The Six Dollar Haircut!

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I see that commercial and the first thing I think about is how many carport welding jobs have made me a lot of money. I don't mean me welding under a carport, although I have many times, I am referring to the repair jobs that joe plumber made with his $129 buzz, no pun, box under his carport.. It has to be worse now days. I have not been exposed to it for a while, but I can still get a good laugh thinking of some of the "welds" that I have had to cut,grind, gouge, or  maybe even poocan it and start over that some cat thought he would save a few bucks on. I have also made some good buys on very slightly used buzz boxes, lol. Those of you who do or have made your living with molten metal know what I am talking about. I mean, a teenager with a paper route can afford a "home store" wire machine, and viola, "I'm a welder". I don't mean to put anyone down, but there are so many stages of being a welder, that I can't name one person  (ahem, author excepted) that can do it all. Just kidding, I can't either. I have some young friends that have welding jobs. A couple in particular are very good TIG welders. Problem is, they were company trained and they weld one or two welds on a piece and that is all they weld. They are really artists at what they do but you throw a piece of sch120 316 1" pipe in front of them and they would not know which end to put the purge hose in. And it goes on and on like that. Most trades are pretty cut and dried and to an extent, welding is too. As far as procedures and techniques, testing and  such, but on the other hand, there are so many applications for different kinds of welding. You could spend your entire life and not be the master of all types. I guess what I am trying to convey is that you still have choices to make even after you decide to become a welder. People say MIG is easy. And yes, it is. I had my dropout nephew running a MIG in about 20 minutes, well enough to weld on farm implements. But? He would have no clue how or why it worked the way it did. On the other end of the spectrum, there was one guy in my plant in the early '80's out of 250 men and women, he was the only one that they trusted to make 100% X-ray uphill welds on 1" css tanks that were going to a nuke. I am glad of that fact since you can't get too far from one.  There have been so many young people in welding classes that don't want to do all the classroom work that is required. They want to burn some rods. "Ain't this a welding class?", "What do I need all this book crap for?". Well, you just do and one of these days you will come to that realization. The older you get the harder it is to go back and learn something. In today's market you need to know why the puddle does that not just that you can make it so. Well, I could go on, but I guess I have bored everyone enough. I know there are probably not many who this message should be directed to that will take the time to read the whole thing or much less, take heed of it. I just felt like expressing my self.SA200,Ranger8,Trailblazer251NT,MM250,Dayton225AC,T  D-XL75,SpoolMate3545SGA100C,HF-15-1  RFCS-14 When I stick it, it stays stuck!
Reply:Well said Mooseye.  I'm only a hobby weldor, and a new one at that, but I agree with your thoughts.  When I decided to try my hand at welding last year, I read everything I could get my hands on about the welding prosesses, though I probably will never get into TIG.   I even took a welding class at the local community college, and it was a big help.  I guess the ones who learn the trade inside and out are he real "pros". I would think there will always be a need for their skills.   But, Alas, we do live in a world full of specialists, and maybe that isn't all bad.Nctox,  Stickmate LX  235AC/160DC  HH210
Reply:I see it all the time in many things besides welding. Everyone wants to jump right in and do the "Glory" jobs. You know, those big showy sorts of things that they show on TV, building custom this or custom that... They don't feel they need to sit down and "waste" time learning the basics and praticing over and over and over.... They think they can just buy a fancy toy and be the latest and greatest there's ever been. Can't weld? Must be the machine! Get a new "better" one!.No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Originally Posted by mooseyeI see that commercial and the first thing I think about is how many carport welding jobs have made me a lot of money. . .
Reply:Originally Posted by DSWI see it all the time in many things besides welding. Everyone wants to jump right in and do the "Glory" jobs. You know, those big showy sorts of things that they show on TV, building custom this or custom that... They don't feel they need to sit down and "waste" time learning the basics and praticing over and over and over.... They think they can just buy a fancy toy and be the latest and greatest there's ever been. Can't weld? Must be the machine! Get a new "better" one!
