Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Grind Your Welds With Pride, If That's The Way You Do It
To grind or not to grind? What a question! It all depends on what you’re really trying to show, and in the case of welded joints, I often want to prove the integrity of the weld.
Recently, I wrote a piece in which I talked about my cheap inverter welder and others like it. As part of it I did a lower-current weld on a piece of thin tube and before snapping a picture of the weld I ground it back flat. It turns out that some people prefer to see a picture of the weld bead instead — the neatness of the external appearance of the weld — to allow judgment on its quality. Oddly I believe the exact opposite, that the quality of my weld can only be judged by a closer look inside it, and it’s this point I’d like to explore.
So dear soylentils, do you even weld and if you do, do you grind your welds?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by paul_engr on Wednesday October 23 2019, @07:04PM (2 children)
It depends on what the project is. I am a bicycle fabricator, all chromoly TIG, and I never grind welds on frames. Aside form being completely impractical, there isn't enough stock tube to really grind in the first place.
On bigger fabrication projects, like automotive stuff, I have been known to grind stuff and I enjoy it. I'm talking about hack work like cutting brackets in half and blending the seam to make it look like nothing was ever done. There is an aesthetic target there, and it is hide the work so only people who pick up on something being non-stock will appreciate it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 23 2019, @07:08PM (1 child)
Pulse welding can part-disguise the unsightly buildups I guess?
(Score: 1) by paul_engr on Wednesday October 23 2019, @09:33PM
Weld beads are beautiful, usually. Well, some people make beautiful tig beads. I am a passable welder most of the time and will have fleeting moments of skilled bead laying