Enjoy the HAMB and watch a lot of fabrication going on . Also some frame mod,s and complete frame builds. Heres a question are there any guys out there that are not license certified welder that would apply to the type of material and task.
I think he wants to know if any of us are welding stuff that we don't have a cert for. Of course....hardly any of us are certified welders.... (as a percentage)
I have been in the welding supply industry for over 30 years, am a certified structural steel welder for the city of L.A. and a former welding instructor. The real question is what exact certification does the person who you are looking at have? I have seen many welders who are straight up killer welders and are not certified AND on the other hand, unfortunately, I have seen many more who claim that they can weld but I would not follow anything they weld down the street for 1 second. BEWARE, there are lots of great welders and fabricators out there and just as many sorry ass excuses for both welders and fabricators. There are many, many types of welding certifications and they vary from state to state also. If you are going to have someone work on ANY type of frame or suspension component, you better be very sure you know who you are dealing with and what their skill sets are or you will be the one none of us wants to follow down the street! Currently, there are too many people out there who watch too much Saturday morning car building tv or truly believe that the "experts" on YouTube are for real. Do your homework just like you would when looking for someone to do other types of work for you. Good luck.
certified isn't what's normally required for car stuff, competent is....... there is a scale of welding quals. starts at competent and goes up to the guys who weld sub's together, if your not a competent welder don't practice on your car go do a course or two first. competent : having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully.
I used to be certified with several pipe certifications in tig, stick and wirefeed as well as structural welding. To maintain your certification you need to weld in the context of your certification every so many days ( depends on cert requirement) to maintain the cert and when we went to a new job, we had to retest to prove we could still weld to that standard. I've never heard of any automotive weld certifications but I suppose the auto makers may have some. Our certs expire after one year and we have to retest unless we can show that we used the process on the job.
When I was taking some welding classes about 25 years ago, I got a cert for stick welding big pieces of pipe. Having gone through it once at least shows that you have some idea how the process works....which is something that's hard to pick up just watching youtube videos.
Like Jim,I have been welding for more than 50 years,I began with gas welding and to be honest I wasn't very good,later I purchased a stick welder and honed my skill,even took some night classes at the local tech school. I was introduced to the mig welder in the mid 70's and I still use it to this day,I am smart enough if I run up on something and I am unsure of my capabilities,I have a friend that is a certified welder and my son in law is also a professional welder and has certifications up the wazoo. HRP
Even the best welders will struggle if the piece isn't prepared correctly and you don't have the proper gaps.
Im a certified welder also . I got my certification by welding the crack of dawn shut ️! Really , I was pipeline "qualified" not a certification but qualification to pass X-ray tests . Near same as ASE qualified mechanic . There are plenty on good "qualified " ones available , but because they did not take and pay for testing doesn't mean they are not certified .
37 years ago went to a 2 year Vocational program in high school then later a certified welder in the Aerospace industry under a MIL. Spec., MIG and TIG, for different alloy steels and Exotic Aluminum s, basically when you got certified it was just for that metal only let say 4130 in all position, so you would welded some test pieces and sent to a test lab, they would get x-ray to check for impurities in the weld ,then they would do a destructive test ,which is a pull test to see how much the weld holds before coming apart normally the failure is at the base metal near the weld, your weld is stronger than the base metal, bottom line it was to make sure you understand what you are welding, choosing the right filler rod, using the the right heat, proper preparation of the metal prior to welding, at the time I had 10 different certs and had to be retested every year as long as I was working in the Aerospace Industry and they pay for my certs
ASE and ICAR certs (automotive structural repairs) have welding knowledge involved. Race car builders can get "certified" by some of the pro shops by taking their training courses. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I think Jerry Bickle used to do that. HRP nailed it for the rest of us, we're simply certifiable...
I was certified for stick welding back around 1982 where I worked. We made a lot of supports for the equipment we sold and every piece I did had to have my weld stamp on it. I started out in HS, welding in auto shop. Took a course in college around 1974, arc and gas welding. From there spent a lot of time building stock cars and doing my own stuff after that.
I was certified on nuclear sub hull welding stick and TIG in the 80s, and as lots of guys have said, you have to be using the process to maintain your certs, and re-test at certain intervals. Now, it seems the most important thing for me is being able to see the puddle correctly, and modern hoods come with provisions for "cheaters", etc. - if you're lying to yourself that you see the puddle well when you don't, you're asking for trouble. Keeping clean lenses in your hood is really important, too. Also, like painting, prep work is a huge part of getting it right.
There are many definitions of expert but my favorite is "someone a long way from home with a book". The finished product is always better if you know what alloys you are working with and set up the machine with proper settings and use the correct filler material. After that you have to clean and prepare the joints and gaps, you can't weld an air gap. Just because the weld looks symmetrical and all of the ripples are perfectly spaced doesn't make it good. I have seen so called perfection that cracked because of poor penetration. I served on Submarines when I was in the Navy and watched some of the shipyard guys making repairs by looking in a mirror and welding backwards when there wasn't room. They were experts in the truest sense.
you know the old saying...if you can't weld good weld a lot i've never taken any classes but been welding all my life...stick ,mig and tig. i once gas welded an airplane fuselage , i did not crash. i always say that i'm a fair welder and not an expert. i know my limitations
I learned oxy-acetylene and arc welding in high school in the mid '60s from a Lincoln guy who visited our metal shop class. He stressed the factors that you guys have been mentioning and it seemed so intimidating but my shop teacher was great and some of us stuck with it. I built a T bucket from scratch as my entry in our H.S. Kiwanis shop skills awards contest. I never for a minute wanted to weld for a living though I did production welding part time after high school. Everything I like to do involves welding at some point so I'm glad I got taught by competent people. I've welded a lot of different stuff over the years and have only had one weld failure - a MIG weld on my own car. That's why I always have TIG welded any structural/chassis work I have done. I'm no expert, but I'm sure glad I learned to weld, I could never have afforded to pay someone to do all the stuff I've done.
I was told that there were 2 things to make you a good welder... lots of practice and be comfortable when you weld. I'm rusty as hell now, I practice on scrap pieces before doing the real welds. The new auto-dark helmets are great. I can still throw down a good weld. Now I need more background light when I weld, otherwise the puddle is hard to see. Probably been flashed more than what was good for my eyes. My night vision in the rain is terrible. I had a good eye exam done a few years ago, I was asking about lasik surgery...he said come back in 10 years and he'd do the lasik and cataract surgery at the same time.
I served a five year apprentice program nights and became certified for many different jobs over the years. With Tig and sanitary s/s piping becoming my specialty. I am 69 years old today and the eyes have defiantly lost some. Even with my glasses I am not as good as I used to be. I guess I could say that about a lot of stuff! I do still do all my own welding/fabricating. Once I find the joint I am still pretty good.
Around here the large Oilfield companies are all ISO. All the welding departments are supposed to be ISO but some require AWS certs also. Each welding shop supervisor decides which certs he wants. Even if you have all the certs in the world. Most shops will have you weld a test pieces the way the supervisor wants it done. Certs and procedures be damned.
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