Need Some Help

admin

I'm 31 years old and I seriously want to learn how to be a welder/fabricator.  I am a perfectionist so I know once I learn the ropes the sky's the limit.  Can anyone point me in the right direction to where I can learn the trade???  I have 4 kids so my budget is very limited. Thank you.
Reply:It would help if we knew your location. You can take a minute and add it to your profile at the top right, so we always know where you are located at a glance.There are plenty of high school votec centers and community colleges that offer night school programs that can get you started in welding. There are also dedicated full time programs at places like Lincoln and Hobart as well as some commercial votec schools as well. Which is right for you depends on what type of job you are looking for and what time frame you have in mind. Someone here recently posted up what Hobat's program runs and it compares pretty close to what the local tech school charges for their night program when you break the prices down per hour. The big difference being that at Hobart you learn 5 days a week vs about 3 hours in one night once a week at the tech school. Thus you get more learning in at a place like Hobart in a shorter period of time.Sure there are ways you can do this without taking a class, but if you are serious about getting a job, a class is usually the best way to go. When you sit down and add up what it will cost for the material, gas, wire/rod and material, not to mention the electric, equipment and instruction, a class is usually stupid cheap.Don't expect to take a single night class semester and come out ready to take anything more than a very basic minimum wage job doing maybe production mig, if you are lucky. Learning to weld with stick, or tig, especially on pipe or nonferous metals takes a lot more time. The best way to get a job fast with something like this is a dedicated FT program simply due to the number of hours you need to put in to learn all of what is needed..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