Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello, I'm Darren...I'm new to welding and trying to get started in the right direction. I've been that "jack of all trades" guy my whole life (I'm 33 now), and I just jumped into the tech school's welding program to get started on a new career path.

I'd like to get any input I can get about career options and about the kinds of experience to seek out as I get into welding? The other day a guy looked at a plate of 6010 beads I did in class and was very emphatic that I should join the pipefitters union, so as not to "waste" that ability. I'm somewhat interested in that option, but truth is that welding pipe is not a long standing ambition of mine. I never thought about it one way or another, to be honest.

My long term goal is to end up doing some sort of custom fabrication/ design/ prototype building. Building what specifically? I don't know. Thing is I know I won't be happy working in a factory long term. I have other skills I want to utilize in addition to welding. (Welding is a skill I am just seeking to acquire, but so far I barely started learning...) I have some CAD background (AutoCad), I have had advanced math (Calculus), and I have been doing woodworking my whole life including building cedar strip canoes. So I already have some skills that I'm hoping will translate into welding/ metal working, but again, I'm not sure how to connect the dots. It'd be nice to find that perfect career that raps all my life experience into a perfect bow-tie? Or atleast a way to make better use of those skills than I would if I got a job welding together garbage trucks at the local factory?

So, yeah, a big question for anyone courageous enough to bite?

Darren,
Reading your post the thing that came to my mind was the mechanical contractor that we hire to help with plant maintainence. Most of the guys working for them have a specific skill set but are tasked with any number of other jobs, "Jack of all trades" types. A lot of the time we'll have one of these companies do most of the pre-outage pipe work at their facility and have it ready to be installed to shorten the downtime. We have any number of these companies at our deposal and the ones who get the "gravy" work are usually the ones that have welders on hand, others get to dig ditches to install underground piping. Just one area to look at that usually gets overlooked.

Len

Welcome to the forum Darren.

Braehill wrote:Darren,
Reading your post the thing that came to my mind was the mechanical contractor that we hire to help with plant maintainence. Most of the guys working for them have a specific skill set but are tasked with any number of other jobs, "Jack of all trades" types. A lot of the time we'll have one of these companies do most of the pre-outage pipe work at their facility and have it ready to be installed to shorten the downtime. We have any number of these companies at our deposal and the ones who get the "gravy" work are usually the ones that have welders on hand, others get to dig ditches to install underground piping. Just one area to look at that usually gets overlooked.

Len

Thanks. There is a company nearby that may be like what you describe? It's a big shop that fabricates pipe and sheetmetal for huge projects all around... My welding program does a co-op, and I'm planning on going there. But they're a union shop, so the pipefitting and sheetmetal are separate groups of people, atleast from what I understand..

I keep looking around on the internet for stuff that could help me make an "informed" decision about career choices, but there isn't much that I've seen. I mean, even stuff like "war stories" from guys in the trade, would be interesting. So far I just learned that most welders spend very little time writing stuff on the internet...

Yeah, like Jody said in a video he started out welding pipe, and now he has a fancy shop of his own doing all kinds of fun stuff... So the question is not "just" about a job, but a decent job that opens up to opportunitites, builds experience... What is a "tried and true" career path in welding?

I might default to an apprenticeship with the pipefitters. It seems likely to be challenging enough to keep me interested, and pay seems good...on paper it is a good plan?

Fredygump,

You asked about personalities versus trades...

That's a huge playground.

Pipeline welders tend to be type "A" personality, driven, and a bit arrogant. Factory welders tend to be type "B" personalities, focused on routine.

The rest of us are in the middle. Don't expect a job to have a specific personality because of the type of job it is. The personality of the job is directly determined by the people in charge. If your supervisor is an anal-retentive prick, I don't care if you're grooming unicorns, it's going to suck.

I've dragged up the easiest jobs, because the foreskin...er...foreman was intolerable.

I've worked the toughest jobs because I respected the man in charge.

Steve S

Kind of like my work. (it's really good) but you let almost anything go because it's the best show in town.