Are you not thinking of the ripple finish often seen with TIG welding?
All my MIG welding is done with the intention of having the smoothest weld possible, a slight visual ripple may be evident if I was weaving the weld to concentrate on penetration, for example when one of the materials was considerably thicker than the other.
That's exactly what I mean. I have been doing a smooth weld, it's been tested and is fine but one of the bosses has said he "likes the rippled look he's seen on the internet".
I said that was tig welding and explained the process but he has seen someone mig'ing back and forwards and likes it.
I would rather do smooth, tidy welds that are good.
If a rippled weld is stronger he'll go for that, if it isn't then I win and will stick with smooth welds.
Cheers
Google for "mig like tig" There are some amazing looking welds, A .chap on the american welding forum, goes by the name of ZT FAB is one of the best but it's not a technique you learn to do well overnight .
weldimgtipsandtricks has a short video about weaving and his mig weld looks a bit rippled but even after trying different settings he couldn't get the stack of dimes look you get with tig
If the dime stack is perfectly strong enough then I'll happily practice to try get something resembling it. I'm always happy to try to improve both the look and quality of my work.
Otherwise I'll just tell the boss to leave me alone till he can weld and keep doing the flat tidy welds.
Some lovely looking welds there though.
Cheers folks.
i think the closest he got was by welding a bit cold,and a big spiral type movement. I would assume this would affect the strength of the weld negatively
In some cases, thick paint is often brushed over the welds to help smooth out the appearance prior to top coating.
What is it you are welding?
As mentioned above, this can be achieved by moving back and forth or weaving, triggering on and off....
Id be running a smooth one right into the corner (fillets)without a weave on something like that.
Perhaps on an outside corner, run it a little colder with a slight weave.
Whats the chances of a few photos of some of your welds? See if hes got anything to moan about!
I did some posts a while back about the welding at work, there are some early pics on there. I'll try to find the posts.
Haha..welding has improved since then though.
I'll get some pics when I do the next load of welding.
Basically, it's lap joints and fillets. Steel ranges from 3mm up to 8 mm and 1 weld of 5mm to 12mm.
The job it's building air brake disconnection switches for power lines. I can't see why looks are important as the things are 30'in the air.
Just to keep him quiet I've had a couple of goes using a back and forward movement and it looks ok..not perfect but good enough I think, my main concern is if it loses strength as it sort of looks...
Good/not good/good/not good/good....
on each time I push back over the weld pool if you get my meaning.