Bad weld photos

[sixdogs]

Considering all the beautiful welds posted here by real artists, I thought you might enjoy these photos of a piece of farm equipment I bought. I have already burned the offending pieces off and ground the areas smooth. A little touch up this spring and ready for paint.

The photos show the weld was so cold I was able to torch and grind it off with ease. I'm only an intermediate welder but stuff like this amazes me and it's all over the place, especially on farm stuff.

 

[Reyer Farms]

Well, it looks like a patch it up and get it back in the field job. The welds are not as bad as the fit up, but I understand where your coming from. Good job with torch. Look forward to repaired and ready post.

 

[Shield Arc]

You want to see a bad weld?:laughing: This is probably the worst weld I've ever been around. We were just getting started on building a work trestle that would provide access to a work platform roughly the size of a football field on the Washington side of the Columbia river. I was out in the river about 100-feet from shore over seeing the rig up of the derrick that would drive all the water pile. Very good friend of mine was over seeing the driving of the land based trestle pile. They were driving short pile, if the blow count didn't come up to spec the welding crew would add another section. This buddy of mine called me on the radio, and asked if I would come to the beach and help the weldor set his machine, (wire feeder). Take note, this is a certified weldor! When I walked up first thing that crossed my mind was WTF! Only took a few seconds to dial the kids machine in for him. But his weld looked like sheet! I walked over to my buddy and asked him if that pile was driving real hard, he said no it was going out of sight. I replied he should have that weld cut out, and start over! But we were so far behind schedule at this point. We decided to go ahead and drive it. I went back out to the derrick. When the crew swung the land driver over to drive this badly welded pile I walked over to the side of the derrick to watch. By the 3rd blow of the hammer I knew we were in trouble! Pile broke, pile went one way, hammer went the other way. Amazing no one didn't get hurt. But the hammer fell on the hood of my company pickup, drove the engine right into the mud.

 

[Reyer Farms]

You want to see a bad weld?:laughing: This is probably the worst weld I've ever been around. We were just getting started on building a work trestle that would provide access to a work platform roughly the size of a football field on the Washington side of the Columbia river. I was out in the river about 100-feet from shore over seeing the rig up of the derrick that would drive all the water pile. Very good friend of mine was over seeing the driving of the land based trestle pile. They were driving short pile, if the blow count didn't come up to spec the welding crew would add another section. This buddy of mine called me on the radio, and asked if I would come to the beach and help the weldor set his machine, (wire feeder). Take note, this is a certified weldor! When I walked up first thing that crossed my mind was WTF! Only took a few seconds to dial the kids machine in for him. But his weld looked like sheet! I walked over to my buddy and asked him if that pile was driving real hard, he said no it was going out of sight. I replied he should have that weld cut out, and start over! But we were so far behind schedule at this point. We decided to go ahead and drive it. I went back out to the derrick. When the crew swung the land driver over to drive this badly welded pile I walked over to the side of the derrick to watch. By the 3rd blow of the hammer I knew we were in trouble! Pile broke, pile went one way, hammer went the other way. Amazing no one didn't get hurt. But the hammer fell on the hood of my company pickup, drove the engine right into the mud.

Danggit boy! It's all fun and games till somebody gets hurt I have one on my other phone of a stringer on a staircase at a plant. Weight of the hammer or bred of the dog is the only ify part. I'll try to find it and some others.




Mount for pneumatic cylinder, when they hired me they asked "are you sure you can weld" when I showed up I knew why.

 

[hodge]

Danggit boy! It's all fun and games till somebody gets hurt I have one on my other phone of a stringer on a staircase at a plant. Weight of the hammer or bred of the dog is the only ify part. I'll try to find it and some others.



View attachment 293423

Mount for pneumatic cylinder, when they hired me they asked "are you sure you can weld" when I showed up I knew why.

So booger welds do really look like boogers.

 

[sixdogs]

Well, it looks like a patch it up and get it back in the field job. The welds are not as bad as the fit up, but I understand where your coming from. Good job with torch. Look forward to repaired and ready post.

Here it is ground smooth and metal pounded flat again. Some of the pieces welded to the frame broke loose with a whack of a 2 lb hammer.

 

[sixdogs]

When we first moved into a house by the Main Rd, a State Trooper drove in one day and asked if it would be OK for a guy to park his trailer in my barn drive until it could be welded correctly. I was stumped but, OK sure.

Anyway, the trailer was grossly overloaded with farm junk poorly strapped on and welds that I do not know how to reproduce. I'm not experienced enough but figure the heat was on the lowest setting with the wrong rod and repeated welds over uncleaned slag might do it. Maybe toss in a cool day.

We found a welding shop he could go to and he was off to greener pastures but I'll bet he never even stopped. I didn't want to weld on that since some weak link might give way and it would bounce back on me.

