[PetefromTn]

Hey guys,
I run a small fab shop from my home here in East Tennessee. I have a nice L-tec tig unit and recently I picked up a neat project from a customer to build a brew table. It is made from square hot rolled tube and I am occasionally getting some welds that appear to be flatter than I'd like with a kind of crystal shaped pattern on top of the welds. When I wire wheel them they look okay but I am concerned about this. The rest of the welds look pretty good but do any of you have any idea why I am getting this look? I am running argon with a 1.5% lanthanated 3/32 electrode and a basic torch shield/ceramic. I started out getting real nice looking welds but some of these joints where the tubing is radiused on the edges needs to be mated to the flat portion of an adjoining piece I gotta put a little more rod in there and it seems like I get this more in these spots than anything else. Do you have any idea what I am doing wrong here?

Anyways, I have really enjoyed the videos from Welding Tips and Tricks and have learned tons from them. I wish to thank you for kindly making them and more importantly making them easy to understand for guys like me. Nice to meet all of you...peace

Pete

[jpence38]

At times, hot rolled steel can have an excess amount of mill scale on it but is hard to tell. With a flare bevel groove weld you are melting more of the base metal than usual and the mill scale may be giving you the trouble. Try grinding down to fresh base metal before making those welds. Also check your shielding gas coverage. Hope that helps.
Is the only time you get that result when you are making a flare bevel groove weld??