Hey yall so i was told that I will interview for an pipefitter apprenticeship and I'm looking forward to it, the only thing on my mind is there any sort of test I need to take? I really want to leave a good impression

I do glass work and sometimes (most of the times lol) we do glass railings that require stainless steel or aluminum hand rails and glass caps that need to be cut and welded at different angles. We always use an Asian company that does a good enough job for clients to be happy with it but I can’t stand the horrible craftsmanship, so much so that I stopped taking pictures of the work because I’m not happy with the little details. I have an unused garage I’d love to practice and perfect the craft, I understand it won’t take a month to do so, but I’d love to practice until one day I get it. Can anyone recommend a welding machine for stainless steel and aluminum, that’s friendly for beginners? Also maybe some tips and tricks? Really appreciate anyone who’s down to help. And thanks in advance!

He's at a technical highschool in NJ. Has been learning welding for 90 minutes each day since September. He now cuts the plates himself and then welds them together. I showed him some posts from here and from the other, funnier welding subreddits and he asked me to post this here.

1/4” stick out. Fluxcore .030. 16 gauge material.

What am I doing wrong causing these holes? Metal was clean / flap disced before I started. My short welds seem to be less affected.

I am looking to get my first job but am green, I graduated school in May 2024, haven’t welded a whole lot since but want to jump into a job that is willing to teach and mentor me into a long term role. Seems like all the jobs are expecting candidates that can hit the ground running and put out production day one. Any recommendations to land and apprenticeship style role.

I'm AC tig welding aluminum, or at least trying to learn and I hear the sound change as I am welding. I've got the frequency turned up and it sounds like a mosquito, which is good, but sometimes it sounds coarser or crackles or sputters. What are these sounds telling me?

I (27M) am looking to develop some more skills in trades. I took a very short welding class in high school doing stick welding and had a decent job at it but I’m several years out of practice. I’m based in the Greater Boston Area and am looking to try and get back into welding even as a hobby at first and then maybe as a career if it goes well.

I’m also a renter so I don’t have a dedicated garage space for welding but I do have a large concrete patio in the backyard where I could setup equipment. Saw some moderately priced MiG/Flux welders on Amazon and HF but before I make a dumb purchase I wanted to check in with the experts here.

Does anyone in here from 798 have any insight? I have about 7 years of weld experience and am looking to hit the road soon as a helper. I have a few contacts, but I'm just trying to gauge what the workload is looking like. Just bought a house and don't want to hop on a job for 3 weeks just to ride the bench for 4 months. If it's unstable, I'm just going to look into my local UA. Thanks all for the advice.

I am teaching myself to weld SMAW i got a small 75amp just for learning. I want to know where i can find some safety resources for working with the welder. I have no experience with welding. I have no one to teach me. I just want to make sure i dont kill myself when i use it. Willing to buy books, or watch videos. Any resources would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT* I am mostly worried about electric shock and death by electricity. I found most of the safety gear info online but im having trouble finding where to locate how to place the ground and what you can and cant touch/body position in regards to safety.

Here is the welder...

https://www.princessauto.com/en/75a-mini-inverter-stick-welder/product/PA0008785008

Thanks in advanced.

Welded some 3” x 3/16” angle iron to the plate, the 3/16 just fits into the garage door hinge.

Hi all - long time lurker, first time poster.

I've been running a pretty basic Rossi 155 in gasless for a little while now.

No issues with it - lays a bead as good as flux-core gets, I guess. Min / Max / 1 / 2 and wire speed dial all work as they should.

I've moved on to body panels and have some gas now, along with solid wire. All 0.8mm / 0.315in.

I reversed the polarity inside the unit, I swapped the earth lead over and the thing won't even hold a spark or lay a bead.

I tried the polarity in MMA / flux mode and it was only marginally worse.

Gas is flowing about right.

I'm welding 6mm plate as a test, a picture of what I'm getting is attached.

Can anyone help me understand what I'm doing wrong, please? Is there a setting I've missed?

My crew is going to be fairly small, about 6-7 guys. I have no real experiance as a lead so im looking for any advice or knowlege that you guys can pass down

Got a big sheet of 1/8th steel that I’m making targets out of. Today I welded 4 layers together with a “flux core wire fed” machine (ignore my ignorance as idk wtf any of this is). I’m going to make more targets tmr and would like my welds to look just a tiny bit better. So any advice/information would be great.

I joined 2pcs - 2x4 tubular pipes. The upper is 1.5gauge thickness and the lower is 2.0. Current is at 42ish Amps and arcforce is at no 04 (1 to 10 range option). Electrode used is 6013. All these materials are scraps here at home and l'm using it to learn. I need your honest opinion guys:

Ps. Bought an auto dim glass and boy it's amazing and easy to the eyes.

Almost 40. Looking to learn as I always thought welding was cool. While YouTube university is free, I don’t know enough to know what is good teaching and what is bad. Is a local community college a good place to learn basics of mig and tig? I’ll probably end up doing small projects for fun. I just want to learn the right way if doing it.

Hello! I am so sorry this is the layperson-best layperson-est thing that could possibly ever asked on this subreddit but also this is possibly the only subreddit that would know.

I do 3D printing designs and prefer to strengthen my prints with things other than plastic through clever design. Now I love to use stainless steel rods at the 1.5-2.5mm for strength in these designs but they are fairly expensive to buy in the quantities I need for bigger projects. They are also kinda sold at short sizes so I loose a lot just cutting them.

I was tipped off about TIG wire as a way to sidestep this and when I got a 2LBS container of aluminum TIG wire in my mailbox today I was so jazzed.

Anywho its also not strong enough. And I would prefer to have the smallest amount of shipping going on for this research so I am trying to get a sense of the strength of Mild Steel and Stainless Steel TIG wire. Aluminum is not going to work in most designs as it is soft and bendy - should've seen that coming.

I don't have anywhere I know that really sells TIG wire near me. So I gotta ship it to hold it. I realize it's not going to be 1:1 but is stainless steel TIG wire about the same rigidity as a similar diameter of just a rod? And how much more disappointed am I going to be using mild steel?

Brittleness doesnt really matter here as it will be shielded. It's its residence to bending under torque and under a centrally placed load I am usually looking for.

Again. Forgive me for this silly question. But I may not have a way to hold them in my hands without ordering so I would love to get a rough sense.