What photos should you send for a welding repair?
Four photos are usually enough to quote a repair accurately. Here's exactly what to shoot and why.
3 min read · Rivals Welding & Fabrication
A fabricator can quote most repairs from photos alone — if the photos show the right things. Here's the shot list.
Photo 1: The whole item
Step back and photograph the entire thing: the whole trailer, the whole gate, the whole machine attachment. This shows what the part does, how it's loaded and how the damaged area connects to everything else. It also tells us whether the item can be brought to the workshop.
Photo 2: The damage, close up
Get within about 30 cm of the crack, break or bend. Make sure it's in focus and well lit — natural daylight is best; flash on shiny steel hides detail. If it's a crack, clean the area first if you can; paint and dirt hide the ends of cracks.
Photo 3: The damage, with scale
Same close-up, but with a tape measure, ruler or your hand in the frame. This lets us judge the size of the crack, the thickness of the material and the section size without asking.
Photo 4: The other side, or underneath
Damage is rarely only where you can see it. If a bracket has cracked, photograph the back of it. If a drawbar has bent, photograph it from below. If there's a previous repair, photograph that too — it changes the approach.
Bonus: what the part is attached to
If the damaged component bolts or welds onto something else, a photo of that connection helps us decide whether to repair in place or make a new part.
Tips
- ›Turn the flash off and use daylight or workshop lighting
- ›Wipe grease and dirt off the area first
- ›Hold the phone steady and tap the screen to focus on the damage
- ›Send the originals, not screenshots — resolution matters for cracks
- ›A short video panning around the damage can replace several photos
What happens next
With those photos we can usually tell you the same day whether it's a straightforward repair, whether it needs reinforcing, or whether the part is better remade — and give you a written quote either way. If the item is fixed in place, large, or the photos don't show enough, we'll arrange a time to come out and look at it before quoting.