Covering ugly welds

Neal Haarberg

Neal Haarberg

Active member
I am building a poling platform for my boat and have welded together the uprights from steel fencing posts. In case you are wondering why I didn't use aluminum or have somebody fab them up for me, I had some laying around and I am doing this project on the cheap. However my welding skills are not what they once were and some of the welds just look bad. I was thinking about covering them with something like a moldable putty before painting, but not sure what to use. Anybody have any recomendations.
 
Neal Haarberg said:
I was thinking about covering them with something like a moldable putty before painting, but not sure what to use.
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"Standard" automotive body shop "bondo" will be just fine, as long as you have a clean surface for it to adhere to. Recommend it to be top coated with paint, for best longevity. "Rust" getting under the bondo and popping it off, might be an issue.

That said, I used it on the bottom of an aluminum hull, never painted over it, and it was still doing it's job some 20 years later.
 
I will elaborate on Kevin's suggestion a bit. Take a grinder to the welds and remove the "ugliness". The purpose is two fold, getting rid of ugliness but more importantly, making sure that your welds actually penetrated and that the metal flowed together. You want to do this check because a weld failure while your standing on the deck will lead to man overboard rather quickly. If you grind off the slag and the top of the puddle and both pieces are solid and you can't really see the joint (because everything flowed together) then you are good. If you grind and wind up with two separate pieces, try try again.
 
tsimpson said:
I will elaborate on Kevin's suggestion a bit. Take a grinder to the welds and remove the "ugliness". The purpose is two fold, getting rid of ugliness but more importantly, making sure that your welds actually penetrated and that the metal flowed together. You want to do this check because a weld failure while your standing on the deck will lead to man overboard rather quickly. If you grind off the slag and the top of the puddle and both pieces are solid and you can't really see the joint (because everything flowed together) then you are good. If you grind and wind up with two separate pieces, try try again.
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I agree completely on making sure the welds penetrate and I had to grind down some and redo in few spots. I took 2 years of welding way back in high school, but it has been over 30 years since then without much practice and recently was givin a harbor frieght flux core. I understand what makes a good weld, just not as capable as I once was, getting better with practice. I had some JB weld so I used it to cover up the uglyness. Hopefully I will be getting it all assembled and post some pics today if the rain lets up.
 
It is all finished and on the boat. The lower platform is just clamped on so it can coem off easily when changing tht boat over for duck season and the platform comes off easily with 4 hand screws if I don't want it on there if I am going bass fishing and will be fishing off the back platform.
 

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That platform will be a dream come true for bedding fish. Leave it on there for the spawn, you'll love what you see when up there.
 
I didn't think about bedded fish... I have gotten into sight flyfishing for carp. There are flats on the Columbia river that you can pole along with plenty of carp to cast to. Can't wait for the water to warm up just bit more.
 
Fighting a big carp on a flyrod is quite an experience, I did it a couple of times at a lake near Auburn when I was in college.
Do you eat them? They are quite popular tablefare in eastern Europe, India and China but never caught on as food here.
 
Carl,

It's super fun and no more standing on the cooler. I don't eat any resident fish out of the Columbia due to mercury levels, I have been temped to take a smallmouth or 2 every once in a while, but will enjoy Salmon and Steelhead. I would think a smoked carp would be tasty.
 
Carl said:
Fighting a big carp on a flyrod is quite an experience, I did it a couple of times at a lake near Auburn when I was in college.
Do you eat them? They are quite popular tablefare in eastern Europe, India and China but never caught on as food here.
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It’s intense catching carp on a fly rod. As a kid there was a mountain lake that they had separated carp from the trout. You could fish for the carp for free. The only ask was if you caught them, you didn’t put them back in the lake, as they were taking over and wiping out the trout. I made up some concoction of corn, season salt and garlic in a ziploc and left it overnight. I put the smallest little treble hook you could find and I would put one kernel on that hook. It was light enough I could cast it out a pretty good ways with my fly rod. I’d let it sit, but it would take like 5-10 minutes and there that line went. I’d set the hook, and omg hang on. They usually had 1 or 2 big runs and every time I got really nervous because it would take me down to my backing. I thought for sure, this is it, they’re gonna snap off all my line. Think I caught like 30 in a day doing this. When I finally got done, there were maybe 6 or 7 fish on the bank. So many people were coming by and just taking them from my pile to take home and eat. It blew my mind.
 
The public lake near Auburn had a catfish feeder that went off at regular intervals.
The carp would get in on the pellets.
I'd cast a woolybugger about the same size as a pellet into the middle and hang on!
Quite fun on a 5/6 weight.
 
Just to make this post duck related, Maine's Merrymeeting Bay has a robust carp population--the only such poulation in Maine. It is popular with some anglers--popular enough that when I worked for Trout Unlimited, a guide I know asked me if I'd help lead the charge on carp conservatiion there. (Maine considers carp an invasive species, and I politely declined.) Wading the channels through the rice and other vegetation in the Bay at low tide to set decoys can be a real adventure. More than once I've spooked carp up stream of me and had them flush past me and knock me on my ass. I've never fished them--maybe this year.
 
Jeff Reardon said:
Just to make this post duck related, Maine's Merrymeeting Bay has a robust carp population--the only such poulation in Maine. It is popular with some anglers--popular enough that when I worked for Trout Unlimited, a guide I know asked me if I'd help lead the charge on carp conservatiion there. (Maine considers carp an invasive species, and I politely declined.) Wading the channels through the rice and other vegetation in the Bay at low tide to set decoys can be a real adventure. More than once I've spooked carp up stream of me and had them flush past me and knock me on my ass. I've never fished them--maybe this year.
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Bow fishing carp is a ton of fun too. I actually enjoy the bow fishing more than catching them on a fly rod. But you have to try the fly rod technique. It'll make your sphincter pucker in a hurry when you see your backing start to expose through the main line and its still just ripping off. Talk about total vulnerability to a fish. The bow fishing is fun because when you get in and around a school of them, you can fill a boat up real fast. Nothing that starts with c and ends in arp lives around here. So I dont care if its with a bow a rod, they aint surviving.
 
I've had mullet and redfish in the decoys before.
And probably smallmouth buffalo too.
But I've never been assaulted by a school of them!
 
I've had dolphins in the decoys. A manatee once swam right by them. Several times have wished I had my fishing rods with me when redfish or snook swim through.

Closest I have ever come to being "assaulted" by any "other" critters in the decoys would be a grumpy gator or two.
 
They are also considered invasive here as well. no licence is required, however that is about to change in Washington. People in certian areas are fishing for salmon without a licence and when stopped they claim carp fishing. There is a lake near me that has too many carp in it. They have completly devastated the shallow lake. Sight fishing is nearly impossible becasue they stir up the mud so much there is rearly enough clarity in the water. They have actually paid commercial fisherman to net the lake to reduce the population. On the Columbia the water stays clear and there are good sized fish that will easily take you into your backing. As far as carp attacks go, the water cools off before duck season and they are long gone by the time we get the guns out!
 
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