Patent ID: 8426001

Claim:
A welding method, comprising: selecting first and second metallic structures to be welded together; placing a welding alignment and spacing article between said structures to define a welding gap; said article comprising: a body; a first surface on said body; a second surface on said body; said first and second surfaces being spaced from each other at a selected spacing distance to define a region of selected body thickness; said body being formed from a non-metallic degradable body material in said region that can be wholly or partially degraded by exposure to a degrading agent in order to reduce said body thickness; said body also being formed from a non-degradable body material in said region; and said degradable body material and said non-degradable body material being sufficiently incompressible to be useable as a spacer that maintains a specified welding gap distance between said structures during tack welding; forming a tack weld in said welding gap between said structures at a selected distance from said article; exposing said article to said degrading agent for a time that is sufficient to degrade said degradable body material and reduce said body thickness so that said article can be removed from said welding gap; and performing additional welding in said welding gap to complete said welding together of said structures.