I think the drag rod weld is a better weld for a couple of reasons: Less
weld (and less heat) and more uniform. The uniformity comes from not
having to maninuplate the rod. The smaller weld comes from being forced
to run donw the weld line much faster. Your first weld would look the
same if you had the practice and dexterity to get a clean weld. As it
is, you are spending a lot of weld puddle time pasting weld all over the
place.

Drag rod technique is OK to get the idea but it does not work with all
rod types. Try to learn to manipulate the rod to do the same thing.

Christopher Tidy wrote:

Don Foreman wrote:

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 03:59:50 GMT, Ignoramus5361
wrote:

From a person 100% ignorant about welding, I must say that your welds


look extremely nice. I would try cutting your piece with a chop saw
to analyze penetration of the weld. Picture
http://www.mythic-beasts.com/~cdt22/fillet5.jpg

makes me wonder just how deep the penetration really was. Depth of
penetration seems to be important in more than just one human
endeavour!

i



I think that depth of penetration is far less important than it is
often made out to be. What is important is fused area.
If you welded the end of a rod to a block of steel, would you feel
that the fused region should go halfway down the length of the rod to
be sound? (Of course you wouldn't!)
Width of well-fused area does have some correlation with penetration
with single-pass welds, because puddles are not flat.

However, strength does depend on where metal is located relative to
load moments. Penetration could be important in a filet weld if
welded only on one side, to resist bending moment and avoid stress
concentration. You do want weld metal in regions where the
cross-section will be in tension under load, however it gets placed
there. The simple guidline is therefore that significant
penetration is necessary to have a strong weld. But it depends on the
joint design and how the joint will be loaded.


I think the penetration is better than it looks in that end-on photo
because I stopped welding just before I reached the end of the seam (in
the past I've managed to blow ugly holes in the metal at the end of a
seam).

Out of curiousity, which of my fillets do people think would be
stronger? Here are the pictures again:

http://www.mythic-beasts.com/~cdt22/fillet1.jpg
http://www.mythic-beasts.com/~cdt22/fillet2.jpg

The first was made using RoyJ's suggested technique and the second by
dragging the rod. The first is about twice as wide as the second, and is
concave rather than convex. Instinctively I would guess that the first
is stronger because (i) there's more metal in the weld, and (ii) the
radius of curvature is much larger and therefore the stress
concentrations should be less severe. However, the heat affected zone
around the first weld is also larger, which might weaken it. What do
people think? I'd be interested to hear.

Chris