Welding Tips and Tricks

I work as a welder. I build aluminum bulkheads for tractor trailers.
Do I need to be certified?
If anyone can help with this question, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Usually you have to be certified to get the job in the first place. If you arent, then no. Whether your -suppose- to be or not has little bearing on you-its your employers responsibility to 1)make sure the work that needs to be done by certified people is done by such, and 2) to keep track of said certifications and make sure they are legit and up to date.

Long story short, ask your boss!

Most welding requires some sort of certification. If your doing aluminum (tig or mig) you should probably have some sort of certification in the process your using, covering the metal type, thickness, joint design, process, and type of weld (fillet or groove)

Oddly enough, I've been welding in industry from small job-shops to fab shops to railroad shops to industrial construction (including a power plant, two ethanol plants, and a bio-diesel), and I've never been certified.

That's not entirely true. At the railroad yard, they did an "in-house" test for each process, that had to be repeated every six months, but it wasn't worth any thing anywhere else except as a "bullet" on a resume'.

I currently repair and inspect one of the most complicated and potentially dangerous vehicles on the highway today, liquid hydrogen transport trailers. I regularly perform major repairs on process piping and vacuum-jacketed piping, and still have never certified in what I do.

The need for certification depends entirely on the customer. If the customer doesn't specify in his bid request that the work be done by people with a certain certification, the workers don't need to be certified. (There are circumstances where certification is automatically required. If I were to perform work on the inner "pressure vessel" in the trailers I repair, I would need to be an ASME Certified Code Welder, for example.)

Even if certification is not needed for what you do, spending a little cash to get certified will help if you ever have to look for another job.

Steve

thank you everyone for your information have a great day

Otto-

Im sure your a damn good welder, but knowin they got guys welding at power houses and ethanol plants scares the piss outta me. Especially with all the gas main explosions blowin up all over the country. I cant believe they would have guys, not even passin a bend test, weldin on shit like you were talkin about.

I take it all those jobs were non union? In my union you have to pass a 6010root/7018fill/cap on 6" sch. 40 6g, a 2" xxs tig root/7018out(think its a 5g), and a 2" xxs 6010root/7018fill/cap before we can even go out as a welder. THEN, we have to pass the gate test on the job, and certify for whatever process they are usin. This is all the shit im workin on right now.

I know back in the 70's and 80s even the unions werent big on certification. But nowadays, every job I see they want some kind of cert.

Kermdawg,

These jobs were, of course, non-union.

Those I was on were old-school but effective in selecting good hands. Your first day on your tools, the bosses would hand you the toughest job at this point in the sequence, and walk away. They'd walk by and look every 20 minutes or so. In two hours or less, they knew whether you knew what you were doing. A lot of people didn't survive the first day. But at the time, they'd still pay your mileage in, and time in orientation/ piss test/ site safety.

The work I do now requires that I challenge anyone I work with if I find something "suspect" in their weld, and we constantly ask each other to QC our work. To find a leak later in the Helium test costs a couple grand to fix, plus the hours -- or days -- it takes to put a finger on the leak.

The industrial trades used to be self-policing like this, but so many half-ass low-bidder companies are throwing cheap labor at the problem, requiring expensive rework, that the customer is become alert to the certifications available to skilled workers. They don't seem aware of the cost to the worker, though.

Steve

Those I was on were old-school but effective in selecting good hands. Your first day on your tools, the bosses would hand you the toughest job at this point in the sequence, and walk away. They'd walk by and look every 20 minutes or so. In two hours or less, they knew whether you knew what you were doing. A lot of people didn't survive the first day. But at the time, they'd still pay your mileage in, and time in orientation/ piss test/ site safety.

I remember when I first walked onto a multi billion dollar job as a journeyman. I was 23. And exactly what you said, everytime I got put on a new crew they would give me the most fucked up job-usually a job someone else had already started and fucked up-and make me fix it, right. They all looked so surprised I just went to work and plodded away at it :p

The industrial trades used to be self-policing like this, but so many half-ass low-bidder companies are throwing cheap labor at the problem, requiring expensive rework, that the customer is become alert to the certifications available to skilled workers. They don't seem aware of the cost to the worker, though.

Ya nowadays they go in and bid low and its change order after trade damage after back charge. I worked at city center for a year, a 9 billion dollar project, that turned out to be close to a 15 billion dollar project, after change orders/back charges/trade damage. And of course, they blame the cost of labor for the reason they cant get anything built. Cost of labor on a job that size is only 10-15% of the total bid.

edit- i was just rememberin, they used to make all the welders at the airport job right their initials with soapstone on all the joints they welded, so they would know who to fire if one leaked. Works I suppose

I suppose I should add the powerhouse I was on had x-ray testing of all critical piping welds, and I was mostly doing plate welding and rigging (neither of which I was certified in, nor had I been formally trained in rigging).

At the ethanol plants, Fagen had most of the process piping, and my small crew were responsible for the dryer building. There were two of us qualified to pipe the gas trains for the natural gas/bio-gas burners. I did most of the fitting , and we shared the welding. We were actually complimented by Fagen's pipe foreman for "the best looking gas trains I've ever seen". That was high praise, considering the low regard our backwater redneck crew was held in.

Once the boss knew what you could do, you were assigned work according to your ability first, then by necessity (when there was no pipe, I might be hanging iron, bull-rigging duct work, or setting drags and screws. Because of my math and layout skills, I wound up setting most of the biggest fans. It wasn't unusual to be handed a major project I'd never had any experience on. "Here's the print. Here's a helper. You have the 100 ton TEREX all day."

Fortunately, I guess I have the right combination-- Just smart enough to get the job done, and just dumb enough not to be afraid to try.

Steve

Testing image posting. (I set , fit, and welded everything outside the building to the stack.)

Fortunately, I guess I have the right combination-- Just smart enough to get the job done, and just dumb enough not to be afraid to try.

I think of myself that way sometimes :p

But seriously, what I tell all my apprentices, is never be afraid to ask a question, no matter how stupid it is. You might get laughed at, or a little shit talked to ya, but suck it up and you'll be better off for askin it. And, if your thinkin it I can guarentee at LEAST one other person is thinkin the same thing. And of course, never be afraid to screw up. Theres been times where I sat there lookin at some piping thinking, how in the world is this giong to work...and I thought and thought and thought and couldnt see it happenin..and finally, I just start pipin, and it all comes out somehow. Maybe not as pretty as the well thought out stuff, but it gets the job done, and next time you'll be able to picture it in your head and make it look real pretty, like you meant to do it that way all along!

Best part about a job is thinkin you fucked up, and the boss comin by and sayin "Looks great, good job"! Uhh, ya, I meant to do that!

Someone once told me that stupid answers far outnumber stupid questions. This agrees with my experience.

OTOH, if there are no stupid questions, what kind of questions do stupid people ask???

Steve