Most of these guys are fairly good fabricators with newbie welding skills. As fabricators they tend to over build which they should on non engineered 1 off pieces. The stand in the pic is not highly stressed, the joints do not need to be 100%, most of them would work with a simple bolt and in a production design like an engine stand the work is often adequate and way less weld used than in the pic, most up to the thickness of the tube but not all.
The internet is good, it also magnifys every issue, yes he should develope better habits and work to improve but nothing about the connections for this job look chronically unsafe. In fact with their faults probably better than a factory version.
We have a lot of career welders with 2 weeks experience over and over and over. You would think after a while they would look at the guy beside them and notice some difference but noooooo, they really never learned.
Most of them don't know what the numbers on an electrode mean and even less about the correct operating characteristics for each one. "I don't remember the numbers you know, but the brown ones you know, they are the best you know" Every once in a while I am surprised but usually I find them sputtering with a 6013 on about 70Amps cause that's where you are sposed to run most things, with the little circle around the number on the dial you know.
