If I take my grinder and smooth out the welds will it affect the strength of the frame overall? Or should I just leave it be?

Here's the thread I think Justin is talking about.
This guy went pretty extreme; he even cut off some of the structural bits and re-did them. It looks great to me; I might be a little worried about the strength of some of his joints, but it's really hard to judge that sort of thing just from photos. Over-all, the work looks super professional, so I'm sure it's solid.

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1342255366

These frame welds have a bad case of the uglies,.....even tho most seem to be penatrated well. They could be improved 75% just by knocking off the high spots....w/o weakening them one bit.

I have often wondered what happened w/ quality control when it come to welding these frames,......and the amazing part, their ALL the same !

You guys can pick on the welding,, I cant..My particular approach to welding usually requires a few seconds of welding, followed by a minute or so of grinding, then more welding & on & on, till I get whatever Im working on stuck together,,

But with a Mig? Ohh, Im suddenly decent! Of course the rig could be part of it I guess. I have a $150.00 HF stick welder,,& I was using a MIG in a well equipped Body Shop, a pretty big Miller unit.

Hi
Its my blue savage that i ground down the welds on and yes i only smoothed them and then put a bit of filler over them.
If there was some that looked a bit crap then i re welded them with a tig.
The main bits i cut off was under the seat area where they looked really agricultural but then made new strengthening braces so there was no loss in strength more probably.I think the original strengthening ones were welded in the middle between the two tubes but i cut them off and re-welded them on the outside and ground flat which looks better.So long as you don't take too much off cant see there being a problem.
Cheers Sparkie

A fillet weld is as strong as a weld needs to be (a proper fillet weld is slightly concave). If it bulges up and becomes convex, that is extra material. It doesn't make the weld any stronger and it can be safely ground off. Now that's not to say the weld wasn't too small and weak to begin with but that bulging material will do nothing for its strength. It's how wide the weld is that matters.

I'm thinking about buying my own welder to try and persue my fabrication fantasies.. Any suggestions on a good welding machine to start with?

Hobarts are really nice, they're owned by the same company that makes Millers. Recently Miller has put out some welders that I'm almost certain are Hobart welders underneath. If you look at the Miller Diversion 165 it's almost indistinguishable from a Hobart EZ-tig 165 to a color-blind person.