Professional quality welds?!? A warning to all

We took a car in trade at work awhile back. This was a PROFESSIONALLY BUILT '55 T-bird kit made by Classic Roadsters. It had been rear ended and needed a new rear body shell and new door skins. We got the door skins off, and this is what we found. The welds were horrid. I used to teach welding. My first week wenders could do a better job than this. Very little penitration, lots of overhang, and just plain sloppy overall. We found it exactly as you see it, unpainted with half ground welds. Had this car been T-boned instead of rear ended, we would probably be cleaning up more than just cracked fiberglass... Take this as a lesson and a warning, just because something comes out of a "professional" shop, don't assume the quality is there. If you don't work on your own stuff, pick your builders carefully. A shoddy paint job is one thing, shoddy work on safety equipment is something entirely different.

 

There are a lot of professional shops around that do that kind of work.


-Jason

 

wtf. as a certified welder i'd have to say that's pretty sad work. the technicalities ofwelding can be difficult for some but those jerks don't even have a straight bead. i guess its hard to find people that care about what they're doing. i can't tell you how many times i've ground out and replaced broken welds made by individuals who supposedly had years of experience. as a mechanic in iraq i had to teach our welder what the hell he was doing and y'now what we got home and now he's a welder in the active army and probably still not caring about what the hell he's doing. as far as i'm concerned welding is as much of an art as painting the friggin mona lisa, you can't be good unless you want it. but no one cares.

 

True, true. Hell half of these guys you see on TV, can't do much better either!

 

hahahaha

 

and i thought i was'nt that good of welder but i could sure as shit take that guys job

 

Hey Bugman! Good to see a fellow 55 Ply guy's ugly mug on the Hamb! LOL!!

 

mine used to look like that...they arent much better now but i am trying and getting improvement at every step...... gotta agree with truck rat about welding being an art form . and i think that you should at least try to do good work. this frame looks like the first 2 pieces of steel i ever welded and the guy who did it is actually doing it for a living on a car for sale to the public.wtf

 

My mug may be ugly, but it keeps my coffee from spilling in the car

 

Wow what the fuck bubble gum welds that blows.

 

Yeah, but they look really cool with their sleeveless shop shirts and goatees.

 

And spot welding with no face shield WTF.

 

I always chuckle when people think if they own a welder, they are a welder. The fact that amateurs build frames and weld suspension components scares the hell out of me sometimes.
I have seen high profile rod builders welds and they look like shit. Self taught my ass. If I could give one tidbit of advice to a rod builder or hobbyist that wants to weld is read a book, It's all in the book, lead angles, amperages, filler metal selection, which process is best suited for the application etc. Once you know the basics you can practice correctly and master the craft. Kinda like waxxa on and waxxa off. As far as the welds pictured that guy has no respect for the craft, the car, or himself.

 

I've seen that first hand...

 

professional just means that someone was dumb enough to pay them to do it, doesn't mean they have to be good at it, sad as that is.

 

Yet anther example of "out of site out of mind"........just sad......I'm no welder and my welds prove it, but that crap on a "PRO JOB"?......

Was it take the blind intern to the shop day?

 

i say if u got a couple weeks and a couple hundred take a course...i just finished a 3 week course 3hrs two times a week on oxy/act...great for learning...they teach you all the RIGHT safety rules and how to make a really nice weld...best 325CDN$ i ever spent...now i think ill take a mig and tig course so i can make a SAFE chassis!
Talky

 

saw a guy baga truck for this fool, "body dropped" it too. had the customer buy him a welder (flux core) and "filled" all gaps. it was the grossest thing i had ever seen. the guy payed a couple grand for it too. one of those late 80's chevy... what was he thinking...

 

HA HA HA. Lets not get started on top chopping, metal work and putting body filler all over it!!!

Thats what kills me about "professional shops"!


-Jason

 

I'm glag you got to see that crap!Welcome to the real world, away from the classes to probably gave real instructions to. In my little shop 90% of the work I do is redoing other peoples welds! There is a lot of crap welds going on out there. A lot of people blame the crap welds on stuff made in china, but the truth is much of it comes from the good old USA.

