The term "Certified Welder" is the most abused and misunderstood term there is. One thing about welding is that there is a tremendous amount of variations in the skills and experiences of welder based upon industry and materials welded. A person may be "certified" for almost any type of weld from the easiest that can be trained for in hours to those requiring years of training and experience to get proficient.

The issue probably lies with the person who chose the welder without any understanding of the processes involved. A welder is "certified" when someone signs a document indicating a person has completed some type of task on a material, process, joint type, position, and other variables.

I would LOVE to see the project specifications written for this.

The inspector inspected the welds, did he verify the WPS (Welding Procedure Specification) ? Did he look at the fitup prior to the welding? Was he a "certified" welding inspector?

On the welds themselves some questions.

1) What was the acceptance criteria (Something that is ABSOLUTELY needed for someone to inspect)
2) Did the drawings show joint details in accordance with any code?
3) What was specified to the welder as to his/her qualification requirements ?
4) What if the "ART" looked bad, is there someone I can report it to ?
5)  Is the structure itself designed as a structurally sound structure? Are the joints of sufficient design to properly handle the service conditions? Did an engineer verify that it was sound?

Just a few of the many thoughts that this stirred up.

Lot's of questions before any worthy response or guidance can be offered.

Who is this inspector person who rejected the welds?   What authority does this person have to cause you to hire a second contractor to remove welds he says are bad and replace them... And then he gets another crack at inspection ?

What criteria, and what specific governing document did your inspector use to reject the art welds and command rework?

When you hired this "Alaskan" artist/welder, did you specifically state to him before he agreed to the project, and is your data and his acceptance captured in the contract documents; that his workmanship, welding, fabrication and materials must comply with the same specification that your home inspector used to reject the work???.

I'm sure you can answer these questions because as the project manager each facet is most certainly your responsibility.

Once we have that data, advice that is good and reasonable can be provided to you.

I'm not sure about any recourse but I have run across situations like this many times. Either getting a call from a client who has the same situation as you and says to me, "We had a guy come out and weld this and....." or the Project manager calling me and saying, "Are you certified?", to which I reply certified to what?? Typically the response is......"ahhhh, certified as a welder?", Me, "What code??". From there it gets complicated and technical and usually lose them because they don't even know what they need a welder qualified to. 

Get that conversation a lot from project managers that want me to be "certified" as if it's a general certification that says I am "certified" to weld everything from soup cans to space stations.

Now, lets assume the welder was qualified specifically for this project to whichever code that was being called out. Who fit the steel? Was it one of those companies that throws two pieces of metal up and has a huge gap then looks at the welder and says, "You can fill that in right??". Or one of those companies that just says, "we don't have time to grind, just weld over the paint/galvanizing". Lots of variables on this side that can screw a welder up if he does not have the wherewithal to open his mouth and say, "you need to do better than this if I'm getting inspected." Then threaten to walk off the job.

Inspections. There are guidelines for sure that inspectors are supposed to follow and as in everything in depends on the person. I have run across inspectors that have been doing it for many, many years that will pass welds that look good, meet requirements and then again have run across the(no offense) college educated, never struck an arc or welded in their life inspectors come out and fail the same type of welds that more experienced inspectors would pass. Mostly in my experience it's nitpicky stuff. "This weld is 1/8th short", no, literally. Out of hundreds of welds literally had to fix a 1/8th short weld. I kid you not, the only repair pointed out on the entire job. This is my experience though but I am one that wants to know the code I'm working to and I go out of my way to exceed the requirements so I don't have issues.

Lastly, could have just been a guy who didn't care. Have seen those. They come out, blast in some garbage, grab the check and are never heard from again. Certified? Did you ask for their paperwork before work started?

Pipewelder and Lawrence raised some valid points. I see lots of "variables". Your side versus welders side. Does the inspector just want another paid trip to Alaska, if he's not local. What's the opinion of the new welding crew onsite? Have you talked to the welder doing the repairs now? I've had people ask me on repair jobs what I thought of the welds I was repairing. Some are obviously hideous and wouldn't meet code on any planet, not even Farm Code. Others you scratch your head and wonder why it is they need to be repaired. No obvious undercut, size is correct, maybe not a beautiful masterpiece but consistent, no porosity but somehow failed inspection. I did a job where welds failed inspection. The inspection company sent another inspector out to show us what failed and we all looked around and pointed out maybe they meant here locations. They couldn't get the other inspector out to show what he talking about so they brought out another inspector and we all agreed we would "repair" the spots we thought the original inspector was talking about. Two inspectors from the same company looked with us and didn't see what the original guy was on about or why it failed.

So, in short. Throwing the welder under the bus straight away would be premature in my opinion. Now, not using him or recommending him again, yeah, for sure. Pictures of the welds for our amusement and perhaps criticism would help as well.

Hope this helps out, like I said, to many variables and people involved for me to throw the guy under the bus in my opinion.

Shawn

Dear Angel

This is easy. Ask for a copy of Inspector's report, and see the basis of rejection. I believe you have an Engineer who understand the contents of the project specification, otherwise, get a third party inspector that's able to examine the Inspector's report and give advise to the actual work. 

If you are a real Project Manager, and if you have awarded the job to "another company", then both of you surely agreed with the applicable welding code to use. I'm sure, the "another company" will ask you for acceptance criterias needed before quoting for the job. You may ask them to include in their quotation the service of a third party inspector, that is to perform the visual inspection prior to inspection of the Owner Inspector or Statutory Inspector.

As a Project Manager, you may be accountable for the work delay and incurred cost.

Good luck

Everyone is giving you good information.

Yes this happens all the time, an outfit claims to have the expertise or qualification to weld something but turns out they don't, or the piece is difficult to weld for whatever reasons.

My experience is that usually it is handled in civil court as it's a breech of contract and one party requested something built to a spec that was never delivered.

Certified welder means nothing without knowing what they were certified to and what they were inspecting too, plenty of "certified" welders who I wouldn't trust to weld scrap, plenty of inspectors who are over zealous or under zealous or misapplying wrong codes.   
If you ever need assistance I'm a welding engineer based in Los Angeles who worked on many architectural and artist projects and understand the requirements for those projects.