Think this guy knows how to weld ?

Impressive work !
Welding

Very pretty work. What is the reason for the cross hatching on the buckets?

The pattern depends upon the type of wear, and sometimes material the bucket, or whatever will see when in service. Once determined, the pattern is welded on with a hardfacing electrode that will typically have a hardness around that of a file. In other words it"s much harder than the material that it"s on. The end result is basically pockets on the bucket that catch, and hold material in them. With am initial, stationary layer of material lying against the base metal, the rest of the material entering or exiting touches nothing but that "skin" of material. In other words the material wears against itself, and the very top of the HARD/patterned layer, NOT the main part of the bucket. The done right it will extend the life of a bucket, or whatever, indefinitely, especially if time is taken to keep the pattern maintained so it can hold the material like it should.

Personally I've patterned cable plow blades that a customer was only getting a few months out of before they were worn completely out. With a hard faced pattern, the life expectancy of a blade went from a few months to well over a year, and then some if they brought it to me to maintain the hard layer over the major wear points.

I used to dream of doing work that good, but when I finish it generally looks like the end of a nightmare!

He's good, so is his equipment! Put them together and you get this.

My heli arc welds looked like that when I had to pass QA level 1 tests at the 2 nuclear powerhouses I worked at. I welded right inside the reactor at Fermi 2 in Monroe, MI. The test that allowed me to weld there took 2 weeks.

He does really nice work. Wish he was in our area. He would definitely get our welding jobs.

Impressive.

I wish he was close by.

Dean

Playing devil's advocate here, but are you sure that those are actual pictures of his work?

Anybody can go on google images, gather up a bunch of perfect-looking weld jobs, and put them on craigslist.

A welder with that guy's talents, if they are indeed his talents, should have no problem getting more work than he can handle through simple word of mouth advertising. He should not have to resort to craigslist.

That is entirely true, he'd be a real jerk if that is not his work, posting photos of someone elses, that is misleading and a rotten thing to do. You would hope that is not the case and observe his work if you hired him, to insure that its not as you suggest. I'd rather have a guy get insulted and defend his work, because you questioned or wanted to verify it, then have someone who is doing as you suggest, does poor work, which in some situations could create hazards, I have no idea if these are automated machine welds or all done by hand, I just thought it was some impressive work, and would hope that the point you raise though a good one, is simply not true. And if the guy is reading this, I only posted it here as a compliment, if its bogus, well that's another story!

We have a guy who comes to the farm to make repairs etc, and he is an independent, used to do a lot of industrial work, has a great partner, but business dropped off to some extent, his work is excellent regardless, thie person says they work full time in the ad, so maybe its just side work?

His TIG is perfect. He did say he has a day job and wants to do the welding nights and Saturday.

My thoughts exactly. I have always let my work and
my customers do my advertising for me. Been at it
for close to 38 years and never ran an ad anywhere
and have always had more work than I could do. I
turn down jobs almost every day.

Cross Hatching is for wear. it will save the side of the bucket for a little while.

A coworker of mine is that good of a welder, he has welded on off-shore oil rigs and he can weld, All steels, aluminum, titanium, inconel and stainless steels. Incredible to say the least.

He could have learned the trade working for someone else and just getting started on his own. It takes time for word of mouth to get around.