Steel Fabrication: Weld Symbols and Communication Clarity

Walk into any metal fabrication shop and you will see the same dynamic play out: a stack of drawings on a welding table, a fabricator squinting at a symbol, and a supervisor tracing a finger along a leader line asking, “Does that mean both sides or just the arrow side?” That tiny moment is where projects either stay on schedule or start burning hours. Weld symbols are the shared language of steel fabrication and when that language is clear, parts flow. When it is not, rework creeps in, fit ups drag, and your cost curve drifts in the wrong direction.

I have spent years in and around manufacturing shops, from custom metal fabrication for food processing equipment and logging equipment, to heavy frames for underground mining equipment suppliers. The common denominator is that every hour on the floor depends on how well the drawing communicates intent. If you want reliable outcomes from a cnc machine shop, a welding company, or a precision cnc machining partner, put your energy into how welds are specified. The return is immediate and measurable.

Why weld symbols carry more weight than you think

Weld symbols are efficient. They compress joint type, size, contour, and finishing into a shorthand that fits on crowded drawings. They are also unforgiving. An omitted tail note or an ambiguous “typical” callout ripples through a build to print job. Shops that run a lot of custom fabrication see it most sharply because part families are small and setups change often. You do not get the luxury of tribal knowledge that grows around a long-running product line.

On contract builds for mining equipment manufacturers or biomass gasification skids, I have seen a single missing groove angle turn into three hours of back-and-forth and a misplaced 6 millimeter fillet on both sides balloon into a 12 percent overweight chassis. When frames go to precision cnc machining after welding, extra material becomes a machining tax. If you care about cosmetic outcomes on machinery parts, especially as a Canadian manufacturer shipping painted assemblies across the border, your symbol discipline becomes quality control.

The skeleton of a weld symbol, without the fog

Every standard weld symbol revolves around the reference line, arrow, and the two sides that matter: arrow side and other side. Add the tail if you need a process or spec callout. All of that is simple enough on a whiteboard, yet drawings fail when these basics get bent by habit or rushed notes.

The arrow points to the joint to be welded. The symbol placed below the reference line applies to the arrow side, the symbol above to the other side. Supplementary marks convey contour and finish, while dimensions tuck close to the symbol. The trap is assuming everyone reads the same code the same way. If your shop toggles between AWS and ISO, expectations can drift. I have walked into cnc metal fabrication teams that grew up on ISO 2553, then received a North American build that assumed AWS A2.4 conventions. The arrow side flip alone was enough to send a batch to rework.

Fillet welds and their many opportunities for confusion

Fillet welds pay the bills in structural steel fabrication. They are fast, forgiving, and strong when sized and placed correctly. They are also where vague callouts breed waste. You might see 6 both sides, 6 intermittent 50 on 100, or “6 typ.” The first two mean something; the third starts arguments.

If the symbol shows a 6 on the left of the fillet triangle, that is your leg size. When the drawing calls for 6 intermittent 50 on 100, the 50 is the weld length, 100 the pitch. Easy enough until someone leaves out the pitch. On thick base plates for manufacturing machines, a 6 leg on both sides seems harmless. Put that same callout on a 3 millimeter sheet bracket and you have distortion baked in.

Shops that control distortion think about sequence and heat input as carefully as bead size. If your industrial machinery manufacturing program includes thin guards or precision housings bound for a cnc machining shop afterward, design the fillet size and stitch pattern for the thinnest member and the post-process. You can write that into the tail or a general note that ties weld size to sheet thickness ranges. It is not glamorous, but it avoids unflat parts that fail on the surface plate later.

Groove welds, penetration, and the truth about “CJP”

Groove welds carry the big loads. They also demand discipline because penetration claims on paper meet reality on the shop floor. Complete joint penetration, or CJP, reads like a guarantee. In practice it is a specification that the joint, process, and parameters must enable. You do not get CJP by symbol alone.