Reply:Originally Posted by denrepI feel that if you're in business, you owe it to your fellow local business owners to try to trade with them.
Reply:How true, how true it is. I've actually had customers want me to suggest a welder so they won't have to call me every time they have some little project that needs a "tack" or two to fix. I don't believe in tacks fixing any thing but I point them to a wire feed. I still get their big projects and they don't complain about the price any more because they now know how hard it can be. Then there is all those repeat fixes where a few "tacks didn't fix it. I do, however, appreciate any one who wants to build or fix something their selves. I'm always willing to help them. But, like I always say "This aint nailing boards together, anyone can do that. This is welding".
Reply:"This aint nailing boards together, anyone can do that. This is welding"
Reply:I have been in the horse business my entire life.  When I was a kid of four years I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. And I did it!  I wanted to be the best horse trainer I could be. So I went to work for the best trainers I could find. I was a slave for many years. I studied anatomy and horse shoeing. I also wanted to know how to build the barns and things I would need. So I worked for a contractor. All with a plan to become a real professional.I worked for fifty dollars a month plus room and board.  I started at 5 in the morning and finished at 10 at night. No days off. I didn't want any days off. Learning was what I wanted. The trainers I worked for all offered me partnerships because of my attitude and abilities.  I never would have even thought to ask how many hours a week I would "have" to work. I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world.  Everyone else was having to pay for their education and here I was actually getting paid! Wow life was good.To relate this to the OP.  I see all the time young people who had their own horse and did well in the show ring and then decide to hang out their shingle as a trainer.  They really don't have a clue and they take money from people but have no real knowledge or experience.  A lot the same as weldors in some cases.  They glue a few things together and never really studied what is really involved in the whole process.  And that goes for the business and people skills side as well.It is amazing how people don't cringe at the costs of me fixing their "problem" horses just after they have been bucked off or in some other way injured because of their lack of knowledge and experience.  While they are nursing a sore butt they think my high prices are just fine!  So go on fixing the welding jobs that the do-it-yourselfer   just had fall down around their heads and charge them accordingly.  Let the pain be complete.  In the butt and the wallet.
Reply:Originally Posted by mooseye There have been so many young people in welding classes that don't want to do all the classroom work that is required. They want to burn some rods. "Ain't this a welding class?", "What do I need all this book crap for?". Well, you just do and one of these days you will come to that realization. The older you get the harder it is to go back and learn something. In today's market you need to know why the puddle does that not just that you can make it so.
Reply:I have a buzz box. I'm not a welder. I just weld. I hate my buzz box too.
Reply:Originally Posted by Drake AldanI really want somebody to prove me wrong and say that there are books that explain the intricacies of technique in detail- welding may be a science, but all the damn data is missing!
Reply:Originally Posted by DSWVery true! I've watched all most all the really good small local suppliers disapear over the last 10 years. Places that have been in business for decades. They just can't compete with the buying power of big chain stores and the ability of these sorts of places to loose money in one location to keep market saturation. As soon as competition is gone, up the prices go to help cover the next new area store thats underselling the small guy. I try and make a point of dealing with the few places that are left as much as posible, even if it costs me a bit more to drive out of my way to get there or if I pay a few dollars more.Oh, and if you'd stop tossing the clubs in the lake, you'd get more life out of them....
Reply:as a career welder, and welding engineer. I sometimes forget hobbyists don't have the same depth of knowledge on welding that I share with my peers. as of now I do complex aerospace welding procedure development and training, I spend a good amount of time stamping out bad habits welders pick up, or down right myths and misinformation.I go easy on the hobby guys who are self taught because most aren't trying anything critical, but when you're making structural welds on space quality hardware and everything is 100% NDT you can't cut it with anything less than perfect work.
