How did you learn to Weld.

[johnpeter]

Read welders dictionary it could really help you.

[BenNorth]

My father-in-law taught me, before he was my father-in-law. I was around 19 years old at the time and worked at it till I was about 23.

First was O/A welding with and without filler rod. Then stick welding, flat, overhead, vertical down, vertical up, horizontal. Then he made me do it all with my left hand. Then it was mig welding light and heavy material, and finally we worked on air arc gouging on huge logging equipment (I grew up in N. Michigan). We even did a bit of cast iron work.

I got a great education and had a great time working with with Joe. I love that guy!

[pinetar]

An employee taught me how to stick weld on various carnival equipment. I have built many semi trailers for the business and eventually in 1968 my dad acquired an Oxiweld mig system with a yard arm that we still use today.

In the late 40's my dad worked as a machinist but decided to enter the carnival bus. full scale. I recall him welding a kiddie swing ride and beating on the welds with a sledge hammer to prove to him that he knew what he was doing.

Neither of us ever had a weld fail.

[SmoothBore]

In my early teens I started hanging around the local Garage / Body Shop / Junk Yard.

The guy who owned the place was a former "Pipeline" Welder, and NAVSHIPS certified Boilermaker.

He didn't have a lot of fancy equipment, because he could weld anything that came up, with a stick welder and an O/A torch.

After a while, he started letting me help out with some repair and fabrication work, ... and gave me free access to his scrap pile, torches, and welder.

It was pretty much "figure it out as you go", ... but he was right there, to critique what you did, and offer any necessary instruction.

That was over 40 years ago, and I'm still figuring it out as I go .....


.

[FreedomForge]

When I was about 10 my dad brought home an old golf cart from a job he was working on. It was my little project to work on. One day the shift lever broke on it. He didn't weld but my grandfather had worked briefly as a welder in Cleveland after WWII and had an old buzz box. He showed me how it all worked then tacked the shifter lever on. Flipped his hood up and said here you can do the rest. I learned the rest on my own. I bought a MIG after I got out of the Marines and started messing around with it. My grandfather is gone now but that buzz box is still in my shop. It followed me from Ohio to Montana.

(A side note) That day I also learned about vise grips. My grandfather was showing me how to line up the two parts for the weld and accidently pinched that part of your hand between your thumb and index finger. he pulled his hand back and ripped all of that skin off. Without saying a word he wrapped a rag on it, put it in a glove and went on with his talk. That was when I learned about what makes a man a man.

[Yetti]

I started in 9th grade metal shop. learned to cut with a torch some and stick weld. when I was 18 I got a job doing apt. maintence. the old guy who ran the shop was a retired airforce sarget and told me to weld some dumpsters where the wheels had folded under. got to where I could do it pretty well even with a crappy old tomb stone welder.
learned to torch weld working for a towing company. my buddy owned the place and used to teach a "chip & chisle" class at the local college. it paved the way for loads of technique. I used 200 + coat hanger and no flux to hang quarter panels and subframe my car. not bad for using a tiny torch tip. currently I work for Chrysler llc building crash test fixtures and building cars for testing. I make some way heavy stuff and it has to take a hit.

[Larry H]

Well, when I was a broke horse shoer, about to get tossed out of my house, with a wife and 3 yr. old son, I never saw a welding machine in my life. I went for a job in a sweat shop....welding.....needed a job real bad.... the boss gave me the stinger and said "weld this seam "...I blew ten holes through the sheet. He said whoa.... stop!, stop!. Then he told the weldor "show him what we are after".....I watched him with the greatest intensity of my life, just before I took the stick back, I said a prayer..."Please god let me do this", It was a thing of beauty, you couldn't tell where his ended and mine began. I never looked back. Except ...every now and then I wonder, how could that happen?