 

[Reyer Farms]

Here it is ground smooth and metal pounded flat again. Some of the pieces welded to the frame broke loose with a whack of a 2 lb hammer.

Very nice, very nice. Well done sixdogs.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I was a pipe welder and welding supervisor before I got into quality management role. I have ran test booths for testing welders and believe me, I have seen some of the worst welds imaginable. Guys come in to test on pipe and barely know how to put on the welding hood and just hope they can get a job and practice to get better before getting fired. It rarely works that way, some cheat and try to roll out the test coupon but its easy to spot a repositioned coupon.
Heres a funny one, had a guy in to take a TIG welding test. Gave him some tungsten, 3 lengths of ER70S-2 bare wire and the weld coupons and put him in a booth. A while later one of my foremans came into the office and told me "You gotta see this" We went to the booth and the guy had not used the tungsten in the TIG torch but had put one of the 36" long bare wires in the tig torch and was trying to strike an arc with it on the test coupon. He had arc marks all over it. Of course all it was doing was touch and instantly stick and then he would jerk, pull, twist and try to get it loose. LMAO. The foreman ribbed him a bit and suggested he needed more amps etc before finally telling him what to do. We did give him a short lesson in TIG welding and he admitted that he never seen a TIG rig before. I even tried him on stick but he couldnt weld stick rod either. But he got a little free practice and some insight into how to run a test. Someday he might have ended up as a welder somewhere.

 

[Shield Arc]

Gary back in the 70s when I worked in a tank shop, I was welding something on the shop floor. Picked up my hood and the shop superintendent was standing there with a girl I'd never seen before. He said Shield Arc here is your new partner, put her to work. I needed to cut more parts, and the girl needed to get ready for work. I walked by the superintendent on the way to the saw. I asked him what her story was, he said he just hired her, she had just got out of some fancy welding school in Boston, OK. I cut the pieces I needed, when I walked back the work area she was standing there waiting on me. I laid out where the pieces went, told her to start welding, and I'd go get more material. Later she walked up to me and said something was wrong with the Mig machine. I said that's strange it was just purring a few minutes ago. I walked back to the work area, it looked like a porcupine had crawled up on the plate. I asked her to show me how the machine was working. She held the gun about 2-feet from the plate, and pulled the trigger.:laughing:

 

[Gary Fowler]

Welding schools are only as good as the instructors. Lot of times the old saying is true, THOSE WHO CAN, DO; THOSE WHO CANT, TEACH. Many "teachers" are never coulds and only know what they read in a book. Kinda like an inspector with a AWS QC1 cert but never welded or worked in construction, just book study and dont know sheet. Might be able to tell a good weld from a bad one but no idea on how to fix it or what caused the problem in the first place.

 

[Reyer Farms]

Well I goated up my first weld test. Guy called me to weld braces on cell tower base. He said I needed aws cert., okay I'll get it and see you next week. I call and closest test was 5 hours and money I didnt have. I borrowed money from my parents drove down that morning thinking I just make weld and drive back. Guy asks what company I with, I say me and I have done this before what do you want? He says make a good weld and hurry up I shutting this place in few hours.
Nervous, hot, rain dripping in this tiny stall, inspection light burning down my neck, and broke. Welded vert first and weaved a tight neat cap to save time. Tacked overhead and when they came in to inspect my bead... Inspector says: never ever never weave a cap in my shop. I'm terrified he gonna fail me on it. I told him sorry ill put stringers in but I was just trying to speed it up . He says if the weld passes he will allow it but no more weave.
Okay now I'm relived and very nervous. Shirt is sticking to me, I take a deep breath, put in a new rod, settle my feet, raise my arm to get slack in sleeve and lead- 14" 7018 extending from the stinger from my outstretched arm goes right between two fluorescent light bulbs to the metal fixture screwed to the grounded metal booth. Whhoomm was the sound, lights flickered, rod burns through fixture and sticks, I snatched it out, flung out that rod, and welded that coupon out faster than you could say I gotta get the heck outta here. The whole booth shook as I worked. I did pass both test, and instructor asked if I heard any commotion back there while I tested. So if your ever testing in the south I gotta a ugly weld in light fixture somewhere.??

 

[Shield Arc]

I remember taking an x-ray Innershield test for a Navy shipyard project one time. When I walked into the booth there was a water cooled gun on the wire feeder. The cup must have been a 1 1/2-inch in dia. Wasn't much of a problem for horizontal, and vertical. But with the overhead the splatter liked to fill the cup up. Every pass I had to clean the cup out. About half way through the last cap pass some splatter was going up and down on the wire as it was coming out of the contact tip. Then all of a sudden the little glob of splatter stuck to the wire, and right into the puddle! Never being allowed to use a grinder on a structural welding test I knew I was in big trouble! Took the test plate to the inspector and explained to him what happened, told him I knew I wasn't allowed to use a grinder. He looked at me and said that's right, you can't use a grinder, but I can.

