Thanks to Anomaly Filmworks of Midland, MI for working with us in creating this great video! The actual welding of this bumper was 26 minutes, condensed down to about a 5 minute video.

 

Welding vertical down isn't ideal for good penetration. If your guys aren't good at welding vertical up, they should rotate the piece to weld them flat.

 

Generally I agree

The vertical downs I'm running are excellently cleaned open-root with 1/8th gap on 1/8th thick material. I can assure 100% penetration with no porosity

We would NEVER EVER weld mounting brackets, Winch Plate, D-Ring Tabs, Receiver Hitch, in the downhill position.

Good eye, and thank you for catching that. Your advice is good, generally downhill welding is not a desirable method, with very few exceptions.

 

Right on. Glad you know what you're doing. Carry on. I reserve downhill welding for cosmetic welds, something that won't ever see a load. Also inspect welds for a living, so I've dealt with them once or twice.

Also, I can't weld vertical up w/ MIG worth a ****.

 

We do the cosmetic thing sometimes. We used to have a design that called for 36" of welding on each of two mounting brackets. Not that it required 36" of weld to be strong enough, but if we didn't fully weld it moisture would collect inside the part and rot it from the inside out. We would put on MORE than enough to be structurally sound, and run the rest vertical down at an extremely hot setting to save time. We ended up changing the bracket design, although it still requires 20" of weld which we run completely in the flat position.

Vertical Up/MIG can be challenging and time consuming. We built the positioner to completely avoid a vertical up scenario, because it's just much faster in any other position. We can do it, but why make things harder than they need to be?