Several years ago I took a welding class at our local college. The total instruction time took about an hour. Most of that was safety proceedures (the fire extingusher is over here, and the first aid kit is here. This is the number for the fire department! This switch turns the welder on and off.) The rest of the 6 week course was "go out and weld, if you need anything, I'll be working on my project, just come and get me." Good thing the guys at the factory I worked at showed me the way to weld, cause I sure didn't learn it at class. The sad part was that instructor just retired after 20 years, just last year. I think I was in one of his first classes. Judging from some of the welding that has been done locally, I think most the area welders had taken his classes, and they were tought the same way as mine was.
Gene

 

those are some really fugly welds, but all things considered, it's probably still stronger than most of the kit/replica cars of the time, you're more likely to find some pine, or if you're lucky some actual hardwood glassed in than a steel tube frame.

what do the rest of the visible welds look like?

 

nothin like a lil booger to hold a few pieces of metal together, i'd grind it out and hit it again just for the saftey aspect

 

I know a guy tah just spent enough for a large house on a Boyd car, got it here and its a POS, not even up to scratch compared to average rods running around over here!

 

Sad part is that shops like that seem to thrive because they care less of the aftermath, where guys like me spend too much time detailing and we are considered "slow". Quality takes time. I was always taught "if you don't have time to do it right, then when are you going to have time to come back and do it. A buddies dad had a 32 roadster built by "so-what". The guy basicly spends his kids inheritence. He leaves the shop on a fresh build. Two miles later, the radiator hits the bottom of the fan. Seems someone forgot to instal the two bolts to the crossmember. He calls "so-what" and they tell him "sorry about that, of course we will fix it". Hey mistakes happen, I guess. Six weeks later he was handed ANOTHER $2800 bill for the work.

 

This hits home for me.

This past spring I welded in a 1985 Dodge Diplomat front K-member into my '53 F-100 (commonly known as a volare clip). I'm not the greatest weldor, but I "knew" I had good penetration,etc.

Anyways, this past weekend, I was grinding the welds down, and wow. I mean, some spots were fine, but boy howdy, there were a bunch of areas with ZERO penetration. That really scared me. Anyways, I'm grinding everything down, and going to re-weld it all...

When I started the project, I had done quite a bit of misc welding, but now after doing a bunch of body work, and bracket fabrication, along with getting an auto-darkening helmet, I'm a MUCH better weldor than I was.

Ben

 

WORD!
I can't count how many guys I know right now that own welders for their "Hobby". And they all bring their shit over to my shop for me to weld after they saw me weld or saw my work.
Then while I'm welding their stuff I toss them a hood and make'em watch. Blows their minds apparently. Then I aways ask this question "What kinda setup you got again?" Guess what comes out in the 1st sentence???? Flux-core!!! Fucking flux-core, I can't even weld with that shit without it looking like a flock of pigeons crapped all over it. I seriously think fluxcore mig wire should be outlawed to sell. It has it's place, but all too often a beginner goes the cheaper route, thinking that he'll get the same results without having to pony up for a regulator, bottle, and refills.

BTW those welds and that work that started this thread are bullshit!! That is horrible. I feel for the guy that got raped by that shop.

 

True, true. How d'ya think I became a professional mechanic?

Seriously, head of nail meets BFH.

I can understand not being able to do some things very well. I can understand that very well, in fact... But I can't understand not knowing that what I'm doing is not turning out very well.

Oh well.

-bill

 

Reminds me of something I learned in the Boy Scouts - "if you can't tie the right knot, tie a bunch of wrong ones......"

 

Over the years interviewing prospective employees . I am continually dumbfounded at how many "professional " body or frame techs are unable to describe the proper procedure for setting up a welder , recognize when a weld has proper penetration, ect. Hell 80% cant even tell you the different types of welding. The best thing that has happened for the auto industry was the introduction of I-CAR's welding class and certification test.


The most important things to know about welding is how to set up and adjust the equipment , prepare the materials for the process,do a test weld on similar scrap material, check the penetration, if necessary readjust to proper settings and check til correct setting is determined, start the job.

Larry

 

The best thing I did when teaching my wife (The Flower) to weld was to tear apart practice welds to show her what proper penetration and flow looks like. Now that she has been welding for a few years I'd put her welds up against anyone's work, it's all in learning the basics correctly. Re-doing someones shitty welding takes alot more time than it would have to do it right in the first place. I guess this is why I cringe when I hear somone bragging....."yeah, I just bought a welder at Lowes and I'm gonna weld up a hot rod myself!"