Educate me

[dstig1]

I'll echo what others said on how useful a class can be. Just make sure it is hands on and not just a lecture class. I rather doubt any welding class would be book only, but you don't want to find out too late... When you see the fee and then look back at how much you used in rods, wire, gas, steel, etc you will find that you probably saved money vs buying all that stuff to practice on yourself. Plus you got a teacher to guide you. They are very often a great deal for the money and you get exposed to a lot more methods and machines than you would otherwise.

 

[California]

Sadly, my only welding 'experience' is running and fetching for welders at my dad's shop when I was a lad. I know you cannot look directly at it without eye protection, and not much else.

I am wondering if it is worth learning a bit about welding (thinking a community college class or 2) so I can someone minor things for myself. In my head, I am thinking I may need to attach hook(s) to my bucket; d-rings or similar to the trailer.

What I would like to know from the community is two-fold. 1) what other things would I likely need to use welding for in my small retirement operation? 2) Do you think it is worth my time to learn at this point?

Thinking some more about what you are asking: those D-rings for the trailer should be done by a pro welding shop because that's a critical safety application. As Eddie said. You could tack them in place first to reduce a little bit of billable time. That's not a suitable first project for an amateur.

Loader hooks, not so critical and those should be easy to over-build. Practice on scrap until you can do a clean job.

Other stuff - there are lots of farm projects that become possible when you can weld.

My opinion: If you don't take classes then I think its reasonable to start with a cheap stick or FC welder to get some experience. Later you'll have a better idea of what you need, when you are ready to spend 5~10x as much for quality gear that you'll keep for years.

 

[ovrszd]

This is a personal issue. Personal as in, none of us know your ability to self teach. If you are easily learned, Google it. If not, a vocational class is needed.

 

[GeneV]

This is a personal issue. Personal as in, none of us know your ability to self teach. If you are easily learned, Google it. If not, a vocational class is needed.

That's a good point.

 

[etpm]

I learned how to gas weld when I was 14. I am now 66. I still gas weld stuff now and then. In the early 80s I decided to take a welding class at night just for fun. I wanted to learn how to arc weld. After passing the stick welding tests I moved on to TIG. Virtually all of my welding since learning how to TIG weld has been TIG until about 20 years ago when I bought a small Lincoln MIG welder. A few years after I bought that great little machine I took a 1 day MIG welding class. Which really helped my MIG welding and opened my eyes to how much a MIG welder can do. I have never regretted taking the welding classes. Anyway, I think you should take a class just so that you can try out the different welding processes. As a bonus you will probably find out that welding is fun. Especially when an instructor guides you so that you have success quickly. A good instructor is great. I know, folks will say you may not get a good instructor, they were self taught, and so on. But really, most instructors are good, that's why they have the job. And the place you go to learn welding will probably have all types of welding machines available for you to try. You may decide that stick is good enough for you. Or that MIG is what you want to do. Or that the huge flexibility of TIG really tickles your fancy. In the class you should be able to see good welds in all the processes. Gas included. You should be able to watch close at hand good welding being done. Most everybody these days who is beginning welding chooses wirefeed welding, which includes fluxcore and MIG welding. No wonder, it is an easy process to learn. Not as flexible as stick or TIG, but most folks don't need that flexibility. My opinion is that you should most definitely take a class and learn how to weld. Once you have this skill you will find all sorts of stuff to weld. Like any skill it takes practice, but the practice is fun. The satisfaction of sticking a couple pieces of metal together is really nice. At the end of the day remember that welding is fun. Just plain fun.
Eric

 

[California]

And nobody has mentioned yet: Watch Craigslist, Facebook, etc for quality used gear.

 

[rScotty]

I learned how to gas weld when I was 14. I am now 66. I still gas weld stuff now and then. In the early 80s I decided to take a welding class at night just for fun. I wanted to learn how to arc weld. After passing the stick welding tests I moved on to TIG. Virtually all of my welding since learning how to TIG weld has been TIG until about 20 years ago when I bought a small Lincoln MIG welder. A few years after I bought that great little machine I took a 1 day MIG welding class. Which really helped my MIG welding and opened my eyes to how much a MIG welder can do. I have never regretted taking the welding classes. Anyway, I think you should take a class just so that you can try out the different welding processes. As a bonus you will probably find out that welding is fun. Especially when an instructor guides you so that you have success quickly. A good instructor is great. I know, folks will say you may not get a good instructor, they were self taught, and so on. But really, most instructors are good, that's why they have the job. And the place you go to learn welding will probably have all types of welding machines available for you to try. You may decide that stick is good enough for you. Or that MIG is what you want to do. Or that the huge flexibility of TIG really tickles your fancy. In the class you should be able to see good welds in all the processes. Gas included. You should be able to watch close at hand good welding being done. Most everybody these days who is beginning welding chooses wirefeed welding, which includes fluxcore and MIG welding. No wonder, it is an easy process to learn. Not as flexible as stick or TIG, but most folks don't need that flexibility. My opinion is that you should most definitely take a class and learn how to weld. Once you have this skill you will find all sorts of stuff to weld. Like any skill it takes practice, but the practice is fun. The satisfaction of sticking a couple pieces of metal together is really nice. At the end of the day remember that welding is fun. Just plain fun.
Eric