 

[weldermike]

Well I goated up my first weld test. Guy called me to weld braces on cell tower base. He said I needed aws cert., okay I'll get it and see you next week. I call and closest test was 5 hours and money I didnt have. I borrowed money from my parents drove down that morning thinking I just make weld and drive back. Guy asks what company I with, I say me and I have done this before what do you want? He says make a good weld and hurry up I shutting this place in few hours.
Nervous, hot, rain dripping in this tiny stall, inspection light burning down my neck, and broke. Welded vert first and weaved a tight neat cap to save time. Tacked overhead and when they came in to inspect my bead... Inspector says: never ever never weave a cap in my shop. I'm terrified he gonna fail me on it. I told him sorry ill put stringers in but I was just trying to speed it up . He says if the weld passes he will allow it but no more weave.
Okay now I'm relived and very nervous. Shirt is sticking to me, I take a deep breath, put in a new rod, settle my feet, raise my arm to get slack in sleeve and lead- 14" 7018 extending from the stinger from my outstretched arm goes right between two fluorescent light bulbs to the metal fixture screwed to the grounded metal booth. Whhoomm was the sound, lights flickered, rod burns through fixture and sticks, I snatched it out, flung out that rod, and welded that coupon out faster than you could say I gotta get the heck outta here. The whole booth shook as I worked. I did pass both test, and instructor asked if I heard any commotion back there while I tested. So if your ever testing in the south I gotta a ugly weld in light fixture somewhere.??

LOL, I have known that feeling before! :0

 

[sixdogs]

Reminds me of the time in school when a wiseacre kid was getting ready for a welding test. Went to flip his hood down and his arm went sideways and caught a metal post support for the building. It didn't stick for a millisecond so we had a shower of sparking and then it stuck and stuck good. Surprisingly, his attitude failed to clear up. Probably welding farm gates these days...

 

[Reyer Farms]

A big round of applause for cool inspectors and other ones that keep us humble. I failed a test for a cap that was too flat. Guy was super nice, I said dang can you a least be a jerk about do I can leave with some dignity!!

 

[chad22]

Danggit boy! It's all fun and games till somebody gets hurt I have one on my other phone of a stringer on a staircase at a plant. Weight of the hammer or bred of the dog is the only ify part. I'll try to find it and some others.


View attachment 293423

Mount for pneumatic cylinder, when they hired me they asked "are you sure you can weld" when I showed up I knew why.

WOW. That looks like my welds when I started welding.

Thankfully I can do better now.

Below's A weld I did on a ball attached to a lawn tractor. I'll admit part of it isn't very good looking. But at least it's strong.

I was gonna go over it again on the bad side but it was getting really cold outside so I said the heck with it for now.

I might go over it again and redo the weld just for the fun of it once it warms up. Although I'm sure that the ball ain't gonna come off.

If it was on a hitch that was gonna be pulling a trailer down the highway then I would've fixed it before I put it to use. But since I'm just pulling a trailer around with a slow speed lawn tractor if the ball breaks it won't be that bad. But I doubt it will.

It's actually got good penetration on that bad looking side and it actually looked great but the second time I went over it to build up the weld I didn't get a pretty bead. lol

View attachment 361860 View attachment 361861

 

[Jesse masterson]

behind schedule should never trump safety!!

 

[muddstopper]

Well, I would show a pic of some of my Ugly weld, but I dont have enough film in the camera for all of them.

 

[Gary Fowler]

behind schedule should never trump safety!!

Where I worked for 45 years before retiring, we had a saying, IF YOU DONT HAVE TIME TO DO IT RIGHT, WHEN WILL YOU HAVE TIME TO DO IT OVER. And another one SAFETY AND QUALITY BEFORE PRODUCTION. One of the things I liked about that company was that we all lived those slogans, and anyone that didn't, didn't last long on the payroll. Even now working on old farm equipment, I over weld everything and make sure it is all good quality welds just as if I were taking an Xray test. I spent the money getting a quality Phoenix 350# dry rod oven that stays on 300F all the time for my low hydrogen rods so they make as good a weld as possible, grind off ALL old paint/rust /etc prior to welding if at all possible. Sometimes one just cant get grinders or brushes into corners to remove everything, and that is when the 6010 comes out for the first pass. Not as good as cleaning first but it sure helps.

I think maybe Shieldarc learned from his mistake, a crushed truck was cheap remembrance of why one should never let shoddy work pass regardless of how far behind schedule one is.