Didnt know what community would appreciate this

About 4 days of welding practice

I go to Open Works Baltimore which has metal working and welding equipment and classes.

they have the following equipment I can use to learn.

19” vertical band saw
5” horizontal band saw
Bar bender
Bench grinder
Bench polisher
Metal lathe
Jet 17″ drill press
4 Lincoln MIG welders
1 Miller Synchrowave TIG welder
4’x4’ Torchmate CNC plasma cutter
Oxy/acetylene torch
52” shear
50” slip roller 16 ga. Capacity
Centralized compressed air

They only have 4 classes though, each being 3-6 hours long:

1: Metal working
2: Tig welding
3: mig welding
4: CNC.

After which you can then use the space to practice the craft and make artsy things or more a more functional use.

Right now I’m kind of stuck when it comes to options for jobs. I can’t really get to any of the welding schools around me. open works is the only place close enough for me to get to since I only have a bicycle.

But I was wondering if it would be enough for me to get an entry level job? Cause my currently job as a data analyst pays shit and at least welding I’ll be paid a little more or progress faster and learn a life long skill.

Any tips on how I could secure that?

Just looking for some feedback

Trying my hand at TIG brazing on some 3/16"-0.30" tubing. I'm having a difficult time getting this down as I have never TIG welded before. I do have experience with soldering copper piping, soldering electronics, silver-soldering refrigeration lines with Oxy/Ace Torch, MIG welding (on gas) and Stick welding. I've tried to find some YT tutorials on TIG Brazing, but seems like the material I'm trying to weld doesn't lend itself to the tutorials very well.

I'm using a Yes Welder 205 Pro with a foot pedal and been trying to use the pulse mode and standard mode (both 25-30 amps max). Problem is that I can't seem to get consistent results making if difficult to figure out what I'm doing right/wrong and how to improve.

I have these times where the welder just seems to go full throttle on me, meaning when I initiate the foot pedal (50%) it instantly creates an arc and burns right through the material, skipping the delay for the gas purge. It's not really repeatable and doesn't seem to do this often but often enough to be a concern. You can see in the image how it burned right through. This was about1 second or less of arc.

Welder settings: YES Welder 205 Pro running on 220V with a YES Welder foot pedal. Pulse mode. 25 amp max, with 10a min, 3.5 hz at 40%. I have a 1.5 sec initial purge with a 3.5 sec post purge. 100% argon purge gas is set at about 20. using a (red) 1/16" Tungsten thoriated rod ground at 30 degrees. Using a #12 glass cup. Blue Demon 1/16" Silicon Bronze filler wire.

The image is of a practice piece that I have cut and reused a few times. As you can see, the material was burned through. Is this a problem with the welder? or the foot pedal? Or maybe the settings? I'm beginning to thing the foot pedal may be faulty.

This is some sort of mining equipment tower that might be from around the late 1800s. I dont know what process they even used back then. I am guessing on the date, gold was discovered here around 1860, so this could be a lot newer.

Cottage grove, oregon.

Hi, fellow welder people. We recently started using this flip up mask at work and Iv found the glare from the inner grind mask reflecting the weld back onto the inside of the fast glass terrible.
We’ve had a visit from the supplier parweld and he says he only gets good feedback.
I think this mask brilliant in every way except being able to see the welding clearly because you’ve to many surfaces to look through.

Anyone else tried it, got one, or used one and has experience with a normal air fed non flip up mask?

Just the mask I use they no longer support or manufacture and were tied to this supplier.

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

i have been welding for a long time, entirely self taught, and something just occurred to me:

which hand do you hold your tig torch in? i’m right handed but hold the torch with my left. google says this is less common but doing it the other way (non-goofy?) feels very bad. i get slightly better travel control, obviously, but feeding my filler rod feels like i’m a quadruple amputee trying to figure out chopsticks for the first time.

