How did you learn to Weld.

[irnsrgn]

I started my apprenticeship at age 7 in 1951 in my father and uncles blacksmith shop. My father was an old time smith and never really learned to arc or oxy/acet weld. He did horseshoing which I helped him with and he was rather tight with a penny so to speak.

He saved all the short rod stubs from when my uncle was welding and he gave me those to build up the toe and heel caulks on used horseshoes.

I must have done a pretty good job as when I was 9, my uncle gave me a pair of plow lays with new points tacked on to weld up. That was an intimidating job for a young me.

The farmer came in for them after they were drawn out, ground and polished. I used to releave either my uncle who did the grinding or my father who did the polishing when they were pounding out plowlays also as it was not uncommon to do a 100 or more lays a day in those days.

After dinner the farmer came back with what looked like a plow lay with no point, I was crushed till he handed it to my uncle who was pounding lays at the time, and I noticed that the point had not broken off, but was bent over onto the back and needed to be heated and straightened back out.

That turned from a big disappointment into a real ego trip for a kid.

[GVR-4579]

I live on a farm so as soon as i was somewhat helpful dad gave me some metal, rods, and a few pointers and said have at it. There is never a shortage of scrap to practice welding on around the farm. Then after we got the TIG welder i just did some research and went at it myself.

[hammerkid]

me and my cousin was working on his Vw bug(baja) and we was making a 6 inch body lift and he needed a hand so he thought me to weld and o/a cut.
First he thought me to Mig weld (about 3 years ago) at the age of 11 and then taught me to oxy/acctecl. cut (about 3 years ago)then stick(abut 6months ago) weld then tig weld (about a year ago)then taught me to oxy-fuel weld about 2 weeks ago.
Thanks, Chris
p.s. the VW bug(baja ) still ain`t done! LOL

[jayco]

One day my dad bought a new LIncoln AC welder at the farm store.
Neither of us had ever arc welded anything . I was 14 at the time.
Dad tried it first, but had trouble maintaining a consistant arc.
Scratch, scratch, buzz,......scratch...you get the idea.

After a few minutes, he turned to me and said "Here......You try it!"
I also fumbled with the 'arc thing' for a while ; I took a moment to look at that little book that came with the welder and was then able to hold an arc.
Reading the instructions helped!

Actually, it would have been much better for both of us to have practiced running a few beads, but dad was much less patient than I was.

We had several broken items around the farm that were in need of repair, so dad picked up a pipe wrench with the handle cracked 2/3 of the way through, and said" Here.....see if you can fix this"!

I did manage to strike an arc and fill the crack with metal.

Surprising both of us, it was a decent weld that still holds today..The wrench is still in my toolbox and gets used regularly.

By the way: My dad had went to the 'GI' school after WWII and one of the books he kept from that time was called FARM MECHANICS-YEARBOOK OF AGRICULTURE-1946

I learned a lot about arc-welding,smithing,soldering,building your own hog feeders, and lots of other shop type stuff from that book. I still refer to it from time to time.

[HWooldridge]

I was in college working for a manufacturing facility that had a small machine shop with an O/A rig and a nice Lincoln stick welder but nobody knew how to use any of the equipment. I bought a book and went to the local welding supply store where they gave me some basic lessons. I also taught myself how to use the lathe and the mill and finally became the maintenance man for the whole plant. I hate it when things don't work so that motivated me to start fixing stuff - the company owner took notice and encouraged me to keep it up.

[Paragon]

Learned the basics of MIG and TIG while working in the machine shop at college. Never used TIG that much so I never got good at it. The main thing I learned on MIG is to go slow so ya get a nice bead.

Taught myself last year (still teaching) how to OA weld. Havn't had the need to cut anything with it yet. Bought the OA kit cause I wanted to braze my own bike frames.. havn't gotten around to that, yet so in the meantime, I build things and used it to forge some items for last christmas.

[waianvil]

I first learn how to stick weld In High school when I was in FFA. also took a course in south east Techinal college,A evening class to do welding and still learning.

[Timekiller]

I learned helping my father fix things when I was 7-8yrs old. Then we built a go-cart, and I learned most of my welding from that. A while ago I bought a cheap mig welder, then a couple years ago I bought a miller 180sd Tig/stick and did a whole lot of reading.

[Glenn]

As a kid I learned by helping my uncle hold things while he welded. He used ox/ac to repair the family cars etc. so I wore goggles and watched how he did it. When he used arc welding (6 cylinder flat head motor on a DC welder), rather then turn my head to avoid the welding arc flash, I wore a hood and watched. There was a lot of learning by watching. I collected the spent ends of the welding rods to practice my welding. As I got better and better, I was able to practice with the "long" rods.

My senior summer I hired on with a company that built tug boats. The fellow ask if I could weld and I said I had "some" experience welding. He gave me a 50 pound box of rod and a stinger and said we need a welder HERE and pointed to the deck. You were expected to burn that 50 pound box of rod and and then come back for more, and that was on the FIRST day at work. There was a lot of rod burned that summer.

[hammerkid]

Thats cool Glenn! it werid what you learn from watching and also doing