I'm changing job paths at the age of 32. I use to do auto electric work and did quite well. Saved enough money to buy my first house and then....well got into flipping houses. With the economy and housing market changing I cashed out decided to start welding. I'm starting a local Tech school class in a couple weeks and was curious to ask you guys..... How many love their job or options of it ? How did you find that "right" job....how long did it take? Any other advise as to what type of welding worked for you? Thanks!!
One of my long time friends (mom held me over his crib to look at the baby) has been one of the better welders in the North West for over 40 years. He made a great living at it over the years but has tried to get away from it several times. The constant sore neck from wearing the helmet was one thing that got to him. Given the choices and with your electrical skills I'd have set up a two car garage for wiring hot rods and other special cars and take two cars at a time. Even with the good kits out most guys are dead scared of wiring and There is a special talent for wiring one and not having it look like a basket of snakes.
If I was a really good welder (which I am not ) I would start doing it either out of my home garage or in a small shop, rather than going to work for someone else. I know a few guys who do exactly that and they make a good living and most of their business is cash. One guy does general welding and before I had my Son to do it for me I would take him stuff I had tacked and he would finish it up for me. Another guy I know does aluminum welding and mainly concentrates on doing work on boats, like fuel tanks, aluminum towers, etc. There are some other guys I know who operate their businesses right out of their home garage, like the husband and wife team that did the interiors on our cars for us the last time. They get half up front and the balance when done (in cash) , have no shop overhead, and they are booked 2 years out and stay busy constantly. Don
8-10 hrs a day of behind the hood time sucks . Get heavy into blueprints an fabrication side of it. Pay is better and better opportunities.
Around here electricans make more money than welders. Since the economy tanked the pay scale is half of what it was 5 years ago. At least thats what its like in the St. Louis area.
It's a great skill to have. I wanted to take welding in apprentice school to use on my car. We were given the coupon tests to try for certification but I never wanted to to get certified even though I'm sure I would pass. Once you are a certified welder you sort of have reached your limit. I have known welders that went higher but for the most part a certified welder was always thought of as a welder. There is nothing wrong with that but I wanted more and I achieved more. If I had gotten certified I would not have gotten the opportunity because I would be busy welding. JMO
I did it off and on all my life and can't reccomend it.Too much smoke, too hot in the summer, hard on your eyes, dirty work for the most part, sore back. The list goes on and on. There are better jobs. Tom
I went to work at Brown and Root when I was 20. Worked out there almost 4 years. I went to every school they offered. I made first class in about six months. Good money, but to many 7/12's. My wife was young and had to much time on her hands, but that's another story. I started my own welding shop. Did that for 19 more years. Moved to the country and got a part time job welding alum. lights. Stopped welding! I have been at a school for 18 years now. I have arthritis in my neck. I get a lot of stiff necks. My lower back is bad. My arms are scared up and I worry about my lungs. I love that I know how, because it's a real plus with the cars. Someone has to do it and it's good money, but don't do it to long.
we have 15 guys here at the shop that fabricate and burn wire all day. it's hot dirty work, and not something I'd want to do, but to each their own I guess. we DO have a hard time finding dependable guys that want to work.
Wow man, I'm kinda bummed it seems like this is not that great of a job. I love the wiring of cars, but I can only work in my driveway (garage is my tool shop) and no close by hot rod style wiring shops around to work for. If I have a car at my house the neighbours call the city....(I live in the city). Crap you guys, I'm still going to get my degree,but anyone have any good experience? Maybe I'll think about the wiring more.....
