welding to get your car through the MOT.  I know someone who regularly bought crashed wrecks. did a bit of amateur welding, and got them MOT'd.  Another friend crashed his Jaguar/Daimler. It split in half - cut & shut job.

 

Where did you get THAT from?!?!!

 

We are discussing narrow boats.

 

 

[Chris Williams]

15 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

We are discussing narrow boats.

We were also discussing welding standards.  Hit something with your boat, no obvious damage.  Leave it for a couple of weeks and come back to find it half full of water, due to shoddy welding.  Maybe it hasn't happened yet, but it will.

Not just new boats, but 'overplated' ones, which sounds as dodgy to me as a bodged up old banger.

True, it is not likely to hurt anyone apart from the owner. In the pocket.

 

RCD?  Quote from a surveyor - "British boatbuilders regularly bend the rules when it comes to RCD or ISO standards."

“Narrowboat builders especially are a law unto themselves"

 

[MtB]

7 minutes ago, Chris Williams said:

We were also discussing welding standards.  Hit something with your boat, no obvious damage.  Leave it for a couple of weeks and come back to find it half full of water, due to shoddy welding.  Maybe it hasn't happened yet, but it will.

Not just new boats, but 'overplated' ones, which sounds as dodgy to me as a bodged up old banger.

True, it is not likely to hurt anyone apart from the owner. In the pocket.

 

Exactly. 

 

So for you to propose government regulation of the welders who work on narrow boat hulls seems an excessive over-reaction to a trivial perceived problem to me. 

 

After all nobody NEEDS a boat. 

 

Just my personal opinion. We need less government interference in out lives not more. You see it differently from me. 

 

 

[Chris Williams]

1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

government regulation

Who said anything about Government?  The trade should be the ones to sort it out.  City & Guilds if it still exists.

 

[MtB]

35 minutes ago, Chris Williams said:

Who said anything about Government?  The trade should be the ones to sort it out.  City & Guilds if it still exists.

 

 

You did. You said, or implied, there should be mandatory standards controlling welding on narrow boats. 

 

There are of course, already a multitude of standards for welding. The problem being they are not mandatory. You seemed to be complaining the standards were not mandatory, and it its the govt's rôle to make standards mandatory, or optional. The govt currently says they are optional for repairs etc. I'm not sure about new hulls. The RCD possibly regulates welding standards on new hulls.

 

Edit to add:

 

Apologies it wasn't you, it was ComplairHolman. Here is what he said (and I quoted) that I was disagreeing with. I thought it was you that said it given you are opposing what I said.

 

"As for the welding , its an insane situation that there are no standards for inland waterways craft and anyone can build and sell one"

 

Post 52.

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2019 by Mike the Boilerman

[Chris Williams]

11 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

there should be mandatory standards

Not mandatory.  Standards set by a Trade Association, if there is one for Narrow Boat Builders. (probably not).

Compare the SSMT for the motor trade.

I believe your 'Gas Safe' register is mandatory.

 

Agreed that there is far too much Government interference with our lives, especially as the present Government is about as useful as a Chocolate Teapot.