Reply:Originally Posted by Drake AldanActually, that's the thing.I'm trying to find some books to read, they're aren't any!Aside from setup specifics, pipe takeoffs, stuff like that, when you get to actual welding technique the books start to get real vague!!!I'm in the TIG-pipe welding phase at school right now. Nobody talks about lift-start, always on, DCEN, I ain't seen nothing about puddle properties/fluid dynamics/whatever you wanna call it, I looked in the book and there ain't no detailed explanation of walking the cup so I can really break down and make my technique rock solid. There ain't been books I can take home and study up on, it's always been "just keep doing it, you'll get better."I mean, I understand. You have to put in hood time. But I'll never know the "whys" at this rate!It's reinventing the friggin' wheel! How am I supposed to step my game up when information-wise welding seems to be in the dark ages?!I really want somebody to prove me wrong and say that there are books that explain the intricacies of technique in detail- welding may be a science, but all the damn data is missing!
Reply:They could at least try, though.with walking the cup, I am stumbling through the performance- I do not know exactly how to adjust parameters to shape my weld bead. When you roll or pivot, what muscles do you use? How much force do you use- is endurance training needed to at least keep a level of dexterity throughout the weld? How do you shift your body position around the pipe confidently without losing control of the weld so that you may reduce your tie-in frequency? How do you increase your step size to lessen your work done, yet keep the puddle and tungsten tip in a straight line? When is adjusting the step size appropriate for a certain size of bead? What factors are included in choice of cup size?and that's just one part- I've had trouble finding explanations of choice of filler metal size (3/32 or 1/8- after the initial root pass, depending on groove size and position, when should either be used?), travel speed (if you take too long during a weld, is it detrimental to the weld?), how fusion works with GTAW (if I walk over a 1/8 rod in the groove to fill it up faster, am I truly getting fusion all the way through the bead, or is it just sitting there?)Perfection comes from knowing all the parameters and being able to predict what will happen next. I've not seen it in a welding book, which I believe is strange, because I would think the industry would be better off with multiple people capable of x-ray precision. Hood time is necessary, as you should actually do it after reading it in a book,but I don't think hood time should be used to compensate for all the little details left unsaid.Keeping it down in the hood...literally!
Reply:The best way to learn this is to have someone hold your hand. I mean that literally. Years ago, my stick instructor would come into the booth, grab your hand and manipulate the rod thru you if you were having problems. You are watching and feeling whats happening at the same time. Pretty impressive, since he could do this both left and right handed for different students. Then he'd have you do it on your own and see if you understood what he was showing you. If not he'd try again.Which mussels do you use to move your fingers? Move them and watch your arm. You use all sorts of mussels you probably don't realize, because you just "do it" it's all unconscious. You've done it so many times you no longer have to think about what you want to do, you just do it. You realize how hard this is when you hurt yourself and can't use body parts the way you did before and have to relearn some things. You can easily write with a pen yes? Write a letter with your off hand. You know how to make all the motions to put the info on paper, but your body doesn't have the developed skills to easily produce the same results. All those tedious drills forming letters as a kid trained your mussels to do that unconciously. You are doing the same thing with tig now..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Drake Aldan,     In all fairness, the lack info you are complaining about falls back on you.  In follow your other post you finally show your very first tig weld which was a inside  corner weld.  So if what you post is your actual experience , your not being fair in giving yourself the amount of time to properly learn tig.  If you'd go back and do some basic practice joints and some open root joints on some flat stock first, it will help more than you think.
