Quote Originally Posted by gta_spec View Post
there are lots of guys that can make a weld look great on top with little to no penetration.
Yep. We are constantly building custom tools at work. We have guys who's welds look OK but wont hold up under use. My welds look like junk but the stuff I've built has held up to hard use and a thousand foot pounds of torque or more.

If you need any small pieces of scrap metal to practice on shoot me a PM and I can probably hook you up.