Problem with mig welding heavy equipment

[Bls repair]

Had to repair bad mig weld on a brush mower.

[Bls repair]

The cleanups

[Bls repair]

The welding

[Bls repair]

The welding

[G-ManBart]

Wow....those pealed back like a grape! I'm often amazed at how light many quick attach plates are...way lighter material than I would use if I was making one.

[BD1]

Nice repair. Pretty sad seeing factory welds that bad.
I had the samething on a rear backblade.
Cold MIG weld and no penetration. Weld stuck to oneside.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bls repair]

5/16 steel plate . Silicon caulk probably would’ve stuck better

[geezer]

I had a similar repair on a loader mounted to a Deutz. The loader mounting brackets peeled back at the weld, evident lack of penetration. After prep we opt to stick, thats been about 6 years ago and it is still holding. I had a couple of pics but cant find them. My guess is your back in business better than new. Thanks for posting.

[idacal]

I weld most shop things with mig but if it absolutely can't leak the first time, or is going to take a beating with minimal area to add material out comes the stick. i think it has more to do with the way I learned rather than ones better or worse than the other.
for me I just have better control of the puddle. the young man working for me absolutely the opposite does an incredible job but he knows how to set up the mig. which is a science on its own

[smithdoor]

Looks great and big profits too.
There is no JB Weld to clean off I like charger for that too.

Remember when looking at the job, do not smile bite your tongue it helps sales.

It looks like solid wire low cost manufacturers love the solid wire. But repair industry enjoy the extra work.
That is why in my shop we never used solid wire

Dave

Had to repair bad mig weld on a brush mower.

[Mikel_24]

I don't think the problem is the MIG welding itself, but the wrong welding parameters. If that weld had been made in Spray transfer, I think it would be fine. Even with thick enough wire and shortcircuit (hot) it could work.

The problem with MIG is that you can make a pretty bead with ZERO penetration. But that's not the MIG's fault!

Great save by the way!

Mikel

[Munkul]

I don't think the problem is the MIG welding itself, but the wrong welding parameters. If that weld had been made in Spray transfer, I think it would be fine. Even with thick enough wire and shortcircuit (hot) it could work.

The problem with MIG is that you can make a pretty bead with ZERO penetration. But that's not the MIG's fault!

Great save by the way!

Mikel

I agree. Nothing wrong with solid wire, just the procedure and/or weld quality control. We see some of these failures over here too. Always on factory produced equipment, where the actual weldor is probably poorly paid, and has been tweaking settings without knowing how he's compromising the weld.

A properly set MAG spray transfer would have burned that in beautifully.

[William McCormick]

On long runs of disimilar thickness or heat sinked metal what happens is the difference in expansion and shrinkage between the two pieces of metal is different. I saw what could only be considered a perfect weld on an aluminum davot for a boat, do that upon cooling, it was loud and pretty unbelievable. But one piece was cooling off much faster than the other and caused the weld to just tear and pop the whole way down. If you can preheat and let her cool down slowly it seems ok and holds. My thoughts where what about on a really cold day, what might happen.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[Munkul]

I'm not disputing your example William, but in this case if it was down to weld restraint and expansion/contraction, then it would have failed either in the centre of the weld if the weld had lower yield than parent, or in the heat affected zone. You'd get a pronounced longitudinal crack with slight steps in it where the metal has microcracked at different intervals.
You can clearly see in the above pictures that the failure is in straight lines right along the weld bead edges, and left a clean line on the parent material. So this occured due to lack of fusion, both to parent material, and also between runs.

Lack of fusion with MIG is generally down to settings, or if the amps are marginal, then poor technique. But for mass production, it's a set up problem.

[CrookedRoads]

[/QUOTE]

The end plates are the most important part of these type of brackets, just look at the photo.

[thegary]

There is nothing at all wrong with mig hard wire. The above is a perfect example of cold lap and is caused by poor setup by the person doing the welding. If you know how to read a weld puddle this problem is very easy to see. The problem is many mig operators do not know what they are seeing. Cold lap is very hard to find after the fact and is why it is so dangerous. As far as spray transfer , it is only for flat position and if the part is on a jig and can be quickly rotated it would be good but in the real world spray mode is not really the answer for production welding parts as shown. This is 100% weld operator failure. IMHO all the welds on this part should be redone , it is the only way to be sure the next weakest weld will not fail.