[a62rambler]

I needed a job and took a job installing satellite. I had to use my own truck and needed a ladder rack. A ladder rack cost more than I had left on my credit card. A mig welder and the steel left me about a dollar left on the card. The welder came with a book on welding. I cut out the pieces needed for the rack and had enough left to build a welding cart. I read the book and built the welding cart so I could make a ladder rack. This was all done in one weekend. I still don't claim to know how to weld but I've been doing it for 4 years and actually manage to make a few pretty welds sometimes. My welds hold they just don't always look very nice. Some day I want to take a class. A desire to eat taught me to weld and I think that is sometimes the best teacher. I have to say though that I enjoy welding even though I don't know what I'm doing. It's nice to be able to fix or build what I need instead of having to buy whatever is available.

[Dodge]

High school metal shop, community college course, OJT.

[Mainely,Bob]

I learned how to weld from books and classes.
I learned how to be a welder from working with real welders and fabricators who`s work I admired. One of the best bits of advice I got in this direction was when I asked someone who I considered a top notch hand at it what I could do to become a better welder. He told me that in his opinion the best way would be to get a job as a maintenance welder in a manufacturing plant. He told me that was the place where he learned " How to do what you really need to know to get a job done under some of the worst conditions and timelines imaginable, You`ll learn how to improvise and do things that will last using whatever is at hand". He was absolutely right and when others ask how to improve their skills as a welder I always pass his advice on and hope it serves them as well as it served me.

[mudbugone]

Tried stick welding many years ago,but never could get the hood - eye- electrode thing down very well...gave it up as not my thing. Fast forward 35 years and finding myself wanting to build & fabricate things and getting frustrated looking for someone with the time & inclination to help with "MY" projects. Went out and bought a Plasma Cutter and a Welder and an Auto-Darkening hood (the defining piece in MHO) and now several years later own probably 8-10 various welders and a couple of plasma cutters and I'm still trying to figure out HOW in the world I could have done without a welder for so long.

I'm not that great,but by george I've got most any type welder needed to get the job done. I bought an 8 pound DC inverter last year... first a Forney & later a Harbor Freight one because I couldn't believe an 8# welder could do the job.... I was WRONG... I love these little inverter welders. One is for Tig (my next ability to try) now,but they both function far better than I could have imagined.

I find I use one of them for most any quick project I'm working on instead of draging out the $2000 Lincoln wire feed welder or starting the gas welder.... Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't advocate building a trailer using one of these small inverters,but for repairs and light fabrication they can't be beat.

For anyone wanting to weld and not requiring a machine to build large critical structures one of these small inverter welders & an Auto-darkening hood ought to be affordable and usefull to most anyone. They work best with the very small welding electrodes,but they DO work..

[Robert Yates]

started on the farm , then High School , then to the military , by the time I was done I acheived 44B50 teaching /tech level . now certed in 10 ststes and unlimited plate ,strucial, and pipe . in various types of welding .

Sam

[SoCal Dave]

High School Metal Shop, watching a rancher friend stick weld in the field, and Community Adult Education School. In the adult welding classes, I started with Oxy/Acet. welding, and cutting, next stick, then mig, and last tig. A great day for me is when I get to use all my welders that day.

[jmccustomknives]

First time to weld was in jr high. Later got a job with a welding supply. I am now an expert gorilla welder. The expert part means I can tell you how to do it. The gorrilla because my welds are always big strong and UGLY!

[divermike]

I was in Campbell Folk School with Bill Epps as my instructor, he had me make a dutch oven lid lifter, when he told me to bend it over and forge weld it, I told him I had never done it, he looked at me as if I was an idiot, and said "just do it" he watched me, keeping me from pulling it out of the fire too early, then said, "ok it's ready, just do it" and I did. If I learned nothing else from him, it was this, don't think about it, just do it. I rarely have any problem forge welding now. Mark Aspery taught me that flux was not even needed most of the time!

[Bigcity]

i learned by myself picked up an old lincon buzz box at my parents farm and welded my first forge frame together :)

[Frank Turley]

I started late with modern day welding...after learning to forge weld in horseshoeing school at age 27. My dad was in the insurance business and he did not weld. However, he was not helpless. He was a country boy, and every year we would drag logs out of the nearby woods for firewood and go to work the old fashioned way, with axes and a two-man crosscut saw. Dad knew his woodworking tools.
When I was about 31 years old, I got to work part time with a blacksmith, Victor Vera, and he taught me oxy-acetylene, which I still use and enjoy. I love pushing that puddle around. Vera also taught me stick welding, which I use occasionally. I bought a 110 MIG about 10 years ago for a large indoor installation. I like it, but I'd rather draw with a pencil. Ha! I know zip about TIG, but would like to try it.

