Isn't it amazing that when you ask 'how well was yours built' that everyone wants to tell you how well their runs. How well it runs doesn't tell you how well it was built.
My 35 ton has crappy welds too. They won't break, they are plenty strong, but my 12 year old grand daughter could wield the Miller's gun better that whoever glued that splitter together.
Read a bunch of comments about Huskee splitters on a bunch of different message forums and it won't take you too long to start piling up links to people who will tell you that welds cracked soon after they bought their machines - mostly around the oil tank. It is not a common problem but its not that hard to find complaints either.
So what's that tell you - that many of them come through OK and more than should come off the line not OK? It tells me that they have poor quality control and likely a high employee turnover rate; probably a scab shop.
Unless Huskee has a separate factory for small splitters I'm sure its not a matter of some models are built better than others. An old auto worker told me once that if I thought a Lincoln Continental was built any better than a Ford Pinto I was a fool - he said the exact same guys built both cars and a lazy man will build a poor car, don't matter what name is on the emblem on the hood. He was right to an extent.
Huskee uses good parts. They use name brand engines (something that you won't see on any splitter within 3 years) usually either B&S or Honda. They use good pumps and valves - something that can not be said for splitters of similar price built by others. They hoses they use on the high pressure side are industry standard, but you get automotive heater hose and cheap clamps on the low pressure side.
Generally fit and finish are mediocre at best. Go look at any one of them on display and you'll find rust where there are paint chips, weld splatter that you mention, and of course welds that at least in appearance are questionable. Just as an aside, you really can't tell very much about a weld's strength by looking at it - sometimes ugly welds aren't so bad and often very pretty welds have no strength at all - very often.
Oh, mine works just fine.
PS: My B&S engine certainly has a choke, it has a fuel shut off valve too.
