Hilariously Botched Welding Job

I have a BLM Accessories fuel cell on my FJR. It's a wonderful unit. Unfortunately, one of the mounting brackets had a weld fail. The bracket attaches to the frame via two bolts on each side, and one of the bolts was missing. Probably it's my own fault for not tightening it properly when I installed it, or for not checking it any time recently. So the bolt came off, causing the cell to be loose and bounce, which caused the weld on the bracket to fail. It was a very clean break. You could see the original angles of the two pieces. All the welder had to do was grind off the old weld inside the joint, align the two angles that were already cut, and re=weld.

I didn't bother taking any photos of the break. But now I have removed the bracket from the other side and circled the broken weld.



So I found a local welding shop and brought it in. The people at the front desk understood perfectly what the job was and they said to come back in a few days. This is what I picked up yesterday.



Now you know why I had to take off the other bracket. So I can bring it back to the shop and say "copy this, you morons." I could be pissed off at them, but it's too funny for that.

...and how much did they charge you for that special custom bracket? :huh:

If this were not such a serious F-up it would be really funny. Lack of welder oversight I'd guess.

..and it's an Fugly weld at that..

time for a new shop, seriously.

Even I can do better than that, and I'm a dork-welder.

Might your welder be associated with a Jr. High shop class?

I don't know what to say .....

Wow !!! :angry2:

FJRay said:

Wow !!! :angry2:

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No kidding FJRay, besides being a boneheaded move regarding alignment of the parts, that is truly one of the sorriest welding jobs I have ever seen; it looks like seagull shit on there!

My last NRC Power Plant Welding Certification is now 20+ years old, but I can still weld better than that while drunk; which is usually the case! Undercut, slag inclusion, just fucked up!

Don and Ray, my MacBook Pro has a zoom in feature on it; if your computers also let you zoom in, check this welding abortion out! Jerry, you need to get the hell away from this shop!

I think the odds of Jerry ending up with two straight brackets is 50/50.

They wanted to keep the bracket but there was no way I was leaving it there. I walked out without paying a dime. They promised me a discount, would only charge me $35 instead of the $45 quoted, for the finished job. Yeah, right. The odds are 50/50 that they start calling me for the $35, but I'll let them take me to court for it.

The first clue should have been when they had to fill the huge V hole...

Good on yah for not paying.

The first clue should have been when they had to fill the huge V hole...

Good on yah for not paying.

So, are they fixing it? If not, send them both to me - I'll fix it for free - you just pay shipping.

Unreal...

garauld said:

So, are they fixing it? If not, send them both to me - I'll fix it for free - you just pay shipping.

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They have offered to fix it, but I am not interested. This was the work of their top TIG guy, according to the front desk. If you're serious I'll take you up on it. THANKS!!!

jwhite518 said:

They wanted to keep the bracket but there was no way I was leaving it there. I walked out without paying a dime. They promised me a discount, would only charge me $35 instead of the $45 quoted, for the finished job. Yeah, right. The odds are 50/50 that they start calling me for the $35, but I'll let them take me to court for it.

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Wow! I would expect to pay $5 or $10 for my local welder to do that job. And he would have done it correctly the first time for that price.

Geezer said:

Wow! I would expect to pay $5 or $10 for my local welder to do that job. And he would have done it correctly the first time for that price.

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Are you kidding? $5 won't get you the time of day in San Francisco. They said they have a $40 min. Anyway I didn't shop it around, just picked a place that was convenient and figured the job was so simple even a high schooler could do it.

garauld said:

So, are they fixing it? If not, send them both to me - I'll fix it for free - you just pay shipping.

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Me thinks G will get it right, just sayin'....

all fixed...

Oh yes.

Nicely done.

This makes me want to break something, just to have Garauld fix it. :clapping: