railingwelding
We have given contract to the local railings constructor and they have put the railing Balusters on the floor along with clips to put glass on. I am satisfied with their work so far, only thing that is bugging me is the weird looking welding work near the clips.
This is how they look after polishing
He says his grinding wheel does not reach the corners, so he cannot smooth it out.
Is there anyway to fix this issue ?
If you cannot find wooden porch rail parts long enough in your local home center, you can use stair rail parts. The handrail comes in lengths up to 16 feet, in oak or hemlock.
You would also need shoerail.
The center section of each comes out to leave a channel to hold the balusters.
All of these are unfinished, but you may be able to find primed versions.
Assuming you are lifting the shoerail above the porch floor (the most common style), you need to support the shoe rail in several places along the 9 foot run. The balusters will then support the middle of the rail.
You might also consider putting a newel post in the middle of the rail run to break it up and increase the lateral stability (toward and away from the house).
Fancier ones are also available.
All of these parts are unfinished and not pressure treated. They do need careful priming and painting (including the cut ends) preferably prior to assembly. They also need regular maintenance, but would give a great look.
You may be able to find similar materials in pressure treated lumber or cedar, both of which are more rot and weather resistant with more limited maintenance (but they do need some). However the longer runs may be harder to find.
If you are putting in a middle newel post, you also could use some of the prefab rail sections, either wood or metal since each section would be slightly less than 4.5 feet.
As long as the weld has made good penetration into the two metal surfaces you should be fine. From my experience the only way the weld would fail is through metal fatigue which involves a consistent flexing or bending of the metal. I don't see this happening (or it is highly unlikely) given that the steel posts (they appear to be C channel or columns) will be tied together by the horizontal IPE boards making it a rigid structure. You would probably get more failure to the welds from seismic movement than from sheer wind force.
Best Answer
That welding would be termed by one of my instructors as “bird droppings”...
It needs to be done properly where the weld joins and fills the 90 gap evenly and is called a fillet weld.
Get them to grind it out and do it properly. A 4” angle grinder with a new disc will get into that.
Have a look at some of the welds shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrS_yafue6M