Some advice about weld colour?

[BeArDy]

Been TIG welding a while now.
I am happy with my welds as an overall but looking at some of the long term pros they are getting alot of blue colours in there welds, mine always come out gold'ish then maybe the end is blue as i gas off?
Now I know its not all about the colour but your know customers they love shiny stuff.
Can someone tell me why i never seam to get an overall colourful weld?
I have played with gas flow, trying keeping the weld cold, slowing down, speeding up etc

 

[hotrodder]

Gold is 'better' than blues, heat tint colours for stainless begin with straw/gold then darker through browns, purplish/salmon then blues then grey. Don't forget material thickness/mass of the part plays a role in that it's a lot easier to get 'good colour' (even no colour/silver) on thick stuff than it is on thin/small stuff.

Pickling paste etc can fix dull welds/restore a chromium rich surface but it can't fix LOF defects from putting weld colour above all else

ETA personally i normally brush 'good' colours off even if it's something that's gonna see hi temps (i.e. it doesn't matter anyway) because it just looks more finished to me. Customers that been 'educated' by car forums bug the crap out of me with their 'colour is the tell tale of a good weld' nonsense

 

[BeArDy]

You know the Car Customers aslong as its pretty then its better even if the weld crack in time. Alot of my welds are no colour/silver.
Like i say i am happy with how my welds look, how they perform etc just i look at alot of other people welds on this type of thing an they get more colour an was very interested in why.
I have a big old girl welder and always put it down to people doing a second pass with pulse settings.
Always good to learn.

 

[biffa]

In the ideal world all our welds would be silver/straw colour, however as the metal heats up once the argon shield is lost the surface will react with the oxygen and create the colour, as your runs are quite short you are able to maintain the full gas coverage keeping the straw colour, but when your doing the longer runs you aren't able to maintain the gas coverage. And you get those blues greys etc, here a link with the colours and temps
http://www.bssa.org.uk/topics.php?article=140

 

[Mid Wales welder]

A pic of some different coloured welds after turning the gas down on each run.