Manual testing with portable ultrasonic flaw detectors and hand-held transducers is usually the simplest and least expensive technique to implement. An inspector monitors a waveform display while moving a transducer around the test piece. Bar stock testing is performed from up to three orientations, using straight beam and angle beam transducers, which as their names imply aim sound waves either in a straight line or at selected angle for optimum defect detection. The first test involves coupling the transducer to the end of the bar and identifying the echo from the far end. Echoes appearing ahead of that far end echo, or a dropout of that echo, suggest circumferential cracking, chevron cracking, or porosity.