Juan Vela also gave me my first welding job. He taught me so much. Much respect for dedicating this video to him.

Way back in 1974, I was welding wellheads in the jungle of New New Guinea for West Burn International, a Canadian drilling company that operated 4 chopper rigs. First a chopper rig was a drilling rig that could be move using a Huey Vietnam era helicopter. Took 47 loads to move the rig to a new drilling location and since we were in the jungle there were no road to move the rig by truck. First, a landing area crew walked in to the area with chainsaws and cut down trees clearing an area wide enough to land a helicopters, and track was cleared to allow the D-6 wide track dozers we used there. Once complete a land clearing crew were flown in to cut and clear a 300 yard area to set up and assemble the drilling rig. When one for the 4 chopper rigs was finished at a drill site it was disassembled one section at a time and hooked up to a chopper hovering over the rig and the section was flown to the new drill site and set on the ground since the first sections were the top of the ring. When the bottom sections of the rig were ready for moving they were flown to the next site and assembling started. Since there were no cranes available a Huey HU 1 chopper was the crane. Assembly was completed in 3 to 4 days and the rig was ready to set the casing pipe that the Wellhead (casing bowel) was set on and ready for welding. I was 26 at the time and was working as a pipeline welder for a American company called PAE/RMI we were building the pipelines that connected to the completed oil wells that ran to the near by beach we named Kasim that was south of the city of Sorang on the West coast of New Guinea (Irian Jaya). When Westburn was ready for the Wellhead to be welded on I was always called out to do the welding. I liked the job since it was usually in the morning and It took me about 3 hours to complete the weld and I was flown back to camp and given the rest of the day off. We were working 7 days a week 12 hour days for 28 days before being flown back to Singapore for a 2 week R&R. Worked that job for 3 years and my first overseas oilfield construction job that continued for 40 year working in Sumatra, Borneo, Brunei, Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Qatar and Nigeria. retired at 67 and now on my 10th year of retirement in Thailand. Still love working with metal and have my own workshop to have something to do when I am not out fishing for snakeheads.

@serseniucfelix

7 ай бұрын

that's a good life story ! wish to you good health and many more years of good relaxed retirement

@netxfarmer5252

7 ай бұрын

You should write a book! I’m sure you got an abundance of interesting stories working in that part of the world back then.

God Bless Juan. Without him there's a good chance men like Hunter wouldn't be on here teaching men like us how it's done. He''ll be missed by many but his lessons will live forever.

I design this equipment and though I've seen animation of the surface wellhead being installed nothing beats the real thing. Thanks for this video!

I've roughnecked for the past 25 years. I always tried to make sure the cellar was cleaned up for y'all. God bless

I worked on rigs back in the early 70s up until the mid 80s I never seen a welder get in a seller that had water in it. We always pumped our the water and put cotton seed hulls in for the welder to lay on if he needed to.

What great video! I only weld up plant machinery, cars that have failed safety inspections, general fabrication and farm repairs here in the UK. So seeing stuff like this lets me see the pressure side of welding.

Hard to loose a legend

If you land the head low you can cut below your head and stub up a slip collar. Also once you rough cut your surface case push a dry 4x4 down a bit and it will burp your water out. Give you a few inches at least.

You know your stuff! That's for sure. Juan taught you well! Maybe someday down the line you'll do the same thing for a youngster. 💯🙌🔥😎🤝

That is quite a welding job. Now I know just a bit more about well heads.

I’ve always used an Okie beveler for the final cut. Way worth the money for one

@Welddotcom

7 ай бұрын

Going to have to check that out!

Fantastic video!!!

This was cool! Glad I just run dualshield for my paycheck!

@Welddotcom

7 ай бұрын

Thank you glad you dug it!

That was fun to watch. I'm so glad that we know have technology to make filming videos like this possible and give you a chance to share your knowledge.

@Welddotcom

7 ай бұрын

Thanks so much!

Awesome job brother great to see craftsmanship and someone taking pride of their work.Im a welder in a nice clean fabshop my hats off to you.keep up the good work he would be proud

Great work

Awesome info! Thx!

I wish you the best bud!!

Awesome stuff man!

@Welddotcom

7 ай бұрын

Glad you liked it!

Very interesting young man.

