Back To School

I started my welding course yesterday. I’m attending on Fridays only until I earn two credits however long that is. I attended this same course around 1987 but obviously went a different direction with my career. My current company is paying for tuition and tools which is quite cool. I may have mentioned to them how insane it was to pay a knucklehead to fabricate when they have one employed. There’s little truth to the rumor that I am only interested in making throwing stars. Anyway I did ok with my beads yesterday but there is room for improvement. Long term I want a welder/generator on my survival checklist. Maybe it’s been mentioned here as desirable. Dual purpose.

 

Nice! its good to have multiple skills, you taking up casting for making metal throwing stars as well?
There is a decent market for small foundry work.

 

Yes. I’m quite good at cutting and gas welding. I used that process to weld on my Pop’s experimental plane. Still holding.

 

Cool you can make throwing stars using a plasma cutter and skill saw blades

 

See now you got a business started

 

60 or so years ago I had a welding class in USAF taught by an old military welder who had during WW2 among other things cut bulldozers into manageable pieces, flown with them into remote areas in New Guinea, welded back together and they were used to rough out an airstrip so planes could land with bigger equipment. At that time welding was almost all stick and gas, all the fancy stuff wasn't available on the flight line. He stated every morning when the class began, that we were not there to learn how to weld, we were there to learn what could be welded, to tell the difference between aluminum, magnesium, titanium, zinc compounds, different steels and what would burn out and change and what would loose heat treat or em brittle when heated.
He said at that time welding was an art and the class and books just got you started, hand eye coordination, recognizing your colors and patterns, etc would take time and was well worth learning.. Being military, every weld you made in the beginning was pull tested and you kept doing it until it passed. I have lost most of my ability to stick weld, the new welders are so much easier to use,but any welding is a very useful tool to know, and the more basic the tools, straight stick and straight gas, the more usable for your own use and God forbid, the more useful if things do get dicy. Cutting is just as useful as welding and for the individual a really handy tool. Being able to cut to a pattern has over the years helped me build hundreds of things from junk parts. The old man that ran the local junk yard used to put stuff away for me, and in turn I used to patch a few things for him. Old experienced welders, pipeline, shipyard, nuclear, and fabrication in particular, are very good resources and you can learn a lot from them. Good luck on the course and anything that you learn is always valuable in life.

 

Learn the art of ARC, it's way more useful in the field, especially on HEAVY stuff. I recommnd the combo machine' that do M.I.G. -T.I.G. and ARC, with a built in Genney, I have two, and they are about as Goo as it gets! When you get comfortable with MIG, learn TIG, you will find the quality of your finished product is so much better, almost as good as Gas, but 5 times faster! I' a Miller Guy, but Lincoln's do well too, I recommend the Ranger series if you go Lincoln, or the 2600 series Miller, spendy, but so worth it!

 

Self powered welders, Miller etc are very expensive and often if problem in gen section, very expensive to repair. I have seen older stick welders, Miller 225 etc at yard sales for less than the scrap value of the metal in their cores. Buy one, get some rod, get one of the new auto darkening helmets and don't look back. You will get some use out of it, learn a lot, may meet some very interesting people willing to show you how they work, see if you want to continue, etc and all for a couple hundred dollars. To me, living in the country and not having a stick welder and set of torches, wold be like not having a shovel, or a lawn mower, they are just one more needed tool. Have no idea what my idiot son will price mine in the garage sale he will hold to get rid of all my stuff and if able, plan to give it away before I die along with the scythes, crosscut saws, peavy's, axes, gas log splitter etc, that he will never use. God knows I have tried, but if SHTF my son will be standing out in the lightening storm being useful as a lightening rod and waiting for someone to help him.

 

I have little experience with TIG. Just the basics. My friends tell me the new MIG machines are sweet. We shall see. Metal fabrication has always come naturally to me unlike woodworking. Good times.
Oh yeah. Auto-darkening helmets get 2 thumbs.

 

This is a skill that I do not have and would very much like to learn. I think it is one of the really necessary skills one needs but I have never had an opportunity to learn. I did look in the College here but too expensive as I am not looking to enter the profession just learn enough to weld a bit if necessary. I will have to look again...

 

There are tons of videos and magazine articles on how to learn on your own, and very helpful. I find new tricks all the time th is way! I did take a few classes, but found the other resources just as helpful, and I had to learn quick to be able to keep my business up and running! Find a couple of old timers and invest in some beer, that also goes a long way! Great skill set to have, and with a portable gender welder, your now valuable to those around you!

 

Sorry Bro but these are on my pipeliner..

 

Sukz to be you! LOL!!!
Never killed a Miller, nor a Ranger, so there's that I suppose, though I don't do it for a living like you, I would imagine your pretty hard on stuff out of need! My Lincoln does finer work then the Miller, but the Miller is the T.I.G. machine from hell, especially doing aluminum, or durillium alloy work, Ranger cant keep up with that!

 

Technology in welding is totally unbelievable, with the right equipment, a semi trained individual can weld metals that no one in the world could 70 years ago. And in many cases the equipment new is a fraction of the cost of a new snow mobile, quad, or motorcycle that many people buy as "toys" and no more than a good gaming computer. It is at least worth looking into and I repair all of the tools of an excellent welder who has a shop that does small run commercial welding and in turn he welds up adapters for my 1941 Ford tractor to use modern equipment, brackets for solar, pieces for hydroponics setup in greenhouse, truck parts, and as BTPost or Seapalaces could tell better than I the thousands of other things that a welder can do to make life interesting and a more independent life style even possible. I honestly would have as much of a problem before the SHTF without access to a good metal fabrication person as I would without access to the medical system. I couldn't even imagine living without one after any event. Doors, gates, weapons, tools, etc, all metal will have to be worked, may end up being done by a black smith, but someone will have to do it. It is also a skill set that is useful anywhere in the world, can not be done by telecommuting from India, can be done as a hobby or to make supplemental income, etc. If you don't want to learn how to do welding and metal fabrication, at least find a good practitioner and find out what he can do to help you leave this sheeple world of buying everything new from Amazon made in China and throwing it away 3 months later. Well you hit a hot spot in my world, so I will put the soap box away and shut up. If the discussion included casting metal and blacksmithing, I would of kept on going, knives, garden tools, etc, it never ends.

 

If you have a of of miles on you lungs (as I do) here's gag that will just make your day every time you pick up a torch.

Find an old CPAP machine at a yard sale, auction, or thrift store.

I've gotten several for $5.00-$10.00 dollars each.

Extend the air tube ten or fifteen feet, and wear the mask as you weld.

You'll suck in zero smoke, and the air you get will always be cool & fresh.

It's amazing the difference that can make.

 

I bought a small wirefeed (Can't remember the brand and I'm too lazy to look right now) about 10 years ago. It's one of those things that, once you buy it, you wonder how you ever lived without it. Welding is not my profession but I've learned enough to be useful. Also have an Oxy-Acetylene rig that was given to me by an old man about 35 years ago.

Developed enough skills to use the stuff and fabricate things out of metal as needed - built my own racks for mounting solar panels, built a rugged I-Beam mounted skid with mounted enclosures to house the batteries, charger, inverter, etc. but by no means a professional welder. Imagine there will be more calls for that going forward.

It's quite a feeling of accomplishment to take raw material, throw in a little imagination and turn it into something useful, especially if the material was little more than a piece of scrap to begin with.

 

My old instructor who has passed away was a master at cutting with oxy-acetylene. He didn’t follow the recommended settings. I remember even on thicker metal he used approximately 20 lbs of oxygen. There was no slag. I can’t remember if there were any additional tricks. Cool.