On heavy mast sections for logging equipment or undercarriage frames for underground mining machines, we often qualify procedures for single bevel or double bevel groove welds with backing. If the symbol shows CJP in the tail and the drawing fails to define root opening or backing style, the shop will default to internal practice. That might be flux core with ceramic backing. It might be a backing bar left in for stiffness. If you wanted removal for corrosion or hygienic reasons on food processing equipment manufacturers’ parts, say so in the tail with “remove backing” and include the finish requirement.

For partial joint penetration calls, I have seen 8 PJP with no groove angle specified on 20 mm plates. That is a coin toss. A 30 degree bevel and an 8 mm effective throat produce a different geometry and heat input than a narrow angle with land. When you care about fatigue, define angle, root face, and root opening. When appearance and size matter less than soundness, you can give the shop discretion but then cite a standard like AWS D1.1 with a prequalified joint number. It is a faster, safer handoff to a steel fabricator you have not worked with yet.

Contour, finishing, and the afterlife of a weld

A weld does not end when the arc stops. Grinding, machining, blending, and inspection chew up real hours, which is why finishing symbols deserve respect. A flush contour with a finish mark means someone is going to blend that crown. On a cosmetic panel for an industrial design company, that is a given. On a hidden structural member, it may be wasted cost and a notch risk if done carelessly.

The finish symbol tells the story: convex, concave, or flush, with an added letter for the method. “G” for grinding, “M” for machining, “C” for chipping, and so on. If your part heads to precision cnc machining after welding, be clear about what the machine will skim. I once watched a team grind a row of fillets flush to look “better,” only to find those surfaces were reference datums for the cnc machining services vendor. What should have been a 0.5 mm cleanup pass turned into a weld repair and a call with some heat in it. Tie finish requirements to datums, and mark no-grind zones where the machinist expects intact stock.

Positional welding and the real capacity of your partner

Most drawings skip position because the shop will choose how to present the joint. Rotate the work, flip the assembly, or set up a positioner. Still, when a structure is too big to manipulate easily, your symbol might need to travel with a note: all fillets are in the horizontal position, or weld in 2G position minimum. That clarity matters when working with a cnc machine shop that also tackles structural weldments. Their cranes and rotators determine what is possible without building a contraption to chase the flat position.

If you are sourcing in metal fabrication Canada, be mindful that many shops are hybrid operations, mixing cnc metal cutting, fabrication, and machining. The good ones can roll heavy frames to keep things at 1G or 2G most of the time. If your design locks a 3G or 4G position for a critical groove weld, expect extra hours and plan your quality gates accordingly. You are buying skill and time, not just metal joined to metal.

Standard notes that earn their keep

I am not a fan of bloated general notes. That said, a handful of targeted notes remove ambiguity that symbols alone cannot. Keep them short, plain, and tied to a standard the shop already observes. You do not need to restate the code book, just fence the work.

Here is a compact set that has worked across custom steel fabrication, mining equipment manufacturers, and machinery parts manufacturer programs:

Unless otherwise specified, weld to AWS D1.1, prequalified procedures permitted. Visual acceptance per Clause 6. Remove all weld spatter from machined and sealing surfaces. Protect threads during welding. No grinding on datum features A, B, C unless called out. Maintain stock for machining as modeled. Backing to be steel unless noted. Remove backing and blend flush where indicated. Intermittent welds start and end 10 mm from corners. Stagger opposite sides to minimize distortion.

That is one of the two allowed lists in this article, and each line prevents a common pitfall. The third line alone pays for itself on the first tight-tolerance assembly.

The arrow side vs. other side debate that keeps returning

Every shop has the story. A beam flange gets welded on the wrong side, or a handrail mount ends up mirrored because someone treated the symbol as symmetric. The root issue is not skill; it is imprecision on the drawing. If your joint is symmetric and either side works, show the symbol on both sides of the reference line. If you need only the arrow side, put the fillet symbol below and label the specific instance in the view with clarity.

