Critique my welding please

[Mtn.man]

Yup too fast, looks like a layby in spots. also crank up the heat.

It's a gas shielded weld splatter is from lack of penetration and speed. Also can be from wire type.

[redneck122]

Everyone else has said it. Looks decent, a tad cold and fast though.

[OtterbatHellcat]

It doesn't look terrible. The V is from traveling to fast. Slow your travel speed down until you have a nice crecent shape. Oscillation ( the C pattern) is used to wash the filler medal into both pieces. It helps for undercut and cold roll. Try turning down your wire speed to clean up the excessive spatter as well. Looking at your weld you can see where you started your bead it is thicker then thins out in the first quarter inch, that is where you sped up your travel speed. Also try grinding off the mill scale on your pieces and that will help improve weld quality. If you have any more questions feel free to ask, this is what I do for a living.

FWIW, I thought this post best represented an answer to your question, though many answers had really solid info. Welding is not my profession, but I've done a lot of mig. I think the penetration is a little weak. JMO

Keep on creating, learning and have fun while you're doing it.

[Duman]

Aw, hell, it's a crap load better than my Helen-Keller welds.....

[mcantar18c]

Slowed down some, and turned up my parameters. These were done around 29V and and low to mid 400 on the wire, ish.
Few things I want to state before yall look too close...
1. This is spray MIG, not short circuit. There isn't going to be a nice dime stack.
2. The thing that looks like a hole on the right of the first weld, isn't. It's just silicate, I checked... like three times.
3. The second weld does penetrate the top plate as much as the bottom, you just can't see it from the side pic because the plate sticks out past the weld.

So... where can I improve?

[OtterbatHellcat]

Howdy Mcantar,

(Disclaimer...I'm not a welding professional with certified credentials, or even ones from a box of Cracker Jacks)

Is 1, 2, and 3 mating 1/4 to 1/2 or similar? I would want to use more heat and get into that 1/2 better, and try and draw it down into the smaller plate.

4,5, and 6 look good, and still seem to have more fill than penetration, to me.

Keep messing with stuff and learning, Man. And good job. It also takes some cojones to put it up in front of the world for review, and I respect that as well.

[mcantar18c]

Yeah, the top 3 are 1/4" to 1/2" or so.
How much more would you push into the 1/2"? The joint is only as strong as it's thinnest component... the 1/4" plate will fail before the weld does.

Thanks for the compliments!

[OtterbatHellcat]

IMO...if you had higher heat/ less wire(at least no more wire), and spent more time "into" the 1/2.....you could draw (puddle) it down into the 1/4. Mating mismatched thickness makes it a little more challenging.

I've seen some broken/crashed shit that you'd never thought would be broken, and you'd be surprised what broke, how, and where.

ETA. I know there are much more skilled welders here than I am, and they might not agree with my opinion.

[Big John]

#5 is the pic that's bugging me. I've never used a spray MIG, but the weld looks cold to me. Prep is huge IMO for MIG. Grind the mill scale off to start with. Bevel the end of the piece you're standing up.

Out of curiosity, why did you get a spray MIG? It's not the typical homeowner MIG. I've got miles upon miles of wire behind me doing custom off road fabrication and it's my understanding that the spray setup is for heavy welding.

[COcz]

You said that you were using a spray/pulse welder? Have you tried pulse? That is what I would use on the 1/2 to 1/4 weld.
those welds look much better than most amature welds I see at work, including mine some days. As many others said the prep work is half of a good weld. Try several different motions with the gun and see what works best for you. How to set up the welder often comes down to your style and rate of travel, so experiment.