I've welded things for 50 years. Very good with gas, and passable with arc, tig, & mig. All self taught, but truth is I'm not a particularly good teacher - even to myself. I bet I could learn a lot of new things by taking some classes. Thanks for the idea.
rScotty

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

Sadly, my only welding 'experience' is running and fetching for welders at my dad's shop when I was a lad. I know you cannot look directly at it without eye protection, and not much else.

I am wondering if it is worth learning a bit about welding (thinking a community college class or 2) so I can someone minor things for myself. In my head, I am thinking I may need to attach hook(s) to my bucket; d-rings or similar to the trailer.

What I would like to know from the community is two-fold. 1) what other things would I likely need to use welding for in my small retirement operation? 2) Do you think it is worth my time to learn at this point?

Thanks,

T

I recommend that you learn at least enough, to understand what and how needs to be done. I have a small Hobart wire feed, and can sort of make a decent bead. But a lot of what i learned at the outreach classes at the high school, was how to get things ready to weld.

If I have a non critical thing that needs welding I’ll do it myself.

If I need something critical welded, I do the preparations, then take it to the welding shop, and pay to have a certified welder make the welds.

Doing all of the fit up, beveling edges of things to thick to do in a single pass, getting the metal clean, and ready for a weld, saves me a bunch of money. if I don’t get it prepped, I have to pay teh shop rate for the welder to do it. If I spend a couple of hours, fitting up, and then tack things into place. I pay only for the welder to do the welding. And, frequently I get jumped to the front of the line. When I showed up needing four fillets done on the skid Steer Quick Attach, off my loader. The fact that it was prepped an ready to go, and I was willing to let him weld it on the tailgate of the truck, and I helped move it around, I got charged for fifteen minutes of welder time, and not several hours, with a three day wait.

 

[Torvy]

Thanks, all. I really appreciate the feedback. If I knew more people in the area in which we are retiring, I would definitely go the route of having an expert show me. As a teacher, I am painfully aware of the differences in learning styles and how that affects classroom learning. If I am adding to prior knowledge, reading on a subject can help. In this case, I am like a media member trying to understand firearms. . My nearest neighbor has some sort of metalworking business and once we are out there regularly, I hope I can learn from him. I think I will at least take one class, maybe two to at least give myself an understanding of the terminology and basic techniques. From there, I will play it by ear. Videos can also help...one reason I am putting a big screen TV in my shop.

I would appreciate a few more specifics on the types of repairs and minor improvements y'all do with welding (thanks for pointing out about D-rings, it makes logical sense). I doubt I will ever be that guy who makes his own trailer, but I could definitely see myself doing smaller projects that don't involve trusting my work for health/safety.

Also, is cutting done with the same processes and equipment, or is that a separate, but associated process? I can imagine needing to use that skill as well.

 

[Rockbadchild]

Also, is cutting done with the same processes and equipment, or is that a separate, but associated process? I can imagine needing to use that skill as well.

For cutting you have 3 choices, grinder with cutting disk/chop saw, oxygen/acetylene cutting torch or Plasma cutter... each have their advantage and disadvantage... Plasma cutter is the fastest and produce a fairly clean cut with minimum skills required, but you are limited in steel thickness and limited to the shop since you need electricity to operate it. Oxygen/acetylene cutting torch you can cut a wide range of thickness (pretty much no limit), but there is a direct correlation between skills and cleaning required (grinding the cutting edge) more the skills less the cleaning. They are completely independent you can bring the tanks in the field and cut anything made of steel. Cutting torch are versatile, they can be used for bronze welding, heating up material to unseize parts, shaping material to the desired shape and much more ... Then there is a grinder with a cutting disk, or a chop saw, that's a nice to have and could be the fastest option for some tasks, you are limited in still thickness or width. It produces a clean cut but mostly uses for new steel so for new steel a chop saw is the way to go but you are limited for most repair project you would use both cutting torch and chop saw... I personally think the best combo is cutting torch and a chop saw.