Extimating Manhours For Welding 3

[hhoufek]

When I was in the shipyard industry we always had a planning and estimating department that provided the manhours to perform any assigned tasks. i.e: pipe welding,
structure welding, tacking, etc. Now I am on my own working with a few small companies (SBA's) and have to perform this guestimate myself. I know they had a gouge that gave you linear feet, pipe diameter, thickness's etc for figuring out the manhours. My first major project is a
23 ft X 9 ft - 6 in 6061 aluminum boat. Duh ? How many mahours (roughly) to fit up and weld this boat ? Thank you for your time, it is appreciated.

 

[GRoberts]

Calculate the volume of weld required for the boat. Add 10-15% for overwelding. (ie a 1/4" fillet usually ends up a little bit bigger, otherwise if a welder made a 1/4" fillet actual size, there is a great chance it will be undersize somewhere). Figure out the average deposition rate at the company depending on the process used, consumables, settings, etc. Manufacturers literature may help with this. Then devide the volume of weld by the deposition rate to get hours. This is the amount of arc-on-time. The welder will have the arc on from 5-40% of the time depending on the application and company practices. This is probably the most important, and hardest number to estimate accurately. Devide the hours of arc-on-time by the operating factor, and this is the approximate weld time. This of course is for welding only, and does not take into account preheat, finishing, cutting, fitting, griding, and miriads of other tasks involved with putting a boat hull together.

 

[hhoufek]

Thank You very much for your time, it is appreciated very much.