Another newbie here

[Mark80]

Hi everyone, just found the site a couple days ago and haven't been able to quit reading

First a little background on me, I'm 26 y/o, been driving trucks for the past 7 years and have been thinking about getting out of driving for a couple of months. I've been wanting to learn how to weld for a long time and recently started to research the best way to go about this. I've found out that the community college about 15 miles from where I live offers a good welding program. I also found the school for adults offers a program but it fills up really fast, but it is only meets once a week, and the community college meets twice a week. The person at the school for adults said that registration for this term was already full and that they wouldn't be having another class until sometime in the spring So I will probably be starting the community college program in January.

I am aiming to become proficient enough to be able to land a job back in Wyoming. I've heard they are looking for pipeline welders, as well as welders that make heavy equipment for the mining industry. I'm completely new to welding and not sure what type of welding is used in these applications.

Seems like I have alot more questions to ask, but I'm currently drawing a blank.

[welder_one]

hello mark80, welcome to the site. i have been out of the heavy steel industry and pipe for a while so i no longer know what the standards are for processes. used to, it was stick or tig only, but i think alot are moving towards flux core or standard mig.

[Richard]

welcome Mark80,

I think the community collage will be your best bet. I believe that they will give you the best education. . . what you might want to do is to go by the college and introduce yourself to the the instructor. just go by early before class and talk to him. tell him your story and that you want to learn to weld.
this will help you to know him and to let him know that you are serious. . . also I know that some times they have students that drop out of class or don't show up for the semester, thus getting you in sooner maybe.

its good that you joined up here on the forum. the guys here are some real good fellows .just log-on read a lot and learn. & you can ask as many questions as you wish. we all started out some where, and the guys here are here to help and share ideas and if you use Miller welders you can bet you will use the Best welders on the market.

welcome again and have fun


........ Richard

[fun4now]

welcome.
going to school is a great start. joining here will help you pick up some great tips to use for a life time. some great info on here. like was already said feel free to ask and we will do our best to help you out.

[dabar39]

Mark80, Welcome to this wonderful sport we call welding, glad to hear you are wanting to get into this trade. Dave

[BWS29128]

Welcome To The Chaos!

Welcome to the chaos, Mark

It's not always fun around here but it's entertaining to no end!

Look around on the board and see what type of stuff interests you (MIG welding for production purposes so you can work in a fabrication shop, TIG welding for pipe such as you might find in a boiler house or somewhere where steam is used in a plant, or good ole' fashioned regular Arc welding (aka Stick welding) like a lot of the cross-country pipeline folks use, as well as repair people like myself) and then you can search the different threads (posts) for those particular areas of interest.

One of the first major hurdles for you will be finding "stick time"...actually getting on a machine and either striking an arc with a stick or pulling a trigger on a MIG gun or even stepping on a foot pedal for a TIG torch. Your local community college will be a great place to start for all three of these. You might also try hunting around your town and finding muffler repair shops (usually several in each city, depending on size) who use small MIG welders on a daily basis, or you might find a fabrication shop....anybody who'll let you come in and watch what they're doing. All you'll need for that is a welding helmet which you can usually find at Lowes, Sears, or in one of the online stores like http://www.cyberweld.com or http://stores.ebay.com/Welding-Supplies-from-IOC
or WeldingDepot or http://www.hobartwelders.com/. Up at the top of this page (just under and to the left of where is says "Miller") you'll see a tab for "PRODUCTS"....start there. Miller has some great helmets although they're not terribly inexpensive. Hobart has some as well that are a little more evenly priced, and you can even find "cheapies" out there for $20 or so.

You've opened up a whole new can of worms by joining here, and we're glad to have you! (I think I can speak for everyone on this, right?)

