HOW TO JUDGE A WELD, One thousand words can tell you more than one picture.

Great read!!!! Thanks for taking the time to share with us!

 

29nash-- awesome thread. I'm glad you brought this subject up. Too many people only judge welds on how they look, and it makes me angry. But then again, it's people that are ignorant to welding. Just like anything in life, people think something that looks good is in fact-- good. Which you covered in this thread. You put it all into words very well. Keep on rodding, much respect!

 

Great reading and didn't miss one post . I too was taught by a garage welder when i was 13 to gas weld . He preached penetration all the time for a good weld . I also took the college apprenticeship at 27 to get the book end i felt i needed I am 52 now . I will stone a weld on a frame to eliminate plastic to cover it where it is seen ,

 

While this post is true in that looks isn't everything, I hope that some people out there don't see this as validation for their shit welds. Shit welds are shit welds. You knows what I'm sayin?

29Nash I hope you're rocking that car at 100.

 

That was a good read - give us more!
And bravo for takin' your hot rod out without windows in the middle of winter!
Make me feel like a pussy 'cause I left mine at home today - too cold!
I'll be thinkin' of inspirational fellas twice my age tomorrow, when I'm drivin the hot rod regardless of temperature...

 

Excellent write up. I've been getting instruction from my dad recently. He's a welder at a coal power plant. I get mad my welds arent as pretty but he says I "can weld flat with the best of them". We're going to be working on vertical and overhead soon too. I'm pretty good at vertical. Then he's gonna school me on 6G position so I can prepare to test..

 

Great job Nash!! I can agree with just about all you have laid down! Especially the good looking "welds"! What a lot of inexperienced welders (?) have yet to learn is also the danger of "cold lapping", & thinking its a good weld, just because its appearance also "looks good". I have a few years on you (76), & am a retired pipefitter/welder, have worked on many projects thru the years including power houses, where I had the opportunity as a certified pipe welder, to make a final weld on the main steam valve body to supply steam for the project. The wall thickness on this weld was 51/2 inches thick, starting off using a chill ring with 5/32 studs, & 1/8 P-5 stick rod, made first pass & stopped, attached leads from stress machine to weld area & covered with asbestos blankets. Graph at stress machine when reading over 600 degrees was attained, we pulled off blankets & started stick welding 1/8 low hydrogen around joint. As temp. got close to 525 degrees on the graph, we were signaled to stop welding while stress machine brought up temp. to 600 degrees again. This process was repeated again & again for about 5 days, after using 1/8 low/hy for 2 times around the joint, we then shifted to 5/32 low/hy & welded all the way out to finish cap that way. After completing final cap, stress machine was engaged once more & brought up to (?) degrees for a period of (?) hours with graph running all this time. Then after everything had cooled down, they X-Rayed the whole joint!!!----Now, if the graph ever ran BELOW 500 degrees, or the X-Ray failed, OR BOTH, the power co. officials would not buy it!!,---Needless to say, lots of money was involved in that one joint!!! So it had to be RIGHT!--------------Don

 

I learned how to weld best by starting out with Oxy/Acetylene welding 1/4'' plates together with a piece of bailing wire. This taught me the fundamentals of fusing two pieces of metal together and then being able to flip it over and see the penetration depending on how long and how much heat was used by the torch to melt and fuse through the other side of the plates. I really enjoy Oxy/Ace welding the best of all methods, but it is very time consuming and really outdated on most projects in comparison with just Tiging or Miging everything. Just my 0.46 cents.-Weeks

Oh and great thread thank you 29NASH=WISDOM

 

Boy this brought back memories for me.... I started out ignorant as can be. The funny part about it was I got my birds and bees talk at age 11 standing in a farm pasture, cutting apart a 40 ford pickup to haul home with a lit torch in my hand. That was 30+ years ago. I now have formal training and still look at my welds that I made when I built mt 53 ford f100 at age 15 and some of those welds even now I want to take down and re do, but they are still holding stronger than the motormounts. Loved the article, you almost sound like my Dad, God rest his soul.

