Hello everyone. Recently I built my self a bumper and tire carrier. And after reading another persons post on their tire carrier and some discussion on the strength and quality their welds. I started thinking about my own in the same light. I am every bit of a novice in the world of metal and welding fabrication and this is my first such project. So I was looking for some feed back from some of the more seasoned members on the welds below. Certainly dont want my tire falling off while driving down the hwy. I understand its pretty hard to tell with certainty how good these welds are by a picture, but any feedback would be great.

All done with a Harbor Freight 210 mig, with .35 lincoln flux core wire.

The majority are looking about like this, some worse.

 

Nice job, man!

 

Excellent looking welds. Especially for a novice.

 

Welds look good..

My only comment would be to do some weld prep. Grind the mill scale off. I also dont see a heat affected zone in the pics. That is a good way to tell if you have good penetration on your weld

 

Just read up on Heat Affected Zone (HAZ), thanks for that, PingPong.

P.S. Those welds look purdy.

 

Technique is good, coverage is ok, but you need to slow down and turn your amps up some. Go a bit wider and slower so you actually penetrate rather than just layer welds on the surface. The welds shouldn't be flat, you should have to grind them flat.

Take a grinder to them with a flap disk and lets see how they look ground even with the steel. Ability is definitely there.

 

X2. I wish my welds looked that good when I first started. The best thing is you'll only get better!

 

Or you can weld some stuff together, cut it in half perpendicular to the weld and try and see how much you got. Whenever I weld I like to take a sample of the material and weld it, then try and break it with a vise and a monkey wrench or hammer. If you can stand on the end of a monkey wrench holding onto a 2"x1/4"section of flat stock butt welded to another then you'll probably be ok

 

I would second the comment about not seeing much of a heat affected zone. Welds can look great, but with no penetration, they are a ticking time bomb (speaking generally, not to your pics). I would like to see some more pics of your tire carrier and bumper.

 

Thanks Guys for the feed back! Much appreciated!

I do know that most of my welds on this project have/had a fair amount of heat stain, although you don't see it in these pics... And unfortunately this project is 95% complete now, ive already preped the carrier and bumper for paint. I was just waiting on some warmer weather to be able to thrown down some bed liner. But after some of the fee back here, I may go back, grind off a few of the welds that I am not as confident in and hit them again, as hot as I can with out blowing out.

Heres links to some more pics I took during the build... Unfortnately I didnt take a lot.

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f58/ho...20988/index22/

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f58/ho...20988/index19/

 

Depending on what I am welding I always look for the blueing. Normally it is a 1/4-1/2" away, but on some of the thicker stuff I have welded it has been as much as a 1" + away.

 

I think it looks pretty good for flux core. Some extra grinding and gas would make things a lot easier and better.