Weld back up assembly

Abstract

An assembly for shielding the underside of a weldment joint comprising an elongated, flexible, preferably metallic mounting strip and a plurality of small, discrete back up blocks made of a refractory material suitably secured in end to end array to one face of the metallic strip centrally thereof. The blocks preferably having a groove wider than the weldment joint, the grooves being aligned to define a channel confronting the joint and of a predetermined depth to control the penetration and depth of the weld bead. The back up blocks are of a width narrower than said metallic strip to expose side edge portions of said metallic strip, the exposed side edge portions having an adhesive coating to provide a substantially air-tight sealing engagement with the weldment joint along both edges of the mounting strip. The assembly has a degree of flexibility to permit conformation of the assembly to the shape of the weldment and in use supports slag and the welding pool formed during welding.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.