young or old

[weldingman251]

14 or 15 first learned arc 15 mig and thats all i know right now and now denny here is helping me with giving me tips and ideas even though he aint up here at my home

[Burninrod]

wow I'm a late bloomer. Started at 21, now I'm 26 completed my training and run a portable truck fabbing anything that comes along.

[HMW]

This is not really about welding, but thanks Richard for the nice comment on the Marines. All the branchs are full of excellant people as well as this site

[BigEd36]

Well, I started welding with a borrowed AC 225 Tombstone the summer of 1966, I turned 17, can't remember if it was before or after my birthday (in June). The "learning project" was welding the roll bars in my first Hobby Stock (circle track car). A friend gave me a primer, instructed me to "make sure you burn it in", and weld away I did. I burned some holes, and had to weld 'em shut. "That's OK, you know you got it burned in that way!" was what I was told. I'm a lot older, and hopefully a little wiser, now! I rolled that car end-over-end 6 times, and the bars held up, so I guess my welding wasn't too bad, but getting banged around in the seat started back problems that caused me to get a spinal fusion in 1997. I mig welded a very little bit on one job that I had in the fall of '67, then never mig welded again til a couple years ago. I bought my own AC 180 Tombstone in late '68 or early '69, and built a bunch of race cars with that little welder over the years, it still welds like it's brand new.

Ed

[mattf301]

I just started this year. I'm taking a welding course at the local college(only automotive O/A, though, but better then nothing), bought myself a HH 187. I want to build a motorcycle trailer eventually and do some decorative gates. I will be 50 next month(oh, the horror of it!)

[wireburner]

I`am glad to see people remebering old memories

[beamwalker]

my dad but 5/32 lo/hi in my hand at 12 and told me to do a vert. he chip slag off and took stinger away from me cause i could do it better than him. now i only burn 50 lb lo/hi a day if i use that antiquated stick. 25-50 lb 232 wire more my liking per day if im turned loose with tb302 and suitcase.

[sjmiller]

How old...

I was 48 when I used a repair on my RV as an excuse to buy a Millermatic 135 to fix. Since then I have bought a Dynasty 200DX, a Spectrum 375 and a myriad of metal shop working tools.

A day spent building something from stock metal is so cool.

Steve

[Bmxin^Bjorn]

I was about 12 when i started, trying to fix my cracked bmx frame with the nabours lincoln buzz box, i kinda just blew huge holes in the frame i guess it was a start tho. about a year later my dad bought me a 135 for christmas to build bikes and little projects, i think i ended up building more stuff for him than i did for myself. The only thing i dont like about the welding programs in the highschools now is that they dont bother to teach you stick first.. they just hand you a mig or tig. i think stick is an essential skill. You can pretty much use it anywhere and is most common on construction sites.

[beamwalker]

stick is wee bit slow 4 me tho

[chris madden]

started last year at age 15 doing stick than mig and now I am doing alot of tig!

[HMW]

chris, you have some nice equipment there

[migwelder05]

well I think I was like 11 when I was first around welding. I welded a little bit here and there with my grandpa for a year. I now 13 almost 14 (may 19) and got a mig and a stick welder now. so about 2 years

[Garfish]

Yall crack me up when I read how young you are/were. I was 53, when I put on my first hood in a community college night class. 30 years older than anyone in the class. Couldn't weld worth a darn compared to those kids, then I figured out it was the 'vision thing' and got an AD hood and cheaters and life has been sweet ever since now that I can see the puddle.

[HMW]

Ha Ha

I use cheater glasses too. I like them better than the cheater lenses you can get, because when i take the helmet off I can still see up close. i used to use clear safety glasses but now mostly use cheaters with a clear face shield. Although I do have a pair of clear safety glasses that have bi-focals in them I hate tiping my head up to see. And I'm 10 yrs younger than you