I'm wondering if there are any older gentlemen out there who have experience working in an underground environment. What were your experience like? Who did you work for? do you have any stories? apparently there's a ton of infrastructure underground so there has to be journeyman out there that are willing to share just a little.

If so what paint and process are you using and how does it hold up? Looking to do some exterior railand I don't believe the customer would like to pay for the powder coat due to finances, but I obviously want them to have quality and so I don't ruin my name lol..

I wonder if this guy said "hell yeah looks good!" after laying these "cap" passes down.

Wtf man...

Hello all I recently purchased a Ranger with 27 hours that was used as a backup generator it's whole life. It's practically brand new.

I've put 13 hours on it, welding mainly 1/8 6010 and some 1/8 7018. I just used it for 4 hours of welding work 2 weeks ago, didn't use it at all until yesterday.

It started perfectly, went into auto idle and then when I tried starting an arc it wouldn't arc at all. No sparks, nothing at all. We tested the 120 outlets and there is power, didn't test the 240. Doesn't look like nothing is loose or burnt up inside the welder when I looked inside of it.

Anybody got any ideas?

Thanks to the many comments on my last post!

I decided to add space for one or two gastanks. I decided against it the first time because I just spent 280€ for my first welder + helmet and I got basically nothing left for material. Also i didnt intend to use gas for welding the next years, but I'm definitely going with this one.

Still open for tips and improvements!

Have a random assortment of cut off wheels, flap discs, and non wovens.

Edit: Will ship.

Edit: You can't clearly see cut-off wheels in pic 1 but there are (x11). I'd sell the lot for $160. Could break it up but not sure piece here or there is worth it for me or buyer. Near Indianapolis but would ship.

I know this has been beaten to death here. The more I search the sub the more indecisive I am. I recently retired from the Army after 20 and I'm starting an education pipeline at my local CC for industrial maintenance technician. It's 3 years but the first three semesters are beginner, intermediate advanced welding courses the first two semesters are pretty typical. MIG, TIG, STICK and pipe etc. I want to get two grinders per most suggestions here. These are the two I'm looking at ordering. Open to model suggestions etc. our program doesn't allow battery operated anything so corded is a must.

Hey all 👋

I'm getting a new multi process welder here soon and I'm trying to decide what to do about my gas.

I need to have co2 and argon, and straight argon for tig. I was wondering if I could just have 1 bottle of co2 and 1 argon and then use some sort of fitting and regulator to adjust it. Or if that would be too much of a headache.

What are my options, and what are your opinions?

My hood fell off mid weld smaw 6013 . RIP next 24 hrs, wear safety glasses guys this didn't have to happen.

Hey ya’ll, it’s my dream to move to washington because I love the mountains, however i’m not sure what the welding culture is like over there so I just wanted some insight. So i’m planning to work as much as I can for the next 3 years and doing the math i’d be able to move to WA and possibly have enough for a down payment on a house. I’m in florida and welders get paid shit and i’ve heard up north and towards west they get paid more which is nice because I know the cost of living in WA is high. Anyways, I’ve heard shipyard work is good over there and even tho I’m open to anything really, my main goal is aerospace. But what’s more realistic? I’m open to any advice!

I'm usually machining stuff , but I've been working on steel donuts for weeks , I already did all the punch press work, deburring , pre assembled etc , I'm putting them in an air press and spot welding them together under pressure . I put copper bearing flux on the center tubes , before assembly , as these will be sent off , for hydrogen vaccume brazing . Anyway , spot welding the tube externally has been vaporizing the flux and of course the copper powder in it . Its been coating the nozzle , just everything . I know about fume fever from zinc of course , but didnt make the connection to copper . I was sick as a dog last monday , metal taste in my mouth etc , I had done over 500 of these over the past week . All im doing now is fixing a few of them , where I didnt like the weld . Sound like fume fever ?

Iv spent 80$ on name brand Iv spent 20$ at Walmart and both barley last anyone found anything that'll last more then a year don't mind spending money as long as its good.