Removing Grinding marks

[ThorsHammer82]

So, I'm building some bar rails for a friend's tap room. (where you put your foot when you sidle up to the bar)

I am making the rails out of 3/8"x1 3/4" flat stock that will be welded into a T to hold the length. I've got to join several pieces together in order to get the length I need. 1 or two welds on the top of the T (what people will really see). I can't forge weld yet, but I do have modern welding equipment so getting the pieces joined together isn't an issue. BUT I want to make it "look" like it wasn't welded and then weld ground down to make a flat surface. Before I get beyond a point of no return. Do any of you have any suggestions on how to make the weld "disappear" in the finished work? My thoughts were to weld the pieces, than grind them flat, then heat the joint up and hammer out the grinder marks. But I'm not sure what that would do to the piece as anywhere that's not been hit with the grinder will still have the mill scale...

I understand that I could wrap the welds, but I'm hoping to make it look like one long piece at the end of the day.

Before anyone asks, yes there is more than just a flat T. the ends of the two separate rails are scrolled, as are the feet that are mounted to the floor.

Any way, thanks in advance.

[ThomasPowers]

Not what you are looking for but: could you rivet them with large old "industrial" rivets, (maybe even do a weld on the backside that will be covered by the rivet plates...)

[ThorsHammer82]

I'm trying to keep the top of the rail at one level. so that there isn't anything for someone's foot to catch on should they slide their foot side to side.

[tdaleh]

Grind the ends to a short taper butt them together  weld  than grind.  Then you have strength  in your weld.

[Stash]

Touch up your grind with a file, give the whole thing a little cold hammer texture.

Steve

[Steve Sells]

same way we give knifes a smooth finish

[arftist]

Grind the weld with a hard wheel until you just start scratching the surface. Then switch to a flap wheel and carefully work out the scratches.

Restore the scale with a heating torch by overheating the iron until it scales. It is best though to just remove all the scale.

[ThorsHammer82]

I'll be hitting the pieces with a wire wheel but don't want to remove all of the scaling. and don't want a bright shiny spot right in the middle.  So heating after grinding and hammering should help remove the grinding marks. Good! thanks again guys.

3 hours ago, tdaleh said:

Grind the ends to a short taper butt them together  weld  than grind.  Then you have strength  in your weld.

thanks for the input. I'm more of a welder/fabricator and have only tinkered with forging so far. So the basics on welding are not where I'm lacking. It's the aesthetics that I struggle in. Making it look pretty but still look old and worn. 

[Alan Evans]

I often use an air needle descaler to texture weld and ground areas...it reproduces the fire scale surface quite convincingly, and blends it all in.

As a get around I have also hammered a bit of coarse grit emery cloth onto the ground/sanded surface which gives a slightly milder version of the texture.

Alan

[ThorsHammer82]

Thanks Alan, I'll give that a try. I should still have one of those...

[Alan Evans]

I final polish a ground-flush weld with a 120grit sanding disc in the Ø100mm (Ø4") grinder and then blend over with the needle descaler.

If you are getting really picky you can throw up a slight levee with a hammer instead of just grinding a weld prep on a butt joint say. Then even the weld undercut is ground out before you get to full size section...the number of times you see someone has ground the weld below the plane of the workpiece trying to remove the hair line undercut...

The centre Ø50mm (Ø2")of a sanding disc is always unused and a 36 grit zirconium disc is a great matting texture device when hit with a hammer.

Alan

[ytuyuty]

A grinder is all you need

[Alan Evans]

On 23/11/2016 at 3:09 PM, Harry Marinakis said:

A grinder is all you need

Helpful. 

Any chance of elaborating?

Alan

[ytuyuty]

Sorry.

You can make the weld disappear and smooth it all out with the angle grinder.

That's how I deal with welds.

[Alan Evans]

48 minutes ago, Harry Marinakis said:

Sorry.

You can make the weld disappear and smooth it all out with the angle grinder.

That's how I deal with welds.

Well yes, you can flatten the weld down with the grinder of course, but the thread is not about how to remove the weld....the question the OP posed was how best to further refine the process and remove the angle grinder marks in order to match the unground surface.

Alan