need help picking classes

[wd40prerunner]

I'm finally going to school to get formal training in welding but i need some help choosing what class to take.here are my choices
1 oxy/fuel plasma cutting/ welding
2 smaw 1
3 gmaw(hard wire)
there is also a blueprint read layout ske that i thought would be nice to learn to read blue prints. thanks for any guidance .

[DSW]

How do you plan to use the information from the class? Is it for hobby use or to get a job in the welding industry?

My basic answer is D) all of the above.

Gas welding will teach you the basics that apply to all forms of welding. Heat and puddle control. With this info you can do almost any form of welding once you get the mechanics down. You control heat and the puddle you can gas weld, tig, stick or mig. Gas and Tig are very similar other than what you use to form the puddle gas flame vs electric arc. Gas welding is not used frequently in production but has a variety of uses for the hobbyist. There are better welding methods for most things however. Gas and Plasma cutting can be very useful. Take this class if you want to move towards tig and can't afford the tig machine now.

SMAW is good if you plan to work outdoors in structural or the pipe fields. Good for heavy materials but poor on sheet metal. If you plan on building a trailer this would be a good class but not so good if you want to replace the quarter panels on your corvette. Machines are relatively inexpensive to get to practice on.

Mig both gas and FCAW useful both indoor with gas or outdoor with FC. Migs are great for sheet metal. The bigger 220v ones will build a trailer. With a spool gun you can weld alum. My choice if you have only one option to take. Probably the easiest to master. Prices on machine vary depending on quality and power.


Print reading is great if you plan to work in the field professionally.

[Craig in Denver]

There are some opinions here:

http://weldingweb.com/showthread.php?t=22090

"not so good if you want to replace the quarter panels on your corvette."

OT: DSW: Corvettes were fiberglass. Are they alum now?

[DSW]

Doh! Just picked a car at random that someone would recognise. Just my luck to pick a fiberglass car! Seems to be the way my week is going. Still stick welding would be a poor chioce to fix the pannels however.

[Craig in Denver]

Originally Posted by DSW

Just my luck to pick a fiberglass car! Seems to be the way my week is going. Still stick welding would be a poor chioce to fix the pannels however.

Indeed, fiberglass or alum, stick would be a poor choice.

[CDG]

I agree with the all of the above part, BUT:

If you're going to be welding mostly steel and you're a home hobbyist looking for a skill that you can market, MIG is the ticket in my book. Buy yourself into a decent Mig welding setup, and go out there and weld some stuff. Find some friends and offer to fix things for them when you get good enough. If you're an enterprising individual you'll be able to snag up small repair jobs for extra cash on the side.

The bottom line is that if you take the class on Mig you should leave the class a proficient welder, if not nearly competant enough to be mistaken for a professional. All of the other processes have too many nuances and require hundreds and hundreds of hours of practice to really master.

That said, your most versatile process that is being offered is gas. Any two pieces of metal can be put together with an oxy acetylene torch and some rod. Gas welding is old school, slow, and difficult to truly master. It's also still used to weld together things like racing suspensions and can be used for brazing, soldering and cutting.


SMAW is the least useful process to be familiar with if you're not a pro. It's mainly only worthwhile because the process can be used in numerous outdoor areas where it is impossible or at least impractical to use Mig or flux wire. I'm grossly oversimplifying the issue I think but that's the ghist.

So Bottom line, my opinion:

1) If you're welding to learn a marketable skill, learn Mig. It's the best chance you have to be good without investing as much time in the hobby.

2) If you're welding just to learn how to weld, to do anything from ornamental welding to racing suspensions, learn gas welding. It's a fundamental skill and can still be used very effectively by a skilled welder. You will find it easiest to invest in a torch set to start you out with.

3) Pick the SMAW class only if you really think you want to become a pipefitter someday. Nobody else uses SMAW unless you're in some kind of heavy industry. Maybe if you're in an area with a lot of snowplows, but even most of that is done with a mig welder these days.

[wd40prerunner]

thanks everyone for the replies im going to take the smaw class!

[Jolly Roger]

If you want to do it for a living you learn all of the processes and the print reading. I seldom ever use my tig. I use sticks and mig all the time. I haven't welded with O/A in several years, but I use the torch daily for cutting and heating. If you are proficient with smaw the other processes are easy to move into. In the oilfield if you can't run 7018 uphill you won't get hired no matter how good you are with mig or tig. I do heavy equipment repair, tractor trailer work, ornamental iron, pipe, and just about anything they want to drag in. I use wire extensively on the trailers and for all of the ornamental stuff. The tractors (as in Peterbuilt, etc.) and heavy equipment (dozers, excavators, loaders, forklifts, crushers, etc.) is all done with sticks. The torch comes in real handy when you get into cast iron and have to braze it.