 

29 nash,good read,I was taught by a aircraft welder that use to build parts for the space shuttle program when we were in highschool.
He would bring home test plates of hastaloy,titanium and other stuff he was working on for me to practice on.
One thing he would stress on is cleaning and inclusions.
like you stated its what inside that counts and more often than not he would tell me that his welds werenot the most eye apealing but would pass x-ray almost every time.
What he did was made me think like a weld.Go in hot and fast,then get out.
Imo im up in the air about a pulse,yes its beauty to the eye but on thicker stuff.125 or better,i would thing the penetration is a (w) where each point underneath is a potential fracture.I coud be wrong here but ill stick to the 2/3 rule when i can.
Beval 2/3 thickness of material for complete penetration.
I have used a pulse for thin material,.020 and have had good results.
For thicker stuff ill just keep doing what i know works untill i feel proof can sway me.
Great info,thanks for helping a younger gen to keep the torch lit.

 

My forte is oxy/acetylene, (well, used to be when my hands were steadier) thanks for the insight.
........and, we need to remember to take cross section area into account when evaluating strength. Take a plate mounted to the side of frame for attaching link/bones/panhard. In most all cases that plate could be held in place with 2 or 3 grade 8 bolts in shear. When welded all the way around, say a 3.3 inch plate would be 12 inches of weld. Cross section would be well over the shear of those 3 bolts. That's why, even with crappy welds they rarely fail, because of the overkill/redundant strength built in. If I were to take that plate and drill three holes, rosette weld them with max penetrataion, somebody would reckon that it was a weak repair.

 

Nash 29,

Funny thing about your post I was showing my Dad this site over Thanksgiving holiday he is around your age and just retired after 40 years as a welder working for a mine and tool company the last 15 years in R&D. My Dad started when he was 9 welding hitches in his dad's body shop then at 18 went in the USMC and welded and did bodywork in the autoshop. I showed him some of the threads on HAMB about welds and he words were exactly yours "Looks are not everything" My Dad holds a few patents 1 for corner welding on large road drums he has another one for hardface spraying with a torch.....I will share your post with him he will enjoy it.

I have the link attached on his patent for corner welding
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?WO=2000064624

Thanks, John

 

>>> 29nash-- awesome thread. I'm glad you brought this subject up.>>>

Ditto - I appreciate your comments as well. I was one of the guys who bagged on that car in the thread the other day, though my comments were aimed at the overall picture and not just the welds.

Though I have been gas/MIG/Stick welding on and off for over 30 years and been involved in about three dozen car builds in addition to daily garage stuff, I just started with the TIG process about 15 months ago.

I was lucky though, Rich and Rooman here helped me out with advice and even a big box of tubing drops to practice on and I did a TON of "Destructive" testing before I allowed myself to TIG anything in anger for myself or someone else.

My beads aren't quite as pretty as some posted here in the picture thread, though they are nothing to be ashamed of either, and they have the necessary penetration and cleanliness so that I am comfortable climbing into that cage and driving it myself.

Or else I would cut it up in small pieces so no one could chance it. (yeah, I am that anal)

Nash made some GREAT points IMHO and I am glad he did........

Al in CT

 

Good welding is usually a very important part of a successful hot rod, no doubt. But, good welds, pretty or ugly, don't guarantee a nice project by themselves by any means. It takes a hell of a lot more than just being a good welder to make a nice project.

Some good welders can make terrible projects just as easily as some can make fantastic ones. Same with not so great welders.

If you are a good welder, you definitely have a leg up on people who aren't. That still doesn't preclude someone who is not a great welder from doing a great project.

Welding is just one of thousands of things that factors into whether or not a project turns out well. And not all welds need to be the absolute strongest or most beautiful. Get the critical ones done properly, beautiful if possible, but done well regardless.

The obsession about welds is interesting and does have its appeal, but let's not forget it is far more important WHAT is being welded verses specifically how good the weld is or isn't.

I would rather have a nice project with some less than admirable welds than a less than admirable project with some great looking welds.

