How did you learn to Weld.

[SmoothBore]

In the area where I grew up, the local auto salvage yard was owned by a "NAVSHIPS" certified welder, who did body work, fabrication, and repaired farm machinery.

 

I hung around his shop, and would lend a hand with whatever he was working on, ... and eventually picked up enough knowledge to be dangerous .....

 

He let me learn on my own, and showed me the correct way to run stick, in all positions, ... and do gas welding, and brazing.

 

 

Nobody worried about "liability" back then .....

 

 

 

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[eric sprado]

I lied my way into a welding job at the Coast Guard base on Kodiak island in the 70's. The first few days guys kept bringing in things that needed straightening out,which,of course,I could do well. The next day somebody brought in something to weld. I was just a farm boy welder and it showed. The head man (just two of us in the shop) was an old shipyard welder with experience on nuclear subs. He just laughed and spent the next six months spending an hour a day of so teaching me to weld. Our main job was keeping the rusty old overhead steam pipes from WWll patched up. I got REALLY good at filling in holes in rusty pipe.

[Keith Rider]

My wife got me an O/A kit for Xmas one year. I had so much fun fooling around with it that I decided to take on a big project and built a garden tractor from junk car parts. The whole thing is done with the torch -- you should have seen the look I got at the welding shop when I told him I wanted to buy 3/16" filler rod to torch weld 3/8" angle iron. He ended up selling me the box of rod at scrap prices because it had been in the inventory for so long. I even cut down the rear axle from a pickup and narrowed it to 48" which pushed my O/A skills to their limit. My school bought a nice Miller MIG -- almost no learning curve for that. Just turn it on and paint metal where you want it. Last year I got my first stick welder, a 200A inverter that draws 40A/220V. Stick is harder for me than O/A if the material is thin. A 200A stick welder is so handy, though. I can make strong, functional stuff with it, but the welds are often ugly. Someday I will sign up for a community college class and figure out how to do higher quality work. I feel like I could learn a lot faster now that I have the basics down.

[ASMEsecIX]

I learned from pure motivation and practice.  My actual first time was in the family garage using my brothers newly purchased mig welder to fix the go cart that he had tried to fix multiple times but to no avail.  I gave it a shot and the weld is still holding up today... I can't even tell you how long ago that was, but it was my sign.  I then took high school classes, vo-tech classes, and then college.  In college i became a certified D1.1 welder and decided i loved the work but due to medical issues i did not want to do it 8-4 while living out of a camper bouncing from hot job to hot job (seriously nothing wrong with this, only i could not do it)  So i took engineering classes and became a continued an welding engineer career.  I still weld every chance i get, even at work and of course in my own shop and a buddies shop working on pulling tractors. From tin knocking with a graphite gouging rod in a stick holder and tig rod in the other hand too laying down a perfect row of nickles using aluminum GTAW or programming a robot, I crave it all.

 

I have also realized welding is one few things that truly puts my mind at ease. I literally can not get enough of it.   There is just something about dropping that hood and melting things together, or raising your hood and someone saying i didn't think that was possible.  

[SoCal Dave]

I purchased an AC Lincoln arc welder from Costco a 1000 years ago.  I tried repairing a pipe corral gate and when I accidentally dropped it, the welds broke.  So, I signed up for the welding classes in my local adult school. Of course, they started me off with O/A cutting torch, O/A welding, arc welding and then tig and mig welding.  I to enjoy welding and have each type of welder listed above.  A great day is when I get to use each type of welder.