Welding Tips and Tricks

New to the welding field, just graduated from a welding school and have been job hunting for 6 months. They all want 5 or more years experience and all certs, and no entrance level to start. It is very frustrating to hear these things over and over. welder shortage my ass, so you say go to the union and be an apprentice. I have no relations or friends in the union so no job. I can go be a temp (scab) and never have insurance or any safety. If I had known then what i know now i may have rethought my choices. I guess it will only get better, but at this point it seems hopeless. Does anyone have real advice besides waiting until old timers retire, that doesn't feed me or pay the bills.

You sound like a couple guys I know lol. Trade schools are not much more than a piece of paper in the end. But they are an opportunity to learn and hone a skill. You will probably have to have a few crappy jobs before you get to a place where it feels like you are moving ahead. A lot of times the "trophy jobs", high pay, union blankie etc types will not be where you make your mark. It will be with old Fred down the street when he got hurt and you were able to step in and help him through his rough spot and when he was back on his feet he recommended you to an old friend that happens to run one of the bigger fan shops around and they pay good with benefits. Then after that 5-10 year scuffle you have what is required to try to get that union card or whatever you want. Way to much is hung on trade schools and colleges these days to "guarantee" you the job you want when you get out and not near enough is put on a proper curriculum when you are there. Life is about learning and doing your best to help your family and those around you not what can the government give me next or how far out can I milk my unemployment or disability. If you did good with you classes and you learned how to weld somebody will take a chance on you. Keep you nose to the stone and one day you will look up and have arrived at the job you always wanted.

Welcome to the forum.

Did you get any tickets during the course?
The title said no certs, which is why I ask.

Skakaloo.

Nickn372's "5-10 year" estimation seems realistic. Most welders start to become competent after about eight under the belt. Those early years of training while working, if done from shop to shop, or through a formal 'apprenticeship', are important to developing the skills.

But those early years will be different for you. You will have an advantage, if that school correctly taught you the basics. Many unschooled welders develop outstanding welding techniques, but hold many misconceptions about welding technology, that cost them and their employers.

Even small fab shop offer a way to learn more. Eighteen months with one, then with another, will build up some good experience. Even a grunt gig, passing electrodes and cleaning passes next to a pipeline welder would be good experience, and you would learn a lot about welding, without a rod in your hand. A few months in muffler shop will give you command of the torch. In a junk yard will give you cutting. Small fab shop for fitting skills and an incredible numbers of one-of-a-kind repairs and modifications.

When I started out, in those two or three months of summer vacation, the local fab shops picked us youngsters up for beans, but we learned that smokey flux core. Two years as a gopher in a maintenance welding shop doing everything the old welder did not want to do ... including welding in spaces where only a skinny kid could fit. Shops calling you during the weekend or in the middle of the night, telling you where you can find the rig keys, and the directions to find some cussing trucker or farmer that needed equipment repaired. All for as little money as you might imagine. But every one of those jobs gave me something that built upon the next.

So you seem to be on the right path.
Your first school is finished ... now you will move on to the on the job training.

Welding is endless ... hundreds of various processes. Thousands upon thousands of varying applications. We never learn enough.

Take anything you can get right now (as long as it is safe).

Alexa

Yes, welding schools sell welding. So when they sell welding, they practically FART rainbows and butterflies.

In the end they give you the basic skills. My Dean of Industrial Technology at MSU put it best. "We're not teaching you how to do a job. We're teaching you how to LEARN to do a job."

Alexa's right. We all start at the bottom. Your education will let you climb out faster than I did as a self-taught welder. My first real welding job paid $6.50/hr, but I loved it. By the time I moved on, I could weld 18 ga. vertical up with 1/8" 7018, and had a basic understanding of the design of trusses.

A bit later, I was welding on railcars with .045 dual-shield. We had many welding school graduates wash out. Someone wrote over the TP holder in the bathroom: "Tulsa School of Welding Diplomas! Take One!"

Your diploma makes you a viable trainee. It takes years to write your own ticket.

Don't get stuck on one job. When you've learned all it can teach you, find another. I've rarely worked a job more than a year.

Steve S

my first welding job payed way less than 4 dollars an hour. i didn't have the advantage of graduating from a welding trade school but i lived,ate and breathed welding, read every book i could find on the subject and went from job to job learning all i could and making a little more dough in each shop. that was over 40 years ago and now i can't remember the last year i didn't make 6 figures. forget about the money for now. in any decent shop you're a liability. get all the experience you can. stick with it and the high paying job will come.

This is a great post I too am in school almost done so starting at the bottom is what you say how is the does the wages look like for a beginner welder right out of school also any other advice and tips antone have to offer

Otto Nobedder wrote: By the time I moved on, I could weld 18 ga. vertical up with 1/8" 7018


Steve S

Steve, just how did you weld 18 ga vertical with 1/8 7018

AKweldshop wrote:

Otto Nobedder wrote: By the time I moved on, I could weld 18 ga. vertical up with 1/8" 7018


Steve S

Steve, just how did you weld 18 ga vertical with 1/8 7018

"Quickly" for one... A detail I left out, was I was welding the 18ga. to 1/8" square tubing, so I had a "heavy" side to keep the heat on. It was no easy feat, regardless, but I was building boat docks, and the 18ga. was Z-channel roof purlins, welded on the web to posts as a fillet, so a few voids and holes were not a "fail", and I had time to get good at puddle control.

Steve S

why, Steve, did you not weld it with a 6011 rod downhill with a buzz-box
Seems like it would work better

AKweldshop wrote:why, Steve, did you not weld it with a 6011 rod downhill with a buzz-box
Seems like it would work better

Yeah, no doubt. Or 6010 (no buzz-box for the field work-- Miller Bobcats, and no local power to run a buzz-box on. This was before the days of inverters.

However, I didn't have the option. I used what they provided, and had to learn to deal with it. Years later I realized they didn't know any better (backwoods redneck outfit), but the education was worth the headache. The next time I had a job using 7018, on 1/4" material, it was easy by comparison.

Steve S