 

29nash excellent commentary... one thousand words can tell you more than one picture. Why not include some failed weld pics, especially the ones that "look good"; maybe even go so far as to show the results of those failed welds. Anyhoo just thinking...
PK

 

Thanks to all of you, johnmonday, Al Napier, garyterhaar, kezeweld, duste01, weeks46, DeuceDaddyDon, ConcreteB, CraigR, dreddybear, bluestang67, Bop-Nut, Haywood, fab32, Sam F, walt mcq, hotrod1940, lowburban, stude trucks, PK, Model A fan, patrick2965, HighSpeedLowDrag, Flea, Thebrassknuckles, kevinc, vin likes diesel, movin/on, zibo, aceuh, plym49. dreaddybear, LUX BLUE,

I would like to reply to each one, but that would just use up a lot of ‘site digits.

Compliments aside. I’m just passing along facts as welders know them, to the people that don’t understand but want to understand welds. There is not one single technique of welding that I invented, and confess again, that I can't tell a good weld from its surface, only the guy that eyeballed the puddle can do that. I learned most of what I know mostly from accident or from another person. If I were put on this earth to invent something, we would still be living in caves, eating bbq dinosaur and brewing our own beer in a goats bladder!

 

As a welding student, i can do nothing but agree! When i test a piece of welded steel, very few of the really super looking welds has the same penetration as the "average" weld. As you say, the rules for being a certified welder says nothing about how the face of the weld looks. The key to both is good preparation (especially with TIG in alu) and smoothly moving the rod/handle.

All our teachers are old welders with a lot of experience, and they have lot lot good things to teach!

 

.
I missed the point. But thanks to you, it brings up a point. Actually I have never seen a bad project, unless it was incompleted. Or a motor overhaul that shit the bed. Especially if I did the overhaul; It's an ego-buster. Or paint that fell off after drying. Or a car in a museum, which are all bad "hotrod guy" projects, but art to others. Or a car that is not driven. Even projects that are Off Topic are good to somebody, unless they are hated by the person that completed them.

Can you imagine somebody putting his soul into a car and then not likeing it? Of course second best to that would be somebody that put more stock in what other people thought than they put in their own self-worth? Lots of us hear what other people don't like about our stuff, but that's really petty, and doesn't even faze us. To lose one's self confidence/not respecting one's own work, is the worse possible result.

Fantastic cars are in the eye of the beholder, and what anybody except the person that built it is of no count to me. You see, everything I said, throughout the thread is applicable to every other aspect of a hotrod, as one of the commentators has pointed out. Look up the TUCKER. Nothing really big about it, except the resolve of the man and his combat with the establishment. He's famous not for his mechanical ability, everything most people admire about him was the fire in his belly.

Everybody can weld, barring physical/mental limitations. Some just haven't tried it yet. But what evades a lot of people is the fact that the eye cann't detect most flaws (affecting the strength) in a weld.

 

Doing that is work, holds a lot of responsibility. Thanks for chiming in. I'm honored.
.

 

Yep, isn't it sad, that a lot of people will take a fact and turn it around to fit their weaknesses, as you said 'validate' their failures?
Ha. If I make it to 100, I hope I'm still driving, and for the safety of the general public that I ain't blind!

 

I didn't say that bit about the tests. But anyway, this is turnung out to be a good thread.

 

I have really enjoyed this thread! I am not a certified welder, but at least I spent quite a bit of time around guys who really knew how to weld, spent the time to talk about preperation, heat penetration, materials, etc.. I actually spent most of my early years with an oxy/acet unit brazing (I know, not the same - but at least it taught me a lot about using both hands!). I did lots of stick welding on all sorts of car and machine shop stuff - that taught me a lot.

I bought a TIG a year or so ago - probably only have 30 - 40 hours of TIG under my belt. My first project was my frame jig - lots of welding on the 3/16 uprights, etc.. I love TIG welding and I do get frustrated at times that the look of some of my welds is not as nice as I'd like . . . that will come.

The skills of welding remind me of the skills I learned to do while learning high-end custom paint work . . . so much of it is about preperation, preperatoin and preperation. Then, quality materials . . . and really good eye/hand coordination. Painting, like welding will punish you if your prep is bad, your materials are bad and if you attempt to cover up anything that was not done right. You pay and you pay dearly . . . in many cases sooner than later. It won't kill you like a broken suspension component, but it will kill your car and your wallet!