I had a guy that wanted to get me into doing that for a company that he works with. I would like to get some on the job details about this more before I just jump right into it. 😮😮😮

Shit, with all those bead you just ran, aint no way possible to leak, providing your a good welder man.

talking about the legal side and insurance is helpful, man. Hard to find that info

no plate in? up hear in Michigan we plate all our casing together. ever have to weld the inside b4? how about on a 8 5/8 slip on. id like to see how you do one of thoes.

I've always had to weld inside and out of the bowls

@mitchellpatterson4704

7 ай бұрын

Same here. That must be quite the rubber seal.

Great video! What does a job like that pay for the day?

I have a question because i never done anything like this so I was wondering. Weld head to casing is a open root weld or like fillet weld?

@TheHunterT.Wilson

4 ай бұрын

It’s a fillet weld. It’s basically a big ole slip on flange.

"when rubbers break"

The preheating won't compromise the seals? How much more heat would damage the seals?

@jarrengabaldon

7 ай бұрын

I'm guessing it's silicone that doesn't melt

@RobertWilliams-mk8pl

7 ай бұрын

Thank you for your response ​@@jarrengabaldon

@jeansdavid

7 ай бұрын

That is a huge piece of metal around the seal. He said he is getting it to 250F you would have to get to at least 400F to see any damage to a viton or silicone seal. Even with the heat from the weld it would take a hell of a long time for that chunk of metal to get that hot. Also factor in the water in the pipe that does a pretty great job at absorbing heat.

💯

Those v stingers suck Id rock a bernard 40 twist anyday When you start welding big rods the v rounds out and the rod spins around like it’s a new year’s noise maker

@DeathHead1358

7 ай бұрын

I'm partial to Tweco stingers, I like em for 1/8" or anything smaller. They don't like trying to bend 5/32" 8010s or 7018s, but I don't use them very much.

I have a question I hope you dont mind I put this here ....ive been thinking about welding the metals that I've accumulated over some time I've thought about welding it together but once I do it's WELDED THEN I GOT TO THINKING ABOUT THE LEGO MOVIE AND THE SPECIAL THEN I THOUGHT ONCE I WELD IT HOW DO I UN WELD IT? I HAVENT NOTICED ANY VIDEOS ABOUT UN WELDING MAYBE ITS BECAUSE ITS DOWN THE WELDING TRADE AFTER YOU GET TO BE A - WHATS BETTER THAN PROFESSIONAL? EXPERT? LEVEL? ANYWAY I WAS JUST WONDERING IF YOU TEACH HOW TO UNWELD? I noticed that when you weld you scrape a bubble off (sorry for verbiage) the top like the metal didn't stick or weld at all At first I thought it was because of a natural resources problem 'they the infamous THE THEY speaks about' Meaning diluted metals For example when I looked up aluminum there was grades to it So at that point I started thinking that for example a 7016 was either also diluted or just not the right authenticity it should be The more it's diluted the weaker the metal or thinner ya? Which means a constant problem for businesses but booming for business in welding? I've seen this in lots of places in the environment Example a wooden telephone cracked under pressure of transformers The lube of tar was either lacking or too much and it slipped and split the wood Ive also noticed some trees with black insides and when the question arises "is it real?" Yes always at that point You realize incognito is out there (they really do see you before you see them) So if your weld somehow gets stuck in a tree and it becomes a reservoir of 'pure ' aluminum but it wasn't intentional or meant to go there how would you unweld it? Do you kill a live tree (our airspace?) or do you redirect to appropriate place or location? Or maybe we just leave be? Do you consider grout work welding with calk or medal? Let's say you have metal grout for your 🧱 ' house' And one last question if I was going to identify a barbwire fence by a welding pattern which would it be? I can recognize some and follow the patterns but since it's kinda 3D it's harder to identify I was gonna say the 🌊 but I can those two march of the 🐧 Looks like it's both😊

@p1p1092

7 ай бұрын

Pissed drunk but unwelding is carbon arc gouging, or the plasma equivalent(never used it). Aside from that, step away from the mushrooms, sir xD xD xD

I thought BFE was in NM..

@austinhargett5792

7 ай бұрын

It’s wherever everything isn’t lol

5 million Umbrella policy, fuck me dead! Whats that cost?

I want to see all welders wearing breathing protection.

I don't know how u dont end up getting grease in the weld zone seems like it would be unavoidable considering its a socket weld

Bro had his chest out 💀

That's cool, I ran Vac, I never was around for that part, and it was usually 30degrees below, but I never remember my cellar getting that bad.

I'm interested welding surface emergency 🦺