Testing your welds !!

[Wynand]

As a retired qualified boilermaker with 35 years hand on experience, during my tenure at that also held a coded welders ticket, I will give my humble view on this.
Plate C in my view was the best piece looking at post one without even looking at the other pics posted. Fusion was excellent with parent material, the cap really very low / flat that will lessen HAZ in a big way. On the flip side of the plate one can see that the penetration was good.

For the non professional welder; big fat caps / beads are not stronger, in fact the opposite is true. When I still welded as a coded (X-ray), the max allowable cap was only 1.6mm and that's on big bore pipes. Bigger caps were failed due to the unwanted stress resulted from that.

I agree Bonzo, it is better to weld rather hot than cold,. The common sin of most amateur welders are the fact that there current is to low. A simple trick to set one's welder to a specific electrode (rod) thickness, is to multiply the diameter with 40 and that will put you in the range of a good weld - vertical up welding needs some downward adjustment if needed. Eg; 2.5mm (12#) electrode x 40 = 100amps.
Furthermore, Im always skeptic of nicely grind-ed welds as your pics shown for the simple reason you hide the tale the cap has to tell...
A nice bead such as "C" looks more professional than a grind one and I would rather see such a weld bare.
At the end, a destructive test - like the bending test you did - will be the decisive factor for quality of weld.

Lastly, kudus to you for the effort to post this excellent post and the trouble you took to do it. I believe it is an eye opener for a lot of people not well versed in welding strength .

[deezee]

Really nice example of welding, should help people get their welding set up correctly.

[Tilly819]

Great Post Ronnie

Im sure this will help lots of people with there welding

tilly

[CTWV50]

Brilliant!

[flyerncle]

Well done Ronnie, a cut across the welds would reveal what to expect from bad welds.

Did some NDT and ultrasonic weld testing in my spotty youth as apprentice welder,very interesting.

[shh120m]

IMHO this is so informative that it should be made a sticky, questions are asked all the time about welds, and having such informative images gives the novice welder a clear image of what he is trying to achieve, you can talk welding all day but a few good images like the above make all the difference.

[HandyAndy]

Originally Posted by shh120m

IMHO this is so informative that it should be made a sticky, questions are asked all the time about welds, and having such informative images gives the novice welder a clear image of what he is trying to achieve, you can talk welding all day but a few good images like the above make all the difference.

I personally agree too,

so,

I,ve asked permission( afterall, its Ronnies thread) from Ronnie if he would be happy for this thread to be made a " Sticky", & he is more than happy for this to happen,

Thanks Ronnie, great work

cheers
andy

[michael92]

I feel as tho its a competition now i have a pic that may be of help and certainly dont mean to blow on ones own trumpet but i have a pic of a t fillet i did when i was about to do my coded , i feel this may show how the weld profile should sort of look


http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/...r/IMG_0503.jpg

was done with a migatronic 545 i believe :P mmm beautiful machine!

[monsterob]

Oh well my chassis might a well go in the bin then :-(

[flyerncle]

Nice weld ! I was always taught to fill the crater and have noticed on some welds this is not done,comments please.

A weld without gas cut in half would be interesting.