Extras · 1 of 4

A typical day

In a fabrication shop: welds arrive on the bench, you clean them, spray penetrant or run an ultrasonic probe across them, read the screen for flaws, mark defects and write the report. In the field: drive to a pipeline right-of-way or a refinery during a shutdown, set up on a scaffold, scan welds all day, then shoot radiographs at night when the site is clear of people. The work is slow, careful and repetitive, and one missed crack can matter enormously.