[smithdoor]

It is a operator error
But the problem is a cold Mig weld looks good.

If you are doing cold weld you may need to redo at your cost.

Now if you weld shop having to redo a manufacturer's cold weld it great for your profits.

Let's hope it not on building you own.

Dave

There is nothing at all wrong with mig hard wire. The above is a perfect example of cold lap and is caused by poor setup by the person doing the welding. If you know how to read a weld puddle this problem is very easy to see. The problem is many mig operators do not know what they are seeing. Cold lap is very hard to find after the fact and is why it is so dangerous. As far as spray transfer , it is only for flat position and if the part is on a jig and can be quickly rotated it would be good but in the real world spray mode is not really the answer for production welding parts as shown. This is 100% weld operator failure. IMHO all the welds on this part should be redone , it is the only way to be sure the next weakest weld will not fail.

[Bls repair]

There is a 5/16 plate between the two welds

[BillE.Dee]

from what i'm seeing with my old eyes is the mounting bracket for the hog is carrying all of the weight of attachment. That weight is amplified at the mount by the attachment hanging out front. I also got a few bucks that says the operator was running top speed over some awesome terrain. The goober shows no fusion at all and is most likely the primary point of failure. the weld was just sittin there lookin purty.

[Bls repair]

Exactly,now we’ll see what goes next . My money is on bucket cylinders. I suggested running some support from front to boom arms for road travel

[smithdoor]

Looks great
It bring more great work

Dave

Exactly,now we’ll see what goes next . My money is on bucket cylinders. I suggested running some support from front to boom arms for road travel

[William McCormick]

I'm not disputing your example William, but in this case if it was down to weld restraint and expansion/contraction, then it would have failed either in the centre of the weld if the weld had lower yield than parent, or in the heat affected zone. You'd get a pronounced longitudinal crack with slight steps in it where the metal has microcracked at different intervals.
You can clearly see in the above pictures that the failure is in straight lines right along the weld bead edges, and left a clean line on the parent material. So this occured due to lack of fusion, both to parent material, and also between runs.

Lack of fusion with MIG is generally down to settings, or if the amps are marginal, then poor technique. But for mass production, it's a set up problem.

I see that cold start with MIG and Stick all the time. But who is going to do a run in tab today? I used to MIG weld large buckets and the only way to do it was to preheat them. When you got done the whole area was glowing red hot. Anything less and it was a crack waiting to happen. I found that if you go through the trouble to MIG correctly on critical things you may as well set up automated TIG with a camera.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[Popeye an old miner]

Dayum, that weld looks awful pretty just settin there doin nothin. It looks like it might be a robot weld? I dont have much experience in manufacturing stuff like this but I have fixed a lot of stuff like this over the years and most of it looks just like this, beautiful weld like a robot done it and it falls apart with no penetration at all. To repair it I do just what you done here and use stick or a wire feeder with self shielded flux core. Another good job done by someone knows what the score is

[Bls repair]

Thanks

[Popeye an old miner]

I see that cold start with MIG and Stick all the time. But who is going to do a run in tab today? I used to MIG weld large buckets and the only way to do it was to preheat them. When you got done the whole area was glowing red hot. Anything less and it was a crack waiting to happen. I found that if you go through the trouble to MIG correctly on critical things you may as well set up automated TIG with a camera.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

I use run run off and run on tabs all the time, i found out a long time ago in a galaxy far far away that is the best way to go, you dont get a bunch of slag at the end of the weld where most cracks start to open up. Preheat is a must especially so if what your weldin is AR plate, and most of what I do is AR plate. As far as MIG goes, if what you are calling MIG is hard wire MIG we dont use it on this stuff. It wont hold up on AR plate with the abuse these draglines, face shovels, excavators and dozers are put through on a daily basis. All of my work is outside and we always have wind in these hills and mountains and it just blows the gas away, I use Innershield for all of it, most of the other fellas use some sort of Dual Shield wire and still have troubles with that. While these guys are grinding out swiss cheese and fussing with their windscreens Im just happily welding along. Some of them that work with me are now starting to try out this Innershield and now know why I use it