Beginner Welder Mistake??

I am in the midst of building my dream brewery--Brutus clone. I am pretty green at welding and steel work, but things have been going well so far.

I am using 2x2 mild tube steel. 1/8 inch in thickness. Everything is fully welded using a Hobart MIG 140 with 75% Argon/25% CO2 shield.

Today I started grinding the welds on the top flush so not to scratch my pots. I guess I got caught up in the moment (or one too many brews) but I ended up grinding and polishing every weld on the stand. It took me a long time but it looks awesome. Now I am sitting here pondering if I did the wrong thing. I am wondering if I shouldn't have ground down most of the welds and that I may have left the joints too weak. I searched Google and HBT for info on weld strength, but everything I find doesn't seem to apply.

Everything seems sturdy but I don't want to find out otherwise midbrew.

So I am hoping for another DIYer to shed some light on issue. Should I go back and reweld some of the underneath areas or I am just being paranoid here and just enjoy the smooth bliss?

I'm not a certified welder but been welding on the farm and all that for awhile, you're fine man.

Thanks for your input

How do you feel the 140 dealt w/ 1/8 mild? I'm looking at getting a first welder, very soon. I'm drawn to the 140 to make use of the 115 outlet (and save a couple hundred bucks!), but fear I'll regret it and wish I'd gone w/ the 180.

dont worry about it, i have the same welder and did the same thing in my build... by grinding most of the weld off you definitely weaken the joint but as long as you had it hot enough and got good penetrations you should be okay for this application.

Did you bevel your tubing before welding and make sure all your metal was clean? The fact that you have to ask raises concerns. To be safer, you may want to cut apart one of your welds and see what it looks like before you assume that you are good to go. Having a few hundred pounds on there and having 8 gallons of boiling water, or more, dump because you had a bunch of welds fail might put a damper on the weekend........

sigmund said:

Did you bevel your tubing before welding and make sure all your metal was clean? The fact that you have to ask raises concerns. To be safer, you may want to cut apart one of your welds and see what it looks like before you assume that you are good to go. Having a few hundred pounds on there and having 8 gallons of boiling water, or more, dump because you had a bunch of welds fail might put a damper on the weekend........

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if the welded joints were beveled it should be ok. if you just butt the joints then you may have an issue with them cracking. you likely have less then 1/16" weld now.

I would be worried about it cracking!!

Weld together some pieces of scrap using the EXACT technique/welder settings you used for the rest of the stand. Grind down the weld just as you did the others, then do a stress test.

With .120 steel, as ling as you have good, full penetration, you should be fine.

That's the big qualifier. You don't need to bevel .120 (1/8") ... Your weld should penetrate that far.

Do what Durham said...but use flat instead of your square. Use the same thickness and do a 1" bead. Stick it in a vice and bend it back and forth until either the weld breaks or the metal fails. This is what we do when we take the AWS cert tests for light gauge welding. The metal should fail BEFORE the weld breaks. Yes, it's hard to break it... But you can do it and it will show the quality of your weld...

And it's far better to find out how good/bad you can weld on THAT than on something holding 15x8lbs=120lbs x3 kettles =360lbs of scalding water...

You could try hitting the weakest looking joint with a 5lb hammer. If it cracks, the welds are suspect. If not, you have a reason to gain confidence in your work.

sigmund said:

Did you bevel your tubing before welding and make sure all your metal was clean? The fact that you have to ask raises concerns. To be safer, you may want to cut apart one of your welds and see what it looks like before you assume that you are good to go. Having a few hundred pounds on there and having 8 gallons of boiling water, or more, dump because you had a bunch of welds fail might put a damper on the weekend........

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I did not bevel prior to welding, but the metal was clean and I believe i did have good heat distribution. I did my own stress yesterday . I stood on each beam that will hold my kettle and jumped up and down on it without any problem. I'm a good 188 and I imagine with the jumping I was able to generate a good amount of force . If the weld did fail it would be proceeded by cracking first Before an all out failure right ? I will keep an eye on that and reweld some of the areas underneath.

chuckjaxfl said:

How do you feel the 140 dealt w/ 1/8 mild? I'm looking at getting a first welder, very soon. I'm drawn to the 140 to make use of the 115 outlet (and save a couple hundred bucks!), but fear I'll regret it and wish I'd gone w/ the 180.

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I thought the 140 was awesome

I used 1.25 sq. tube with 1/8" wall.

I ground all the welds.

Some weld joints are even in a cantilevered area.

I have not had any problems in many years.

Like someone said, hit it with a hammer, or test one of your welds on some scrap after grinding it.

As others have said, penetration is key and that's something we can't know. If you have your welder set up to give you penetration for what you're welding, you'll be fine. If you didn't have it set up right and your welds didn't penetrate well, then you have a potentially dangerous situation.

If you've made your welds all the way around I wouldn't worry at all. A weld on one side with the load on the opposing side would create a stress fracture, but for your needs and loads during a brew small mig welds will hold up fine. Just remember to get them properly painted to prevent corrosion.

Durhamite said:

Weld together some pieces of scrap using the EXACT technique/welder settings you used for the rest of the stand. Grind down the weld just as you did the others, then do a stress test.

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+1, this is your best bet. Let's say at extream you have 10 gal in the hlt, 10 in the mash, and 10 in the boil and 30 lbs grain, 50 lbs in equip.... That is less than 350 lbs.... I would think good tack welfare would hold that

I would second welding a small piece of steel to test. The 140 needs to be cranked up to get good penetration. I used to have a 110v mig and it was ok on light steel. Then I moved to a 180 and its much easier to work with. One trick I used with the little mig was that I preheated the steel with a torch and it would weld like a champ.

LovesIPA said:

As others have said, penetration is key and that's something we can't know. If you have your welder set up to give you penetration for what you're welding, you'll be fine.

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Don't be fooled by that statement, it ain't so. Just because you have the welder set to the correct heat settings, it doesn't assure anything other than the welder is set up right. Getting proper penatration in your welds takes welder settings, metal condition and preparation, proper speed and more.

How about a picture, for funsies?

sigmund said:

Don't be fooled by that statement, it ain't so. Just because you have the welder set to the correct heat settings, it doesn't assure anything other than the welder is set up right. Getting proper penatration in your welds takes welder settings, metal condition and preparation, proper speed and more.

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This is true, I should have gone into more detail.