Will it hold, welding?

So they are putting some automatic gates where my wife works. They sent a guy out to "weld" on these brackets. He had a 110v flux core rig setup. The gates are 4ft tall 24ft long chainlink jobs. I am not much of a welder but I think I could have done a better job than this. They were quoted over $4,000 each just for the gate openers installed, the gates were already there. I have my doubts these brackets will stay on the gate very long, what is your opinion.

Nate
a167345.jpg

a167346.jpg
 
Those blobs are what I call "turkey sh!!" welds. Poor start, finish, in between, no penetration. Looks like the bird just crapped on it.
 
I agree, they don't look pretty. A 24' gate is really to long. The longer the gate, the more difficult it is to not have problems. Based on my experience and opinion, I won't mess with a gate longer than 14 to 16'.
 
chip off the slag and wire brush the welds and see what they actually look like, then make a decision.

What we are looking at now is just slag but I would say that work was not done by a remotely qualified welder.
 
If they are chainlink posts Im betting they have a galvanized or similar coating. Most of the time with that you have to grind the coating off to get to bare metal then weld. It doesn't look promising....
 
I agree with Gerald, they should have ground the galvanizing off before welding, I would not accept it.
 
Where I worked years ago, someone welded a gate. He then covered the weld with bondo, and painted it. Looked real nice. His weld probably looked like the job you posted. Stan
 
From what I see not very good but a picture does not tell the whole truth. I know I could have done better with out even trying hard
 
The welds that person did are of poor quality.the heat was too low and you never weld over hot dipped coatings. One weld is only on the bracket and did not penitrate the gate,this is were corrosion sets in and stess cracks form. 24' swing gate has large amounts of stress at two diagonal corners. What can you move with a 24' lever. I have welded 3/8 plate with a 110- flux core. Grind the welds completely off. Improper prep work = bad welds. But who am I to judge. If the man welding was blind then he did a great job for not having a grinder or acid to remove the zinc plating.
 
Can't weld myself... but married to a welder - that just looks plain scary.

Even if you chip off the slag - as I look at it, the left hand side of the bottom pick doesn't look welded at all.
 
Wow.

That top pic might hold a few weeks, but the bottom one, is it holding its own weight?

I'm a real poor welder, but it know it, I wouldn't let anyone pay for the poor stuff I do....

Paul
 
My guess is it's a gate and not under a lot of stress anyway. I think the problem you are having is the angle is too heavy for the round stock you are welding to. I bet if you turn the amperage up on your welder which it needs for the angle you will end up burning holes in the round stock. If it doesn't have a lot of stress on it I would take an angle grinder and smooth some of it out and go over it again with the temperature turned up a little more.
 
Galvanized metal with a flux core wire weld don't mix.
Grinding the coating off before welding might have done the trick.
I can't believe a company does that poor a job and think it is OK
Slam the gate closed once and it comes apart.
 
From the looks of those 'welds???' he must have gotten his Welders Cert. out of a box of Cracker Jacks.

:>(
 
I'd say the welder was up to the task, but not the weldOR. Many folks don't realize that the amperage control on a wirefeed welder is the wire speed knob.
 
You know there are ugly but strong weldments known as gorilla welds . Not pretty but strong as a Gorilla. That ain't one of them . Of each run only about 25 % is tacked to the opther side. A "bad " craftsman could have cleaned it up and made another pass to fix it but he didn't even know he was screwed up.
 

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