Welds on the painted railing - assessment?

Hello everyone,
we are currently building and I think most people know that this can be quite a stressful matter. Unfortunately, you have to overlook minor defects sometimes, but regarding the welds of our new railing, I am not sure whether these can still be considered minor cosmetic defects or if they are already major cosmetic or even structural defects.



Of course, I specifically picked one of the worse welds here.
In addition, there are paint damages that are so obvious that, in my opinion, every reputable craftsman should have fixed them before acceptance.



Friends who are welders and saw this tell me that such work is unacceptable. Unfortunately, I do not have any expertise myself, but I received the following response from the executing craftsman via our construction supervision:
"the welds are flawless!
I do not know with what expertise the owner can state that the welds would not hold...?
The two 'paint damages' probably occurred while lifting the 180 kg heavy railing.
We will retouch these with a paint pen so that they are no longer visible visually.
In any case, corrosion protection is fully ensured because the entire railing below the paint layer is still hot-dip galvanized."

What do the weld experts here say about this? And do you know what options I have? Are there special experts to whom one must turn?

Many thanks in advance

Would rate the weld as not nice but acceptable. It is at the bottom, not directly in the visible area, and additionally overpainted. Therefore, it serves its purpose and is overlooked. The paint damage would bother me more. You will always see it. It is directly in the visible area, you will feel it when you run your hand over it, and touching it up with a paint pen will always look bad. Sorry. At least you will always notice a difference compared to the rest.

The welder was generous, but neither the excess material was cleaned nor the weld spatter, which I believe here to be more recognizable as weld spatter rather than "paint damage". It was probably painted after welding without any post-processing.

Presumably the saying "You get what you pay for" fits here exactly. It will hold, but it is not nice. There is clearly a defect at the top, a touch-up pen is not enough to eliminate it (touch-up pen is not paint, the "new" paint is not on the otherwise existing primer, so it does not bond as well as the rest of the paint with the substrate. It will always remain visible and tangible.

The lower weld seam will hardly be considered a "defect," unless you ordered (and paid for) ground and polished weld seams.

"Beauty" will hardly be contractually definable.

Not pretty. It should hold according to the photo.

Sand down and repaint paint damage. Not with a pen, but with a spray can. Fine application, same paint and primer as the rest. Tape generously due to paint overspray.

Of course the weld holds. It just looks stupid and is certainly not enough for a gas pipeline. For a railing, though, it's fine. It doesn't have to hold anything. Paint is stupid, but arguing probably won't help much. Paid for the thing nicely?