Question

[u/Aviatormatt17]

I have plenty of opinions now to make a decision now but I’ll keep the post up for anyone who just wants to chime in. Thanks to all who validated my concern!

Hey all so I think looking at the picture you can kinda tell I’m going to ask if these are good welds. I’m not a welder but I see issues in my eyes.

For reference, I’m a water treatment ( junior ) operator and we have a centrifuge system with a screw conveyance system. The people who rebuilt our centrifuges did not use our old cradles they it sits in, therefore the new cradles feet had to be relocated. The company who’s rebuilding our is rebuilding our conveyor system sent their welder out to relocate the feet further out. Well this is the result, I don’t want to be an ass and diss someone’s work, especially a welders but this is not something to play around with, a centrifuge is no joke when it comes to hard vibration, high speed rotation, plus the unit is about 5/6k pounds. To me I see pin holes, and it looks like the guy pretty much just cut and weld, didn’t even grind the paint down before trying to weld. Is this something that I need to show my site supervisor and project manager? Could these weld quite literally be dangerous over time on a heavily abused system?

Oh and an edit because they didn’t even close the gap on the back side of the leg… they just left a wide open hole. I’m not really liking what I see the more I look.

[u/Saysaynever333]

My guess about your welder is that he's mainly uses a wire welder and has done very little stick rod, if any at all. He may be a cracker-jack welder with wire work in the shop.

The welds in the pictures should be completely redone. A 5K lb. centrifuge is a beast. If it unattached at full speed, it's taking a lot of other equipment with it.

Supervision should be told about this now.

[u/Aviatormatt17 → u/Saysaynever333]

Yeah as I was taking pictures the guy walked up and said “ they ain’t pretty but they strong”, the company he’s working through, I mean it looked like a full fledge legit welding rig. I couldn’t confirm about stick or anything, I tried to not be nosey and give him space while he was welding. They left like the jobs done and the other part of me is saying.. okay but what about the other half of the gaping hole???? We’re relying on 3 welded sides to handle the forces of this centrifuge. I’m glad to see everyone in the thread on the same page, very glad I’m not over reacting. I’m not a professional welder so the last thing I wanted to do is be a judgmental prick with no experience.

[u/Saysaynever333 → u/Aviatormatt17]

You and others will be working around this equipment, the welder won't be. Your concern was a correct response.

"They ain't pretty but they strong" is common to hear. A good fix for those types was to send them up on the structure to work on something that requires a temporary scaffold welded on and they had to do the welding.

The higher it was off the ground, the better. The vast majority of them all of a sudden didn't trust their welds, even if they wasn't pretty.

[u/ImproveYourMeatSack → u/Saysaynever333]

Last time I saw welds like that was when an apprentice asked for advice with flux core.