Blew a weld on a gate repair in Austin and had to redo the whole joint on site

I was out in July heat fixing a wrought iron gate and forgot to clean the rust off first, the weld popped right apart after I tapped it, and now I always wire brush twice before striking an arc, anyone else had a simple prep step bite them like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

miamitchell1mo ago

Did you not even hit it with a flap disc first? Rust is basically guaranteed to make a weld fail if you're not careful. I've had a gate hinge snap clean off because I got lazy and skipped the prep. Lesson learned the hard way for me too.

the_jana1mo ago

Lol guess I was playing rust roulette and lost.

the_ray1mo ago

Wait you just tapped it and it popped apart? That's wild, I mean I've had rust blow out on me before but not from just a little tap. Idk how you even got a bead to stick on that mess.