[Farmwelding]

So I have figured out the classes I am taking through my high school at my local tech school and I am taking the first course of each type of welding, thermal cutting, safety, and some blueprint reading. The program just got flipped all around to make it more accessible. Every class I am taking has this phrase in the description. ¨Students will make surfacing welds in flat position.¨ Based on prior knowledge does this mean that I am going to be sitting in a booth for like an hour or two for each possess and stack beads on 1/4¨ plate and then be technically done and have to keep myself busy or go back to high school once I am done(which aint gonna happen).If this is the case then what kind of stuff can I do in my ¨spare time.¨ I was thinking some plates with some punching and notching, shearing, torch practice with geometric shapes, pipe, and maybe doing some other positions. Only issue is that I will get ahead of myself and have the same problem of finding stuff to do. If nothing else I guess I will just have to make the 1/4¨ plate into a 2¨ thick plate.

[exnailpounder]

Sounds like you're gonna be running stringers. Hope you like running stringers because that's what your gonna be doing alot of. Did you think they were going to teach you to weld? When you get bored running stringers you can crack open that book, Metals and How to Weld Them that we have been trying to get you to buy.

[Otto Nobedder]

Hey, that book who's name escapes me?

Buy two copies, and give your instructor one...



Steve S

[cj737]

You can always butt weld, fillet weld, and vertical weld those "flat" plates. Great practice. Or, do something really valuable and practice welding left handed (assuming your right handed). This is an INVALUABLE skill that most people never practice and can always benefit from. Or add a mirror to weld by.

Simply because stuff is "rudimentary" doesn't mean you can't learn or increase the difficulty and thereby the value or benefit to you. Its really up to you to extract the maximum value out of your education. Teachers teach. Students learn. Be someone who learns the most so your options are maximized and your skills are plentiful.

[MinnesotaDave]

I teach welding (and math and woodshop).

Students do a lot of practice on flat plate until they are ready to move on to lap joints, then t-joints.

Then they do it again horizontal.
Then all over again vertical.
Then overhead.

One hour classes, once per day, past half way through the year and most have not finished overhead.

Some have and are now doing flat plate runs with tig - and the process starts over.

Another session entirely when they switch to 6010, or oxy/acetylene or mig.

No one has said "I won't do it your way" because they all want to learn and eventually get even better than me.

I have not held anyone back from moving on if they could just test out of a weld with at least an A-
Unfortunately, no one was able to test out of anything without instruction - so off to practice

Good luck and have fun with it

[Granddaddy]

I hope this doesn't step on toes or hurt your feelings but I wish now I hadn't got bored padding beads and that I had cracked the book once or twice, I would have been ahead of the game but I thought because I could stick metal together I didn't need to. now here I am an old man and in between projects guess what I do..... I get in the scrap box and pad beads with different machines and different electrodes and different settings in different positions. I still cant stick to the book, I get bored and don't absorb it so I come here and to you tube and reading/or watching an actual experience make all the difference. I know it is boring when you have already seen that ground but it is practice and practice they say makes perfect. I am to the point now I just like burning rods/wire.

good luck and hang in there, you're going to make it !!!!

creek

[weldin mike 27]

Don't pay attention to facebook big mouths who say that you need to get on to big stuff to learn. Doing overlay welds is a skill that is important to the trade. Fixing worn machines, machining errors capping but welds. If you can overlap welds you have a fighting chance in doing well at these jobs.

Three examples i have seen: Stainless overlay cladding of boiler tubes inside an incinerator/boiler. (The entire thing....big)
Material build up inside the bearing galleries of a walking dragline, all positions long stringers.
Layering inside a valve. (8' pipe maybe.) Pad it up and save it from scrap.

On an important note, you must do this well. Lots of layering gets machined off or ultrasonic tested. If you lay rubbish, you'll get found out really fast.

[Poland308]

Like Mike says. Even heavy wall big bore pipe butt welds are just layering of beads. After the open root it's just burn, burn, burn.

[PeteM]

Just keep an open mind and go in with the intention of doing better than you did the day before. Its funny what you may notice from running a pad of bead, like a little sketch when you get to this point and your arm goes "like that'. Make it better.

Or that knobby thing on a tie in. Fix that.

There are a ton of ways to challenge yourself. I used to do a weld out that was 180ft. of 1/4 in. fillet in one direction with flux core and 160ft. of 6010 on the way back. Some people would blow their top and lose it before they got half way through the first section. They couldn't just relax and keep their hood down.

[WoodpeckerWelder]

An example of the value of practice:

I have been coming in to work on Saturdays on my own time and doing nothing but practicing TIG. I'm not officially a "welder" at my job, but have been training and helping out the metal shop. They see me burning rods and laying beads on aluminum for hours at a time and trying every joint I can reasonably hope to accomplish. When they go wrong, I seek advice and try to make it right the next time. So today as I am finishing some stainless corners (you know grinding, sanding, running grain - all the not fun stuff that a complete job requires) I am asked to run the stud welder on these same parts. When asked why the brackets weren't tacked in, I informed them that everyone who runs TIG was on another process or job. After a quick huddle, it was decided that I would be the one to tack weld the brackets with the TIG since we have more MIG welders than those that are more diversified. So the guy from the millwork side that they knew could run TIG on aluminum ended up doing the stainless work after a quick lesson in how to fuse without a filler rod.

All I'm saying is the more you practice anything, the more you benefit by improving technique and precision. It is never a waste of time.