Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello All,

My name is Hunter, I'm 25 years old and decided to go back to school for welding about six months ago. I lived in Colorado for about 5 years with my lovely wife, but recently have back to Texas for lack of job opportunities in CO. I worked for an oil production company (building Lease Automated Custody Transfer units)as a shop hand here in Tx for about 2 years before I quit to start attending school. Within the two years at the Meter shop, I worked with the most disrespectful, and dehumanizing group of beings I've ever met. I won't say anymore on that topic (because I could write a novel just on sleepless nights on how others were treated) besides that it fueled me to further my education in something.

For some reason while I was there, I thought it would be interesting and challenging to try and start welding. There's just something about how electricity, electromagnetism, different elements being changed and fused at the molecular level, extreme heat, ect. ect... that gives me chills when I think about them. I played around with it a bit, and couldn't get enough of it. But when I had a question about a problem I was having, or just being inquisitive about tips and pointers, the only people I could turn to were the asshole pipeline welders. Don't get me wrong, I'm not grouping all Pipe-liners or oilfield workers with the special scum I had the displeasure of standing next to for ten hours a day, but one gets distraught fairly quickly when belittled or patronized when not knowing about a certain topic in the gigantic world of Welding.

With all that being said, I just want to thank all the wonderful people that are willing to help others here on this message board. It's an absolute breath of fresh air. Starting anew in something as complex as this trade is, it can be a little daunting to say the least. I could sit here and rant and rave about how excited I am that I've found this forum, but I'll save the cyber space for more important questions and threads.

It's very apparent that the people here don't see questions as sign of ignorance, but as sign of curiosity. And choose to fan that flame, instead of snuffing it out.

Again, I thank you.

Cheers,
Hunter

Welcome to the forum Hunter.

Hunter,
Welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear about your time in the shop. You'll not be put down here for asking questions, no matter how elementary or how complex. Most folks here want to know the answers as much as the person asking. We have people here with all levels of experience and a wide field of interests. Your questions will usually be answered with a well researched and thought out answer.

We get side tracked, and your posts will get highjacked, so if you can get past that you can get answers here. We're just a bunch of people who are willing to share what we know about all things welding and fabricating.

Keep us abreast of what you're learning in school, as we have instructors here that can use this to help make their classes better, even if it's something that you think your instructor has wrong. They're just people and sometimes their ego won't let them admit that they don't know all the answers.

We have a wide enough knowledge base here to make us what we call the "collective expert" that you can draw from while learning. The neighborly atmosphere here makes it a place that you'll find yourself coming to when you can't ask anybody else. Also feel free to add to the pot, there's something that you know that others don't and sharing these things is what we're all about.

Len

Welcome to the forum !