Who here knows anything about welding?

[grohl]

For no particular reason I want to learn how to weld. I have a perfectly good job and it is not needed as a trade.

I look at it as a pretty cool man-skill. I am an average do-it-yourselfer in general and like to do small projects at the house. My long term plan is to build/weld a smoker. I guess I would also need some training with a cutting torch.

With 5 minutes of research, I learned that there are tons of different types of welding. All I need (I think?) is some training on an arc welder and the cutting torch. Here's my question: should I just buy stuff on Craigslist and read a book or get some real training with a technical school? I'm interested to see how anyone here learned it.

 

[clamum]

the mang

 

[Squisher]

I am not a welder, but I have dealt with welders daily for 30 years and watched a dozen people being trained as welders. There is no way you could get the feedback you'll need from a book.

 

[d33pt]

Originally posted by: Squisher
I am not a welder, but I have dealt with welders daily for 30 years and watched a dozen people being trained as welders. There is no way you could get the feedback you'll need from a book.

yeah but he's not welding girders or car frames or anything. he just wants to fix stuff around the house and make a smoker where it's not critical to get perfect fillets and 100% penetration. just buy half decent mig welder and get a book and have at it! it's lots of fun. make sure to spend some money on a good mask. don't want to get flashed.

 

[BoomerD]

Most community colleges offer classes in welding. Also, (at least in my area) there are trade schools that offer a variety of welding classes.

I've welded all my career. Never as a welder by job description, (I'd HATE that) but just as part of my job from time to time.

There is definitely a knack to doing it right. Cutting torches (oxy-acetylene) have flames with temps approaching 5000 degrees, so it's not something to fuck with if you don't know what you're doing. I don't know how hot the actual "flame" in arc welding is...but it's hot and will burn the hell out of your eyes...so get the proper training...

 

[cherrytwist]

I went to tech school for welding and finished the program with 13 AWS certifications. I worked in the field for about two years until I changed careers.

I recall one person coming in with some questions about TIG welding (he was an amateur artist). Basically, the instructor agreed to answer his questions and give him a demonstration prior to his enrollment.

He ended up getting the knowledge he needed from the demo and never enrolled.

Frankly, I think you would benefit from taking a welding class. I enjoyed it tremendously and it was worth the time and effort. Joining steel/stainless/aluminum metals is a pretty kick ass experience.

 

[BoomerD]

I have a good friend who owns his own welding truck (pipeline rig welder) and he specializes in stainless. In fact, you can rarely force him to weld on "black iron.)
<insert heavy Texas accent> "I don't wayeld on corbon...Ah get too dirty."

He's one of the top stainless welders in the area, and when he's done welding that thin-wall stainless used in food-process piping, you have to really look hard to find the weld...and on 3 jobs that I worked on with him, he never had a weld fail to pass x-ray testing.
IIRC, he makes about $45/hour for his labor, + $150/day for having his welding truck on the job. Of course, he (usually) has to pay his own fuel and welding material costs, but he told me once that those averaged less than 10% of his truck rate for most jobs. (usually, the contractor has to provide "consumables" like welding rod, TIG supplies, etc.

 

[FoBoT]

Bryophyte welds, she was going to make her own barbecue grill

 

[George P Burdell]

No, but I can solder.

 

[LordMorpheus]

It's actually fairly easy. You can get a MIG (Metal Inert Gas) welder from a hardware store for not too much money that'll be suitable for light-duty welding (don't expect to be welding half-inch plate with it, though), and then it's just a matter of practice.

You can get the basics from website guides, and then just start laying beads down on a scrap plate until you get the feel for it, and then start practicing joins at various angles until you get the feel from that.

You can probably go from complete novice to fairly capable in a couple afternoons.

edit: craigslist is also a good place to find cheap welding rigs, you might even wind up with a more professional grade piece of equipment for the same price ...

 

[Tiamat]

Its better to learn from a welder as it will be faster and you will learn the "tricks" immediately. Otherwise, get a lot of scrap and practice a lot. Always make sure you have proper protection.

 

[Gillbot]

I bought a cheap ebay stick welder and got some scrap exhaust pipe from a local muffler shop for free. Once you get the hang of stick welding (IMHO), the others are easy. MIG is probably the easiest with TIG following.

 

[marvdmartian]

I learned stick welding pretty much OJT, with someone looking over my shoulder until I got the gist of it, then leaving me alone to burn & learn. There's definite tricks involved with some angles, but if you're just putting together a bbq grill/smoker, you should be able to move your work to where it's an easy weld (unless, of course, you're building the mother of all bbq grills!! LOL).

I will tell you that a summer semester community college class I took (years ago) for gas welding helped me immensely. Seemed to me that I learned a much better control of the metal flow taking that class, and it improved my arc welding beads. For sure, if you want to do any welding professionally, you'd want to take classes & get certified, but for what you're talking about, a couple hours with someone who has good welding skills would teach you all you'd need to know.

Definitely, get a good pair of gloves & a decent hood, and make sure you use both! Nothing sucks worse than that irritating flash spot in your vision for the rest of the day, when you screw up and look at the arc!!

 

[olds]

I'd stay from arc welding unless you will be welding some thick (1/2") steel. Wire feed would be my choice. I find it easier to work with but you'll spend more money.

You choose it based on the thickness you want to weld, amperage and duty cycle.
Examples:
230v
115v

 

[boomerang]

I bought a MIG welder a number of years ago. A 120V model. The settings on it were extremely touchy. I've since sold it.

Maybe newer models or a different manufacturer would be different, I don't know. I was able to do some welding on new exhaust tubing that looked like a pro did it. I was never able to duplicate it. Quite frustrating actually.

From talking to friends that had been welding off and on for years, they felt that the cheaper the welder, the more problematic it would be.

YMMV

 

[Dirigible]

I took a welding class at an industrial art collective. It was fun and taught me the basics of stick welding and the cutting torch. It went a month or two with weekly classes and at the end I could've welded something simple like a smoker. Community college would've been another option for me.

 

[grohl]

Originally posted by: Dirigible
I took a welding class at an industrial art collective. It was fun and taught me the basics of stick welding and the cutting torch. It went a month or two with weekly classes and at the end I could've welded something simple like a smoker. Community college would've been another option for me.

Yeah, this is what I am leaning towards. I found an art class that teaches cutting torch and arc welding in 6 weeks on Sunday afternoons.

 

[Eli]

lol

If you want to learn how to weld, go buy a welder and some scrap metal and start welding.

Edit: Although, I suppose whether you're able to do this effectively depends on how apt you are to learning things like that.

If you're mechanically inclined, go for it. If not so much, you may need more hand holding. In that case, a class would probably be a good idea.

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: marvdmartian
I! Nothing sucks worse than waking up in the middle of the night with your eyes feeling like someone dumped a truck full of sand in them and it won't go away!
Flashburns are no joke...they hurt like hell and can so permanent damage to your retina...and your vision.

Buy good quality equipment and use it.
(this isn't a place to scrimp and buy some Made in China POS equipment.)

 

[Old Hippie]

Probably the part of my job I hated the most.

You're in that hood with nobody to talk to but yourself!

I was "Run-a-rod-Rick". Burn a rod and take the hood off to talk.

It's not hard, just takes a lotta practice.

Some of those guys, like Boomer's friend, make it an art.