Once again we have a negative report from somebody using water soluble paper to make a purge dam.
On this occasion, in a large diameter, thick wall chrome steel power pipe. The paper dam came unstuck during a weld causing very high costs in cutting the weld out and
re-welding and a great deal of lost time.
Water soluble film is an all round better product than paper !
Considering that paper has a high percentage of water, it is not a good product anyway, to have near a weld, while film has no water content to outgas as it heats up in the weld zone.
Water soluble film has excellent adhesive properties.
Dams do not come loose when welding.
Film also has high tensile strength and flexibility and it has high oxygen barrier properties to stop oxygen re-entering the weld zone after purging.