Reply:I have only posted once previously but I feel I have to chime in. I learned the bare minimum to GTAW to do gun-smithing many years ago. That later led to a chance to get into the welding department at Ruger Investment Castings which exposed me to the concept of plasma arc welding in the manual mode. That was the most humbling experience of my life, to learn how to control the pedal for my arc with my right foot, the torch with my right hand, the workpiece turntable with my left foot and the wire feeder with my left hand. Coordinating all those actions was a major learning experience which I have never forgotten. I fully understand the comment made earlier about the problem with people that do production work and can not function with a different challenge presented to them. I wished that I had been exposed to welding at an earlier age so that I could have learned more. I was the wierdo that read all of the welding magazines that we would receive so that I could expand my knowledge of the huge number of welding formats that exist out there. I joined the Navy in 2001 and haven't touched a welding machine since then, but I plan on a TIG machine in the future and I just bought an oxy/fuel rig today so that I can work on a variety of gun-smithing related work. I am just rambling because the art of welding is being lost and the OP's comment about poor work turned out by the guy that can buy a cheap unit and profess themselves a weldor makes me cringe. I see it when I get a bag of parts that some "gunschmidt" hosed up because he watched a couple of videos and therefore is an expert. We sorely need people to realize that the trades are as honorable a line of work as any "professional" line of work, even though your fingers may get some dirt under the nails. Sorry to vent, I am tired and kinda bitchy right now. I suck at typing and don't participate in forums very often, so don't be surprised if I don't post very often,Mark
Reply:Maybe I don't understand something.  Sounds to me that the original poster wants to be handed the trade and not work for the information.  If I wanted to learn to be the best weldor that I could be I would find a weldor that knew what I wanted to learn and I would then do anything I would have to do in order to get him/her to share this knowledge with me.  No shortcuts in life.  Even if one weldor does not know all the things I want to learn but one aspect of it.  I would work with/for/slave for that weldor until I had the proficiency I wanted and then move on. I think it is up to anyone to gather the information, analyze it and then get it out to your hands in proficiency by good practice.  Remember practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.  Otherwise you are just practicing mistakes until you get really good at doing it wrong.
Reply:Originally Posted by Crank    We sorely need people to realize that the trades are as honorable a line of work as any "professional" line of work, even though your fingers may get some dirt under the nails.
Reply:Ya know i have just got to say that some of the hobbiest and do it yourself fix it guys dont get enough credit on this forum.  Now before everyone goes off on me all half cocked read the sentence just before this one again and really pay attention to the word SOME.  It is my firm OPINION that there are hobbiest and do it yourselfers that are much better weldors than some proffesionals that i have seen.  When asked how good of a weldor I am I would reply that I am not as good as some but better than most.  I am self taught and never held a job as a proffesional weldor.  I can tell ya when the top blew out on my hydraulic dump cylinder on my tandem axle dump truck I welded it back together myself.  Now i know most on here would not recomend welding something this critical myself.  and for most people i would agree with that.  Anyhow I did it and no i did not use a wire feed welder even though i do own one.  I used a stick machine with 7018 rod.  Thats been darn near 10 years ago now and i still use the cylinder and truck on a daily basis.  some days are up to 40 loads or more.  anyhow the point is I am a do it yourselfer who is self taught and would not trust that job to some of the so called proffesionals that i have seen.  One thing that i have learned is that a true proffesional will tell you that it is impossible to know all there is to welding and there is always something to learn.  there is no such thing as a weldor that has nothing to learn proffesional or otherwise.Also on the commercial if it is the one i remember I think you guys miss the real point of the commercial.  If i remember the commercial was about how smart the small shop owner was due to the fact that he didnt get all out of sorts that a larger flashier chain opened up across the street and instead he got a simple sign made that read  "WE FIX 6 DOLLAR HAIRCUTS".  Part of the point is that all the flash and hype and expensive building and equipment and gimiks dosent mean your gona get a great haircut.  In the end it really comes down to the guy cutting the hair.  I think welding is just like cutting hair in this commercial. It dosent take all the flash and hype and best machinery ever built to make a great weldor.  I have a lincoln weld pak 100.  considered by most to be a cheap welder.  however i can with my cheap welder make better welds then some pros i have seen with really expensive equipment.  My point is a good welder in the hands of a bad weldor is only as good as the man running it no matter how much it cost.  A cheap welder in the hand of a good weldor can prove to be very adequate and provide excellent work.Maybee what im trying to say is those that cant weld shouldnt lolagain this is just my opinion!!!Last edited by stockcar92; 02-21-2010 at 06:55 PM.Reason: add more