For asymmetric brackets and gussets, I label the view with “viewed from” notes sparingly but decisively. Arrows without context lead to interpretation. More than once on a custom machine frame I have added a small isometric inset with a bubble around the joint and a leader stating “arrow side shown.” That ten minutes in CAD smooths a hundred minutes on the floor.

Coordinate with machining before you commit the weld

Too many disputes between a cnc machining shop and a welding company come down to what moved after heat. Weld sequence and restraint are not trivial, especially on parts that head to cnc precision machining later. If your machining datums depend on flatness across a heat-affected region, let the fabricator in early. They can suggest fixturing or a pre-bend that lands you back on target post-weld.

I worked a job where a 1.5 meter base weldment carried a bore that had to be concentric within 25 microns after machining. We aligned the weld symbols, but the hero move was a weld map and a sequence note delivered along with the drawings. We also added a temporary stiffener called out with a phantom line and a tail note “remove after machining.” The shop complied, the machine shop smiled, and the part sailed through CMM.

Material, process, and the unspoken variables

Symbols say what to weld, not how to handle the metallurgy. Still, the tail is where you guide process without handcuffing your supplier. If impact toughness matters at low temperatures, if hydrogen cracking is a risk on thick sections, or if the material is a stainless that cannot tolerate carbon steel contamination, you can avoid two pages of prose with a single pointer to the right spec.

For carbon steel structures following AWS D1.1, referencing a prequalified procedure is efficient for repetitive work. For stainless on food-grade fabrications, you can drop “GTAW roots, purge required, finish per 3A” if the application demands it, or simply “stainless brushes only” to protect passivation potential. For high-strength quenched and tempered steels common in logging equipment booms, nudging the process toward low-hydrogen FCAW and a stated preheat range protects your outcomes. If the shop is a machining manufacturer that also welds, they may appreciate a little flexibility, like “FCAW or GMAW-S, low hydrogen, meet D1.1 Table 3.2 preheat.”

Human factors: what fab teams actually do with your symbols

We should be honest about how drawings get used. Fitters highlight joints. Welders annotate sizes and skip lengths. Supervisors build a sequence plan in a notebook or on a whiteboard. If your weld symbols read like a puzzle, they do not get followed, they get interpreted. That is why clarity beats density.

A practical step is to include a weld map for large assemblies. Number the joints on the drawing and provide a simple table with joint ID, type, size, side, process preference if any, and special notes like “no grinding” or “inspect before close out.” Keep it to a page. I have watched experienced teams work faster simply because they no longer needed to comb every view for a symbol. It also gives quality inspectors a checklist.

Here is a compact example of how that map might read in prose form: Joints 1 through 8 are 8 mm fillets both sides, continuous, arrow side inside the channel leg, no grinding. Joints 9 and 10 are single bevel groove welds with backing, CJP, FCAW, remove backing and blend flush on the exterior face. Joints 11 through 14 are intermittent 6 on 12, staggered, with a start 10 mm off corners. You provide the map, and the shop provides speed.

Tolerances and inspection, aligned with the weld callouts

Symbols are necessary, not sufficient. Your geometry needs a home in the tolerance stack. If you call a heavy fillet on a thin web, you should not be surprised when the web bows out of a flatness zone you never loosened for the welded state. Many good shops will stabilize and straighten within reason, but if your cnc precision machining partner has to flatten every part with brute force, your schedule loses.

I pair weld symbols with realistic as-welded tolerances and then separate machined tolerances clearly. Put the right features on the right side of that divide. For as-welded structures headed to a cnc metal cutting or machining path, it helps to show the stock allowance. Two millimeters is plenty on open faces, while 0.5 to 1.0 millimeter holds for bores or pads if the upchain machine can locate off datums away from the heat. If your design forces the machinist to clock off a welded edge, be explicit about the inspection method you expect. Do not saddle a fabricator with a flatness call that only a machining center can verify precisely.

Common traps, and what I do differently now

Some mistakes repeat so often they deserve their own callout. I have made these, watched others make them, and built habits to avoid them.