I have a big wall full of shiney degrees in Welding Technologies that took me many years, and dollars to collect. Thusly, I also have a huge amount of seat time, and hood time learning various processes, and learning many of them pretty well. I also have a large group of friends who are professional weldors. That being said: you'd never convince me to be a professional weldor. The money is nowhere near worth it in my opinion. If you don't mind monotony, impaired eyesight at a young age, fairly lame working conditions (if you intend to make the good money, you are going to spend your days in a cold wet hole, or somewhere else not so comfortable), and a moderate risk of burns/skin damage, then it's the job for you. In my humble opinion, I'd rather take a pay cut to spend less time welding, and more time fabricating. A weldor spends all day staring at the blue light, and little time designing/engineering how things are going to work. Most all of that work is done, and he/she is only called once everything is set up, and a bead is needed. My professor once said: "I can make anyone a weldor in about a year. Only 10% of my students will ever become true fabricators, and it will take them a good portion of their lifetime to do so." So, even though I weld, I don't think of myself as a weldor. I'll be a fabricator in training until the day I die. To further answer your question: I have yet to find the right job. Most of the jobs I've interviewed for want a weldor. Someone to point, and squirt at things that were engineered by people in far off lands. As I said, that's not for me. Coming out of a tech program, that kind of job is going to account for 90%+ of your opportunities. Just for referrence, despite my degrees and time, I don't work in the industry. I weld as a hobby, and on side jobs. That's cool with me.
The single best description of "fabrication" I can give you is to look up, and read threads by a guy on here named El Polacko. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, well, check his stuff out. He has some killer tech threads that show his work starting with design, moving on to making the raw pieces, and welding them out. That's fabrication to me. A healthy dose of creative engineering work, the abiltiy to create the pieces needed to form the piece being built through various forms of cutting or shaping, and finally the welding needed to bring those pieces together. It requires imagination, and vision to engineer things, and the mastery of the tools required to bring those pieces to life. I'm proud of the work I do, but, I have a ways to go before I catch El Polacko. That's one of the things I love about fabrication. The strive for absolute perfection can be seen in every facet of the work. All of the steps have to work together, or else the lack of craftsmanship shows.
i started out in a body shop through high school and a couple of years after that. i then got a job at a friends fathers welding/ fab shop. we did everything big and small. its good to have a shop that would be fixing a lawn mower or a huge piece of equipment.i loved the work. we built truck equipment, railings,aluminum and steel.there is a big difference in a weldor and a fabricator. most weldors i know couldnt cut 10 pieces of steel the same length. i work a job full time but do a ton of stuff at night. over the years ive done some cool stuff and bought a ton of tools and equipment to do it, and made some pretty decent money at it. welding one thing all day would suck but to get to figure something out to build,big or small is great. from a small railing to stainless counter tops,buckets,truck bodies,and anything else somebody needs or wants. i dont mind the little zap jobs for $50 either. i bought a plasma table recently and need to figure that thing out to make some projects
You have to factor in that most people feel their job sort of sucks, no matter what it is. That said, I have never met someone who liked the job of welding and welding only, all day long every day. Some welding jobs require working in uncomfortable, hot/cold, dirty, dangerous environments. Others can be tedious and boring. I know i am being negative, but these are things you need to be aware of. I think welder/fabricator is a more interesting job then just welding. That can range from construction or heavy fabrication to repair work or building cars. Far any small or one-man business, if you can do it mobile or out of your place, the monthly overhead is WAY cheaper than renting/leasing/buying space.
Every fab guy thinks the weldors are dumb. I had a gold hat back when I was a helper at B&R that tried to get me over in the fab department. You need to weld before you fab. The fab is the fun part. You get to build things, measure, cut shape and fit. I've built so many things in my life. We did anything people wanted.
Become a union pipe fitter if you want to weld that bad. In minn. The wage should be over 35 per hour. Real benifits also. Ron
There's all different kinds of Fab shops to work in, plus maintenance departments and some industries need fabricators even though its not there main thing. I've worked in heavy fab job shop Structural steel shop Sheet metal shop Variety Fab shop Manufacturing Fab shop In the maintenance department For a refractory company as fabricator Commercial kitchen road maintenance construction equipment Everyone is so COMPLETELY different yet the same sort of. Some are extremely high tolerance and some don't know what tolerance means. Some are a challenge every day and force you to grow some are so damn boring. Some places you never see the same job twice, others its thousands of the same . Some have everything imaginable and others you are expected to build a space shuttle from a box of used lawnmower parts. Everyone takes a different type of individual to really click in a certain environment.
Hard to believe there isn't any shops in Minneapolis that couldn't use a good wiring guy. Welding is not easy,glamorus work at all. Only way to making good money in welding is to specialize in aluminum,underwater,pipeline welding etc. Not to many good wiring guys out there .