I love to read posts like this - the words help teach me what to keep looking at . . . when to question my work, etc..

Question: If I wanted to have my welds inspected/certified (like critical frame or suspension welds) - is there affordable services/companies that a guy like me can use? I'm just an average hobby guy - so it is very low volume (just my projects).

Thanks to all for the valuable information.

 

only a couple, many more. Google
http://www.welding-advisers.com/Welding-testing.html http://www.nondestructivetesting.com/weld-inspection.html'
.

 

welding is cool, or...hot, yeah hot.

 

I don't make much effort to judge people's projects myself and certainly tops on the list is not the quality of their welds. I agree, to me, regardless of the project or the quality of the welds, is whether or not someone has put their heart and soul into it.

But with that said, let's just face it, not everyone puts a lot of heart in soul into their projects. Some simply seem to put half their ass in at best. Fortunately that is usually the exception vs. the norm, particularly on the hamb.

But, in a nut shell, that is leading to my point. If someone has a half ass crap project with great welds, I still am not going to think that is a good project. Conversely, if someone has put some real work, thought and care into a project and their welds are not the greatest, looks, strength penetration, whatever, that is still a better project to me.

My point is, the obsession with how good or bad welds are in regards to how good or bad a project is overall to me is misdirected importance and that the welding on a project is not anywhere near the most important part about it.

Why don't we ever see any threads on how great a wiring job someone does and what a great electrician they are? Do some poor wiring and catch your car on fire and you are going to find out real quick is that super great welding job on the axle flange was really all that important or not.

It is easy to focus on the glamorous jobs of welding and painting, but there is a lot more to making a good project than that. Having a good design and concept along with determination, hard work and heart is 1000 times more important.

In summary, I actually do agree with you 100%. Good, proper welds are far more important than what they look like.

 

Good read. Where are all the "If it's not TIG, it's just no good" guys now?

I've seen some really nice TIG welding on here but a lot of the time they are really small, discreet beads on a big assed chassis or suspension member. Sure, the parts are joined and look real tidy, but I really wonder about their strength. Give me a nice solid MIG or ARC bead with good penetration any day.

Pete

 

that was one of the blastolene brothers ,but the tank didnt leak because of his weld
not being good ,the mount strap being bolted down interfered with the corner of the mount andactually tore the tank open wasnt noticed until they got down and checked why it was leaking , jesse welded up the tank and they made room on the bracket so it would bolt down without being tore into

 

Once again, it is not mig, arc, or tig, but the welder that makes a weld "solid" or have good penetraion. If you think Tig won't provide a solid, penetrating weld, you are wrong. It is not which is better, but how the welder creates the proper process of welding.

 

Very interesting thread. I liked you comments about skill related to neatness of the tool box. There are folks whose desk is always neat who can do almost nothing constuctive but clean their desk and technicians like that as well. Sometimes they are so possesed with neat that they are preoccupied with it. Some techs have both naturally and some have a workable balance. As a former service manager and a licensed mechanic for over 40 years I never gave a hoot at what a guy did in his tool box. I could tell when I watched him work. in a week or so you know is he any good or not. It never seemed to have any relationship to how they maintained thier toolbox. In fact as I recall most of the neat freaks lacked talent now that I think about it.
As for welding I too am at the shaky stage , I have a distaste for migs since I havethis idea they were invented so people who can't weld can. However when i built my dragster i had no choice and I survived although I havent used it since. I especially love gas welding with oxy acet and even yet can still do a decent job of it. It is a lost art i think. My uncle Wally Daniells who was a great welder/ inventor in Midland Ont taught me to weld that way and also taught me how to stick weld up cranks for strokers. (Sit down ! It works just fine!) My neigbour who is a recently retired refinery welder told me once "First, you make it strong, then you can make it pretty." I am no expert welder but have learned to make it so it will not break. Some folks are naturals at it. Anyway i enjoyed your blurb 29 . Thanks for the good info.
Don