3/16" Welds - What do you think?

[Brian2015]

So I'm not a pro welder or anything, but I think I do ok. I will be welding my upper suspension link tabs to my axle housing soon so I wanted to do a few practice runs with 3/16" plate and experiment with different settings since I haven't had my welder too long. I thought I'd post a few pictures of my weeds and get your opinions. So let me know what you think and which ones you think are the better welds. I have my ideas, but I want to see what the experienced welders say....
149727149728149729149730

Thanks!!

Brian

[cornfedbill]

It is not always easy to tell how good the welds have penetrated the base metal. The best way to know is to cut perpendicular to the weld and to look at the penetration.

They look pretty decent from the outside.

[protouringrscamaro]

I think your last pic looks pretty good. Try putting a little weave in your weld, zipping back and forth out to the toes of the weld. They say it doesn't give you as much root penetration but every robot ive worked with does it, and much of the welds strength comes from good fusion and the shape of the weld toes, plus it looks great. Not speaking for a 3/16 but my ideal scenario for fillets over 5/16 is to stringer the smallest root I can and then weave my cap pass both of which with the part at a 45 degree angle. Without knowing what machine your using... when you get into larger welds stringering multi pass welds is the way to go with many of the smaller machines as most don't like carrying a lot of weld volume in a single pass. Remember penetration comes from wire speed not voltage pay close attention to where the wire is burning off in relation to your weld joint you want the force of your wire to push the molten metal in the joint. Your splatter is a good indicator of this as it will get worse once you start pushing 2 much wire.

[the dan]

Are you a leftie?

[chevelletiger]

Don T be to concerned with the appearance an much as the back side of that plate.
You should see the where the weld penetrated on the base metal.
As a beginner,don't be to concerned with 'The Stack of Dimes'
You need to burn it in more.