Using “typ.” for a weld size across a view with mixed material thicknesses, which forces a fitter to choose. Instead, group like joints and place clear symbols or a weld map. Calling CJP without specifying root opening or backing, then arguing about the process later. Decide at design time, or grant the shop choice with a named acceptance criterion. Requiring flush grinding on load-carrying fillets where fatigue matters, creating stress risers. If appearance is the goal, switch to a filled groove, or specify a generous radius blend and verify by gauge. Stacking intermittent welds directly opposite each other on thin members, baking in distortion. Stagger them and write it plainly. Leaving off the tail process note on stainless, then discovering cross-contamination after pickling. One word, “stainless-only tools,” would have saved the cleanup.

That is the second and final list in this article. Every item is a lesson earned the expensive way.

Collaborating across disciplines: design, fab, and machining on one page

The best outcomes I have seen came from teams that treated weld symbols as living instructions, not sacred script. Designers drafted the first pass. The custom metal fabrication shop walked the print, flagged risk, and suggested joints that match their fixtures and positions. The cnc machining shop weighed in on stock and datums. A Canadian manufacturer shipping assemblies for industrial clients might do this in a single building. Others do it across city lines. Either way, the knowledge converges on your drawings.

When an industrial design company brings a sleek concept, the translation to steel happens through these increments. Symbols anchor the build, but they find their power in the conversations they spark early. After the first article, lock them. Every change ripples. If you need to deviate, leading steel fabrication suppliers release a revision, even if the change feels small. Tiny weld tweaks can break a procedure qualification or an inspection plan.

A brief note on training and shop literacy

If you send work to a cnc machining shop that added welding recently, or to a Machine shop that becomes a Steel fabricator on certain contracts, do not assume everyone reads symbols fluently. It is worth an hour to align on the code, conventions, and any company-specific practices. A laminated one-pager with your weld symbol style, a legend for arrow side versus other side, and a few in-house preferences helps. So does a quick photo library of good and bad outcomes on your products. People mirror what they see.

In established metal fabrication shops this literacy tends to be strong, but even there, cross-border projects can introduce subtle differences. Metal fabrication Canada often spans AWS and CSA references, and teams flip from imperial to metric daily. Provide units, ban dual-dimension clutter, and keep decimals sensible. When someone reads 6, they should not have to wonder if that was 6 millimeters or a forgotten unit next to a 1/4 inch plate callout elsewhere.

When to bend the standard

Standards keep us from chaos, but real parts sometimes live in the margins. I have bent the rules in two scenarios. The first is when access limits symbol placement. On a crowded assembly drawing, a tiny inset view with an enlarged joint and a plain-language note can beat a perfect but illegible symbol stack. The second is when a legacy part family carries shop conventions that differ slightly from the book. If those conventions are safe, qualified, and produce good outcomes, I annotate mining equipment manufacturers the drawing with a note that documents the shop convention explicitly, then I leave it alone. Forcing a pure standard on a proven process midstream can collapse your yield.

Bringing it all together, without drama

Steel fabrication thrives on clear intent. Weld symbols are the carrier for that intent, but they are not magic. Pair them with the right standards, tie them to machining realities, and annotate the few places where judgment trumps shorthand. A metal fabrication shop that sees your clarity will repay you with speed. A cnc machining services partner who receives clean, finish-aware welds will hit tolerances without gymnastics. Your custom machine will look like it belongs in a brochure and behave like it belongs on a production line.

If you build for heavy industries, from underground mining to biomass gasification, the price of ambiguity multiplies across tons of steel. If you build food-grade assemblies, the price shows up in rework and cleaning. Either way, you win the same way: say exactly what you mean, in the language the shop lives by, and leave just enough room for the fabricator’s craft to do its work.

Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. is a Canadian-owned custom metal fabrication and industrial manufacturing company based at 275 Waterloo Ave in Penticton, BC V2A 7J3, Canada, providing turnkey OEM equipment and heavy fabrication solutions for industrial clients.
Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. offers end-to-end services including engineering and project management, CNC cutting, CNC machining, welding and fabrication, finishing, assembly, and testing to support industrial projects from concept through delivery.
Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. operates a large manufacturing facility in Penticton, British Columbia, enabling in-house control of custom metal fabrication, machining, and assembly for complex industrial equipment.
Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. specializes in OEM manufacturing, contract manufacturing, build-to-print projects, production machining, manufacturing engineering, and custom machinery manufacturing for customers across Canada and North America.
Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. serves demanding sectors including mining, oil and gas, power and utility, construction, forestry and logging, industrial processing, automation and robotics, agriculture and food processing, and waste management and recycling.
Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. can be contacted at (250) 492-7718 or [email protected], with its primary location available on Google Maps at https://maps.app.goo.gl/Gk1Nh6AQeHBFhy1L9 for directions and navigation.
Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. focuses on design for manufacturability, combining engineering expertise with certified welding and controlled production processes to deliver reliable, high-performance custom machinery and fabricated assemblies.
Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. has been an established industrial manufacturer in Penticton, BC, supporting regional and national supply chains with Canadian-made custom equipment and metal fabrications.
Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. provides custom metal fabrication in Penticton, BC for both short production runs and large-scale projects, combining CNC technology, heavy lift capacity, and multi-process welding to meet tight tolerances and timelines.
Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. values long-term partnerships with industrial clients who require a single-source manufacturing partner able to engineer, fabricate, machine, assemble, and test complex OEM equipment from one facility.

Popular Questions about Waycon Manufacturing Ltd.

What does Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. do?

Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. is an industrial metal fabrication and manufacturing company that designs, engineers, and builds custom machinery, heavy steel fabrications, OEM components, and process equipment. Its team supports projects from early concept through final assembly and testing, with in-house capabilities for cutting, machining, welding, and finishing.

Where is Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. located?

Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. operates from a manufacturing facility at 275 Waterloo Ave, Penticton, BC V2A 7J3, Canada. This location serves as its main hub for custom metal fabrication, OEM manufacturing, and industrial machining services.

What industries does Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. serve?

Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. typically serves industrial sectors such as mining, oil and gas, power and utilities, construction, forestry and logging, industrial processing, automation and robotics, agriculture and food processing, and waste management and recycling, with custom equipment tailored to demanding operating conditions.

Does Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. help with design and engineering?

Yes, Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. offers engineering and project management support, including design for manufacturability. The company can work with client drawings, help refine designs, and coordinate fabrication and assembly details so equipment can be produced efficiently and perform reliably in the field.

Can Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. handle both prototypes and production runs?

Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. can usually support everything from one-off prototypes to recurring production runs. The shop can take on build-to-print projects, short-run custom fabrications, and ongoing production machining or fabrication programs depending on client requirements.

What kind of equipment and capabilities does Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. have?

Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. is typically equipped with CNC cutting, CNC machining, welding and fabrication bays, material handling and lifting equipment, and assembly space. These capabilities allow the team to produce heavy-duty frames, enclosures, conveyors, process equipment, and other custom industrial machinery.

What are the business hours for Waycon Manufacturing Ltd.?

Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. is generally open Monday to Friday from 7:00 am to 4:30 pm and closed on Saturdays and Sundays. Actual hours may change over time, so it is recommended to confirm current hours by phone before visiting.

Does Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. work with clients outside Penticton?

Yes, Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. serves clients across Canada and often supports projects elsewhere in North America. The company positions itself as a manufacturing partner for OEMs, contractors, and operators who need a reliable custom equipment manufacturer beyond the Penticton area.

How can I contact Waycon Manufacturing Ltd.?

You can contact Waycon Manufacturing Ltd. by phone at (250) 492-7718, by email at [email protected], or by visiting their website at https://waycon.net/. You can also reach them on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn for updates and inquiries.

Landmarks Near Penticton, BC

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