This site also has a GREAT resources page...of which this message board is a part. There are all sorts of articles about all sorts of things. If you think you may be interested in automotive welding (or welding on any type of vehicle at all...4X4, ATV, dune buggy, whatever) don't forget to check out the sister-board for this site (I'm gonna catch MAJOR crap over that comment, rest assured!) which is the Miller Motorsports Message Board. I myself am a little partial to welding on boats, but that's probably because folks like myself and SundownIII are a little twisted anyway.

Here's a good link to give you an idea of some of the different processes:

http://www.millerwelds.com/resources/improving-your-skills/

Again, welcome to the chaos!
~Clint

[Troll]

Hi Mark, I went to sign up for a TIG class last semester and found out that it was full, so I went and talked to the instructor and he had no problem over-rideng the system and letting me in. It really depends on the instructor but most will if they can.

I have beeen in college long enough to realize that almost every class (99%) have 2 or 3 drop outs in the first 2 weeks, and the instructors know it.

I even told him that I had no intentions of becoming a weldor, I was just doing it as a hobby and wanted to learn. He laughed and told me some of his best students are hobbiests.

Just go in and talk to him.

I sure did learn a lot....and where else can you play with $7000.00 machines for 16 weeks, for only $250.

Good Luck, I wish I had done that 20 years ago, I think it's a great profession.

[Mark80]

thx for all the responses...i'm really anxious to get erverything started, but it's probably a good thing that classes don't start until the beginning of January because we are still busy at work, but should be slowing down in the next two months or so (work for a paving outfit).

There is even a chance I could practice welding at work, because we have a welder that is mounted to one of our service trucks that hasn't really been used in the two years i've worked there, because they don't have anyone who really know how to weld. From looking at the products page on this site it looks something like the Trailblazer Pro 350 welder/generator. I will need to see if I can find a model name on it next time I get a chance, it looks like it's only maybe 3-4 years old and rarely/never used. The only time I've seen it in use is to power our shop vac out on jobsites I think it could be a fun machine to play with once I figure out what 98% of the knobs and switches are for

Thanks for all the info so far, I look forward to learning as much as I can from everyone on here.

[jwsrep]

Hi Mark,
Welcome to the Miller message board. If you are looking to make a career of pipe welding I would suggest that you take a vocational school class and then possibly continuing your education at either Lincoln Electric's or Hobarts welding schools. You can take paticular courses for paticular careers there. Best of luck to you. Here's a couple of links for you.

http://www.welding.org/

http://www.lincolnelectric.com/knowledge/training/weldschool/

[Bert]

Welcome to the forum!!! Like Clint said, you're in for a rollercoaster ride
but there are so many experienced guys here that are way more than happy to share their knowledge with you!!! I work for a company that is one of the subcontractor's for the Chevron refinery and they stick and tig the pipes over here. College's curriculum usually starts you off with stick the first year, than tig and mig the 2nd year. Pretty much, if you can stick, you can do almost everything (guys-PLEASE don't give me a bunch of [email protected] for that one)
Anyway, hope to hear of your progression in the near future
bert

[bob_e95482]

Welcome! This is one of my favorite sites. Hope you have fun. Good luck.

[Darmik]

Starting a career

Well this site is probably the best first place to start your research on this trade. The next would be getting registered into school after talking to all of us. Except Bert . And hopefully you to will enjoy what we all have over the past few years. Good luck with your education.
O ya one more thing there is no such thing as a dumb question or dumb answer. Thats why we are here isn't it.

[Bert]

DARMIK
WHAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! (No crying smiley....)

[Mark80]

Thanks for the links jws, both look like top notch schools. Is there anyone in here who has been through either of the schools? I like the fact that the Lincoln school limit the class size to 15 students, not sure if Hobart does the same. Hobart seems a little pricey vs. Lincoln but it seems like they offer more classes. (i could be wrong here, i just kinda grazed over each site)

I was wondering if there are any job boards/websites that are geared towards welding jobs, other than the main ones. (monster, hotjobs, careerbuilder)

i suppose i should get off here and go get some sleep, i guess i DO have to go to work tomorrow. LOL