Welding Tips and Tricks

Hi i am looking for any help that will justify my opinion on this weld failure.from these pictures i would say it is weld failure.i see very little penetration.anybody agree or disagree? Thanks for opinion either way you see it. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

No penetration or fusion, very little throat thickness. When you have a situation like this, stress risers like crater cracks and cold starts can cause far more trouble than if the rest of the weld was nice.

i think mike's reply is far to nice and diplomatic.

i call it total crap. ZERO penetration, it has laid up against the metal. the metal is still perfectly flat from being cut. the weld has done nothing to it.
you can also see the weld pattern of the other welds in some pics and its horrible.
my guess is under sized mig used by a non-welder.

the rust shows its been cracked for some time.

what annoys me the most is i'm an amateur rookie welder and i can do better than that. no one making parts for hydraulic machines should be welding that bad.

I don't think they are stressed welds. Looks to me like the paint held it together for a while.

It reminds me of something. I paid a trailer business good money to fix a boat trailer for me a few years back as I was too busy at the time to do it myself. Within 12 months I had to re-weld every thing they did. They didn't grind anything off before welding and consequently no penetration at all. Slapped a bit of cold gal paint on it and I didn't know till bits started falling off.

Elmer's Glue would be stronger than those welds. You can see easily on ALL of them that the toes are not wetted in (lack of heat), there's zero penetration, and insufficient weld size. Hacked up by someone who pulled a trigger and didn't know Jack-sh!t about welding.

Throw that in the scrap heap and sell it for material weight. Not even safe enough to use as a door stop.

weldin mike 27 wrote:No penetration or fusion, very little throat thickness. When you have a situation like this, stress risers like crater cracks and cold starts can cause far more trouble than if the rest of the weld was nice.

I would add there are design issues related to metal thickness and gusset placement. The stress from the hydraulics was probably under estimated. There is the possibility that the equipment was used beyond its rated or designed capacities.

Looks like the paint is just a bit tougher than the welds. What the heck piece of equipment is that ?

Bill

If I am looking at the pictures correctly, the weld failed at the leg, not through the throat. I almost wonder if it was brazed instead of welded. Failure between base metal and the leg of a weld is very unusual. and even if it did occur at the weld, it wouldn't be a clean break.

WirelessG wrote:If I am looking at the pictures correctly, the weld failed at the leg, not through the throat. I almost wonder if it was brazed instead of welded. Failure between base metal and the leg of a weld is very unusual. and even if it did occur at the weld, it wouldn't be a clean break.

it wasn't brazed. the work is perfectly smooth under the weld which simply means the weld just lay on it. if it was brazed it would have stuck to the work.
its a common enough problem with mig welds, i've done it myself.

I used straight Flux Core for years with no problems. Tried hard wire mig on some various test welds and then cut and etched. Quite an eye opener how a pretty looking weld can be just laying on top. Pretty crappy quality control wherever that machine was made. Hope they don't build trailer hitches also!

tweake wrote:

WirelessG wrote:If I am looking at the pictures correctly, the weld failed at the leg, not through the throat. I almost wonder if it was brazed instead of welded. Failure between base metal and the leg of a weld is very unusual. and even if it did occur at the weld, it wouldn't be a clean break.

it wasn't brazed. the work is perfectly smooth under the weld which simply means the weld just lay on it. if it was brazed it would have stuck to the work.
its a common enough problem with mig welds, i've done it myself.

The reason I suggest it was it was brazed (and I'm coming at this from an engineering point of view...I'm just a hobby welder) is that brazing doesn't melt the base metal, whereas welding does (or should). I've laid in some cold welds before, nut they at least penetrated the base material to some extent.

There probably is penetration. Under the weld on the parent metal piece that still has the weld metal attached. If the gun angle and wire direction deliver all of the arc force to only one side of the join, it will only weld to that piece. The edge of the puddle will only just pick up the corner of the other piece while it essentially remains cold. It may appear to be a good weld bead and it could be, but unfortunately not over both sides of the join.
This disparity of heat is sometimes used deliberately, like when attaching thin material to thick.

Of course there could be other things at fault here. Poor material preparation or using wrong settings, technique etc.

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homeboy wrote:I used straight Flux Core for years with no problems. Tried hard wire mig on some various test welds and then cut and etched. Quite an eye opener how a pretty looking weld can be just laying on top. Pretty crappy quality control wherever that machine was made. Hope they don't build trailer hitches also!

They do build trailer hitches. Had to fix one for my uncle. The drop leg came clean off the receiver tube. Looked much like this. Virtually no penetration on one side of the weld.

WirelessG wrote:

tweake wrote:

WirelessG wrote:If I am looking at the pictures correctly, the weld failed at the leg, not through the throat. I almost wonder if it was brazed instead of welded. Failure between base metal and the leg of a weld is very unusual. and even if it did occur at the weld, it wouldn't be a clean break.

it wasn't brazed. the work is perfectly smooth under the weld which simply means the weld just lay on it. if it was brazed it would have stuck to the work.
its a common enough problem with mig welds, i've done it myself.

The reason I suggest it was it was brazed (and I'm coming at this from an engineering point of view...I'm just a hobby welder) is that brazing doesn't melt the base metal, whereas welding does (or should). I've laid in some cold welds before, nut they at least penetrated the base material to some extent.

brazing typically wets the base metal quite well.
plus you can see the rust on the weld, so steel filler has been used.

glivo wrote:There probably is penetration. Under the weld on the parent metal piece that still has the weld metal attached. If the gun angle and wire direction deliver all of the arc force to only one side of the join, it will only weld to that piece. The edge of the puddle will only just pick up the corner of the other piece while it essentially remains cold. It may appear to be a good weld bead and it could be, but unfortunately not over both sides of the join.
This disparity of heat is sometimes used deliberately, like when attaching thin material to thick.

Of course there could be other things at fault here. Poor material preparation or using wrong settings, technique etc.

Sent from my SGP521 using Tapatalk

it looks like a lot was wrong. even on equal size parts its been welded cold.
it may have penetrated a bit on more on one side, the weakest part breaks but that doesn't mean the other side is good, just means it was slightly better.

It appears to have been cold. Certainly a low score in a test.