Wiring as in industrial control panels, big demand- pay should match Little different than electrical contractor
One other issue which should not be overlooked is the health effects full time welding can have on you. My grandfather was welder most of his life and was an extremely healthy and unnaturally powerful man. He stayed very healthy until about eighty and basically his lungs shut down from damage incurred through welding. He spent the last several years of his life struggling to breathe, when they finally put him on oxygen he said that was the first time he had been comfortable in a long time, but by then he had gone on in an oxygen deprived state for too long and he died shortly after. Eighty is not bad, but I believe his overall strength would have carried him to 90 or beyond. Also if you are a smoker, welding full time may not be a very good career move. If you decide to weld for a living some types of welding are safer than others. Probably the worst is stick welding on galvanized steel and the safest is probably the cleaner welding that uses inert gases as a shield.
----------------------- Since you are limited on space, you might consider a mobile welding business (full or part time) after you get some training/experience. Regards, X
Those kinds of jobs usually require that you follow the work. That means traveling to the refinery/factory/steel mill/power plant/etc, and living away from home for long periods of time. I know a local specialty welder who is among the best welders I know. He has some regular customers and does pretty well, but his special skill is high quality welding of copper. When he does that he makes very good money. But again, most of the time he does those jobs on site, so he's traveling and out of town.
MAY POP has the right direction!---Retiring from my union after 27 years(1957-1984) of pipe welding experience, it put my kids thru college & gave me a comfortable pension.----Don
Become a union pipe fitter if you want to weld that bad. In minn. The wage should be over 35 per hour. Real benifits also. Ron BAD idea!! I am an unemployed union pipefitter. Unless you are willing to travel and work 6 or 7 days a week 10-12 hours a day, there is no money to be made. They talk like the pay is great and it is hourly, however there are often long stretches of unemployment as well. Not to mention 10 hrs looking at an arc inhaling cancer SUCKS!
I build 20 different vintage Ford parts that I weld together in my home shop using the MIG L-Tec welder that I bought new in 1986. I sell the parts on EBay and on the Internet. I am my own boss, make my own hours and have been doing it for 12 years full time. Welding is one part of it, but I believe you can make more money if you know how to fabricate as well.
7-12s out of town ! Yea baby 84 pays for 112 hrs . Travel time per dieum You only have to work 17 weeks out of 52 for a full years pay. Unemployment 35 weeks building hot rods. Depends on your hall how many hours you need for your insurance is how you have to split it up. You could be making out like a bandit! At least I did doing that. 8 weeks December & January 8 weeks June & July couple little hits in between. Vacation in February, sturgis in august. Oh yea, and camp in June & July pocket 80% of the per diem
Learning to weld is a great idea....welding as a hobby is a great hobby to have....welding 8-16 hours a day, 5-7 days a week sucks. I was taught by my dad and one of his best friends at an early age how to weld, as I grew up I welded more often and worked on learning everything from gas, stick, mig and tig that I could. I've built many stock cars, drag cars, did roll cages in 4x4's, even made quite a few custom motorcycles and componants as well as fabricating and welding in patch panels etc. built trailers and also repaired a ton of different things for many years, then I started welding as a job. Well, I can tell you this much I love to weld, and it wasn't a bad career move at first, but after a couple years the fun became work and work became hot, sweaty, dirty shit. Since changing careers again and getting out of welding I now again enjoy it. I'd never go back to welding full time, and I do a fair amount of welding out of my home shop...but never will I do it full time again. If you enjoy pulling wires, and working with wiring, you may want to consider industrial controls type wiring. If there are and machine build shops in your area stop in and ask them about a control panel build position. You may need some schooling, not sure of you knowledge in that area, but a lot of shops are in need for control wiring guys(panel builders), will put you through school and it can be a very finacially rewarding career. I current run a small machine build shop and have done my fair share of panel building and it was and is a very enjoyable job. It took me into plc programming and robotics and thererfore became a very great career move for myself. It definiatly led me to the position I'm in now. Just an opinion from a dumb ass who's been there and done that. Good luck to you no matter what you choose to do.
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