[Chuck_junks]

My name is Chuck and I'm new to the forum.

I retired from the Navy as a steam plant and auxiliary systems tech and went to work as a steam plant and water reclaim plant tech in a commercial laundry plant servicing all of Seattle and Tacoma's major hospitals.
Not long after I started my Chief Engineer asked me if I could weld. I said I think I can make two pieces of metal stick together but it would be ugly... He gave me a can of 7018 3/32 rods and a scrap piece of plate, showed me how to adjust the Miller Syncrowave 250 we have in the shop and said run beads till you fill up the plate. So for a while I practiced on scraps and soaked in as much YouTube welding vids as I could till I talked him into letting me start my first project. I made some machine guards out of 3/4 steel angle and perforated sheet. Since then I have become the shop fabricator and got a nice little pay bump for it.
In the last year I have taught myself how to TIG weld on the shop welder after fixing the water cooler, piecing the torch back together and finding the foot pedal hidden on a shelf in the back of an old cabinet. Mostly I weld stainless due to infection control guidelines we have to maintain... But I do get to weld some steel and every once in awhile I'll get some aluminum.
From what I've seen so far there's a huge wealth of knowledge in this forum that I can't wait to take advantage of and hopefully I can contribute some of what I've learned.

Chuck


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[Mike]

Welcome to the forum Chuck.
And thank you for your service.