weldporn: the beautiful and the ugly
 

Instagram
compare a proper weld with penetration and one of gobbed on filler rod with no penetration.

Battery and a coathanger?! To be fair, the "good" welds appear to be TIG. But no contest!

Check out the "Incredible Welds" thread on the HAMB sometime. Incredible welds - THE H.A.M.B.

If the welds look that bad why keep making more bad welds? Wouldn't it be obvious that something is just not right?

I guess that maybe one can tell unwholesome and unsafe welds from an Internet photo. :-roll. :-X15

There are welders then there are grinders. I am a grinder my welds may be ugly but I have never had one break

I find men and welding are like criticising men's driving,oil selection and navigation skills. Nobody does it better, everybody is THE expert, and they won't have a bad word said about it, let alone accept criticism, positive or not! Generally, like!

EEEEWW.I welded like that when I was first learning.I'm not as good as the good as the good welds yet. Someday.

Nobody seems to display their bad TIG welds , but then who wants to show off a hole in a peice of steel !

All I see is an ad for Instagram...whatever that is.

the number of internet experts on welding is amazing. Ask any of them to see their cetification and listen to the crickets.

:-blah :-blah :-blah

in the case of welding, a picture is basically meaningless.

sonic testing, pressure testing, etc...

Cut the weld in half and inspect it.

strength test it.

Show the data.

But a picture... worthless.

my experience with a pipeline welding crew was that some of the ugliest welds were the strongest.

Baptism by drowning
 

I had a client that wanted some Arbors so I came up with this and she said " I ll take three. Plus I would like some gates made too"
http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/...psd1c61390.jpg
I used this hot pierced bars . If you look real close you can see that the bars in the add are only welded on the sides. Not at where they pierce each other.?
http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/...ps499dc94f.jpg
I make up a sample and show the owners . The husband was partners/owners for a big tool box / truck box / job box compony( knaack / weather guard) he said that was great but that he would like all the holes filled with weld!
So I welded and welded and .....by the time I was done . I could weld OK.
Three years later he asked me to do his deck rails the same way. All 37 sections.
http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2148047b.jpg
http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4e44c519.jpg
O yea this was my first welding job ever.

Visual inspection of welds is THE primary weld quality control method, take a look at AWS literature, ASME Sections, etc. Not every "ugly" weld is bad, not every pretty weld is good, but some welds can easily be rejected or flagged for NDT based on a visual inspection - or a picture on the internet - if you know what to look for.

The picture caption indicates these were two pipes made for the same customer. The ugly one was done first by someone who's price was 1/2 the quote of the second fabricator. He got what he paid for. I think even Stevie wonder could pick out the good weld. I suppose an ugly weld may be a (structurally) satisfactory weld, but the odds are against it. A welder doesn't have to be certified to make a good weld. Most welds even critical ones like roll bars, race chassis etc are visually inspected. Would hardly be practical to cut cross sections out of or even X ray every weld on a NASCAR or Indy car chassis. :-hair :-roll
This is but a small section of my good friend Mike Janis's US Nationals winning Pro Mod chassis under construction : https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...size=960%2C717
When the chassis was certified by NHRA the welds were visually inspected. And no, there isn't an ugly weld anywhere.

Even if the "bad welds" had good penetration, I wouldn't want them on my truck. They are truly UUUUUgggggyyyyyy!

I really suspect that we are looking at bad welds "on purpose" in that instagram example. I would think that anybody with half a brain would have figured out something wasn't quite right with those welds looong before they spent all that time doing popcorn welds.