Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello. How is everyone? I'm a new welding student in New Mexico. Just starting the welding program at CNM in Albuquerque. I took the intro. class and fell in love with welding so I switched my majors (was studying electrical construction). Best decision I ever made!

So far I've learned a little about welding mild steel and have gotten to play around with MIG, TIG, gas and my favorite-stick. I've gotten to take my first term theory classes too--metallurgy (fun!), welding math and blueprint one. So glad to be in the program because this is fun and interesting!

I'm looking forward to 'meeting' all of you and getting your advice. I want to prove everyone that says I can't become a welder because I'm a girl wrong and become a great welder and metal worker. Have a great one.

Welcome. You will go a long way with that attitude.

Welcome to the forum, with your good attitude, practice, and experience you will prove all those people.
-Brad

avezie,
There's no reason that your gender should affect your ability to weld. Will it affect the way you get treated on the job?, probably. Those are just the facts of life. If you truly enjoy welding don't let anyone dissuade you, it's a career that can be very rewarding. It's hard work some days and its seldom clean unless you plan on doing bench work with Tig or Mig.

You can find plenty of people here who can help you get to whatever level of experience that you wish to achieve without putting you down while you learn. You can ask the most elementary questions here and you'll get an answer or you can ask questions that would baffle your professor and also get an answer. So ask away.

Oh Yeah, welcome to the forum and welding in general.

Len

Welcome to the forum,

Welcome to the forum,

Welcome!

Welcome to the forum.
I've heard stories from the old generation here in Oz about shipyard work in ww2. For long runs stingers were set up in triangular frames so the stingers could run themselves under their own weight. (I think Jody did one similar in one of his videos) There were a lot of women working in the shipyards at that time and they used to have several of these stingers running at the same time and they used to dart around to keep them all reloaded with rod and adjusted - how intense is that? Us fellas forget sometimes how much heavy trade work was done by women in those years, sometimes we need reminding.
Women can do just about anything they set their mind to so don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Go girl, go!

Welcome, avezie,

Women make fine welders. There's an attention to detail that seems to come naturally to women, which we men have to learn.

You will, on occasion, have to fight for equal footing on a job. That's the unfortunate nature of a male-dominated industry.

You will not have that fight on this forum.

As you progress, feel free to share your challenges. You will be offered solutions from the most diverse range of experience of any welding forum on the internet.

Steve S

Hello and welcome, avezie!

For over 30 years I have encouraged women to be in the welding trades. Women make great welders; I think it has to do with attention to detail. Try to learn as many processes as you can. Try to get jobs that challenge your skill set!

You will do just fine!