Welding Tips and Tricks

What is the better gig and pros and cons of each one?

Pipe-more money. Harder. Have to work with pipefitters all day. Get to sit on a lawn chair while you weld(sometimes). You get what ever you want, and you get to act like a jerk all day. Can drag whenever you want, cause theres always work for pipe welders. Pipefitters whine and moan and gossip and talk more than they work, so you'll usually be sitting on your bucket waiting for your fitter to give you something to weld.

Structural-Less money. Wierd, scary, high conditions. Easier welds(usually). Have to work with Ironworkers all day. Get to sit on a bucket while you weld(sometimes). Everyone on the job is scared of you, because you gotta be crazy to do that s*** all day. Get to fight alot, cause thats the ironworker's favorite hobby.

Boilermakers- Basically a cross between a pipefitter and an ironworker. Noone knows what these guys do all day, cause they have their own little section of the job that is quarentined off from everyone else. Their the best of the best, just ask em. They have their own rods and their own way of doing things. If you like confined spaces and heavy equipment this is your best bet.

Best bet-Pipe hanger crew. Close to same money as pipe welders. Better conditions than Ironworkers. Usually gets an apprentice instead of a pipefitter/ironworker. Easy welds. Easy money. Get to sit on a bucket on your lift while you weld(sometimes). Can probably do your job with your eyes closed. Can let your apprentice weld when you get bored(which will be fast). Note, at a real job, you actually have to care, cause someone will actually inspect your welds. But on most jobs, they wont.

I was trying to be funny, but most of those things are true :/

What do you do?

As little as possible. Hide-and-seek, two grand a week...

And he's SOOO right.

Steve S

While kermdawg was being "funny", he wasn't being all that funny. There's a lot of truth in his words.

You can escape this, once you have experience, skills, and a reputation. Until then, most jobs are going to be the fustercluck he described.

Steve S

JDIGGS82 wrote:What do you do?

Plumber/Pipefitter/Nearly certified welder. I'm speaking more from working with welders and working around the other trades. I feel that UA welders got the best gig on the site, but the boilermakers might be close or better. They certainly get whatever they want and need too. I said pipe hanger crew because they let me weld and my partner can sit on his bucket or talk on his phone.

On our jobs, it doesn't matter if your welding pipe or hangers or plate or what, we get paid the same(usually, theres a few exceptions to this). So I go by who has the most work, and thats the pipe welders. If they have alot of big pipe to hang they'll have a couple welders go ahead of the pipe crew and layout and weld all the hangers up. I think it's by far the easiest money I've ever made. Usually you don't have to be certified, and usually you'll just get a cursory inspection on your welds. That's no reason to do shoddy work, cause if your welds fail your going to kill somebody. But it's alot less stressful than being on a pipe crew where how easy or hard your job is really depends on how good a fitter your partner is.

Edit-I was referring to the construction sites. I've never worked in a shop so I can't speak for how it is. I'm just the field hand that puts the pipe marked "a" next to the pipe marked "b" with an 1/8" gap so the welder can tack it. Guess it's not THAT much harder than welding hangers...

I thought It was pretty funny hell anything beats production work like I'm Currently doing

JDIGGS82 wrote:I thought It was pretty funny hell anything beats production work like I'm Currently doing

Grass is always greener bro....I've been in the field for 10 years now, and believe me, I could use some shop time to rest my bones. Something I can listen to the radio while I'm working and not have to worry about people messin with my gangbox. Ooo, somewhere with air conditioning, or at least swamp coolers! And the dust...ya I think its time to take a shop job.

I have a few facebook friends that are "special class welders" fancy words for pipe only, their motto is "If it aint round, i aint hanging round" These guys have a 1 chance failure rate. Fail one, youre on warning, fail again and your gone. No wonder they whinge about shitty fit ups.

Mick

kermdawg wrote:

JDIGGS82 wrote:I thought It was pretty funny hell anything beats production work like I'm Currently doing

Grass is always greener bro....I've been in the field for 10 years now, and believe me, I could use some shop time to rest my bones. Something I can listen to the radio while I'm working and not have to worry about people messin with my gangbox. Ooo, somewhere with air conditioning, or at least swamp coolers! And the dust...ya I think its time to take a shop job.

Indeed, I was a boilermaker for 7 years on the rail, got a nice back surgery out of it. Moved to aerospace, got to sit all day while welding, the back (and the rest of my body) was very happy. Now I'm in an office and its really happy.

weldin mike 27 wrote:I have a few facebook friends that are "special class welders" fancy words for pipe only, their motto is "If it aint round, i aint hanging round" These guys have a 1 chance failure rate. Fail one, youre on warning, fail again and your gone. No wonder they whinge about shitty fit ups.

Mick

Ya know, an old welder once told me "It's pretty hard to line up the same hole three times". Never understood why some guys go years without having leaks or problems, and some guys have a half dozen outta 50 welds leak. I mean...hell, how do you DO that??

We don't do much xray here though Just gotta hold a couple hundred psi of air.

Hey,

My mate does gas jobs both on and offshore.

One job he showed was 65mm almost 2-3/4 inch thick SS FULL TIG. Arm would be sore after those.

Mick

Ya, I've seen some piping on jobs that took two welders all day to make one joint. Hood down listening to the headphones on those fill passes

Surprised they didn't switch to 7018 for the fill passes. They do that sometimes over here if they have some sch.40 or thicker stainless, tig with ss filler root/hotpass, and 7018 fill and cap. Or if they have a stainless to carbon connection.

That specific joint was a connection from a pipe bridge to an off shore gas rig, so higest possible quality demanded i suppose. They do some tig root and flux core fill cap.