I do mostly forge welding.

[ramsies11]

i started when i was 10. it was about 2moths after i started smithing. my dad said if i could smith i could weld. he showed me a few beads and taught me how he was taught. he put down a 4x4" piece of plate and went all along the sides with a weld, then he told me to fill it in line by line, and make sure he checked it. when i finished the one side, he flipped it over and told me to do the same with the other side. then he flipped it back over and had me run lines the other direction. by the time it was done, wed used 2.5 boxes of rods and i had 3 beads high on each side. so far all i can successfully weld with is a stick. ive tried mig, and i cant do it worth a flyin fadoodle. went into our ffas welding class and when the instructor asked if i could weld, i said if he had a stick i could weld circles around the kids in there. he literally pulled one outta the closet and wiped off the dust. i set it and i did my plate and then the adjoining pieces. that teacher was so surprised he skipped over the intro class for me and stuck me in welding. now im under trailers and in tractors. dont know a thing about how they work, i just tell em to show me what to weld.

[Bam Bam 1]

I started on the farm when i was about 13,the hired hand would need a holder.after watching with amazment.and burning my eyes so bad i couldnt see.he gave me a hood and was my holder.after high school went to tulsa welding school for nine months.now im a union boilermaker of 19yrs 100% x-ray on stick mig tig.and welding teacher to apprentices.

[Erik Cornelison]

My grandfather taught me. He used to build Liberty ships during WWII and was a boiler maker for the Rock Island Railroad. After the war he started a welding shop. I also went to college and got an A.S. in welding after my Navy submarine days.

Erik.

[RGraff]

Grew up in a family manufacturing business (safes, vaults, vault doors). I guess by the time I could look over the bench is when I grabbed my first stick. Worked in the business all through school (grade, middle, high) and attended OIT (Oregon Tech.) for my "formal" education (manufacturing engineering). I guess it was on the job training until college where they "fine tuned" me, but I've always been a welder/machinist/fabricator. Mid 40's now and would very much like to add to my education with the smithing.

[PJames]

I broke my wood chipper about the same time Harbor Freight was putting their small flux-core welder on sale. I watched a bunch of you-tube videos and then bought myself the welder and all the safety equipment I thought I would need for a while.i had always feared getting eye or skin damage (I already have skin cancer) so I got what I needed.

So far I have only made 2 projects outside of just playing.The first was my fabricating a wheeled cart to put the welder on. made that out of scrounged metal and wheels. The second was to repair the wood chipper so now I am back in business with that part of my garden activities.

Now to give you an idea , I am almost 60. I first tried anything to do with blacksmithing last spring... So this is all new to me.

[RustiePyles]

I was a heavy equipment mechanic for a concrete flat work company and my boss came out to the shop and told me to weld up some rebar forms, afer a several hours (what sould have taken 10min) I had sucsesfully "glued" my work together. got some books and sated teaching myself at work. Then I joined the Navy and ended up being the LPO (forman) of the comand HT (welding,pipe fitting, ship fiting) shop. Now I work on industrial food processing equipment, ALL stainless tig.

[Metaljohn]

I learned to weld back when I joined my shop as an apprentice and my boss put me at a set of gates. He gave me a few pointers and left me at it. That was 15 years ago and I'm still learning with each job.

[GMoore]

Way back in my youth, I did some oxy/acetylene welding, then messed around with stick welding (ARC). Now I have the opportunity to take free welding classes at a community college where I teach, so have branched out to Mig, Flux Core, and TIG. Still not very good at any of the types, but have lots of fun trying. So far, in the classes (freedom to do as I please), I've build a large welding table, a swage block stand, a gas forge stand, a propane cart, a power hammer base, a anvil stand, tool racks, and have resurfaced an anvil. Next comes a large wood rack and a metal stock rack.