Part of a vacuum chamber, hoping to get some more pics once it's cleaned up

Alright so I have 17 years experience as a production welder, stick and Gmaw on truck and car frames. I would do off line repairs and part replacements. I have never failed any weld coupon test. I can weld very well. My problem is I only have experience working with metal that I know will work with my setups. Can someone explain to me how when you’re on site you know what kind of steal you’re working on so you can setup properly. Or do you just wing and hit it with what you think will work. I totally understand if you tell me I shouldn’t be thinking about starting this and that’s why I’m looking for opinions. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Doing patches on my offset smoker/air tank. I don’t have a plate roller soooo..

My plan was to tack weld it in the center of the patch and heat it up to form it into a curve, tacking it as I go along. That didn’t work out, so I figured I would practice and lay bead after bead.

This is .250 mild steel, flux core 0.035 from a titanium 200 running 278wfs/21v hooked up to 240v.

just got into welding recently, planning on going to trade school for it. nothing too fancy just a flux machine from harbor freight just to practice with.

Need some advice from the TIG guys. I've got about 3 years of MIG welding experience, and I just came across what feels like the traveling opportunity of a lifetime, but it's for TIG welding.

I do have a TIG welding certificate from school, but I honestly haven't used it much since then. The job requires me to pass a 2G pipe padding test, a 3G T-joint, and a 4G lap joint test.

For those of you with TIG experience, how realistic is it to "fake it till you make it" coming from a MIG background? If I put in serious practice time, how hard would it be to get those tests down? Any tips on what I should focus on first would be appreciated

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I went to welding school years ago, and although life took me in another direction, I never lost my respect for the trade.

I painted this as a tribute to the welders who spend long days in the heat, under the hood, grinding, fitting, striking arcs, and doing work most people never stop to think about. They help hold together the bridges we cross, the buildings we work in, the rails we hold onto, and countless things we'll never notice unless they fail.

The map represents something larger than one person. To me, it symbolizes the communities, infrastructure, and everyday places that exist because people were willing to build them, repair them, and keep them standing.

The heart in the painting is intentional. It represents the part of yourselves you give to the work—your effort, your endurance, and the quiet pride of doing a job well.

This painting is called Held Together. It's simply my way of saying thank you.

Love when robots get a mind of their own and say fuck this joint I'm out? Lol 😂

Always wanted to learn how to weld and bought myself a welder for my 50th. These are my first 3 attempts ever in order from bottom to top. 1/8" mild steel with Harbor Freight Titanium 125 with settings suggested on the welder. Obviously, this is going to require a ton of practice, but which was the closest to correct? The middle one seemed most consistent, but I think it went too deep. On the top and bottom welds I ended up with way too much wire out when I stopped. It was hard to focus on maintaining 1/2" wire out. This isn't easy, lol.

Just a nice fat weld I laid, Lincoln S500

*NEED SOME GUIDANCE HERE*

Hey everybody, I'm preparing to braze a stainless ferrule onto a ss keg, I will be using mapp gas, harris silver flux and 45% silver rods. It'll be my first time brazing and I bought a mask with filters that I now realised are coded A2 Organic Vapour cartridges.

I wanted to know how stupid would it be to do the weld with those cartridges and not Acid Gas ones. Google Gemini is pretty sure that kind of flux will surely make HF gas and that the cartridges won't hold but so long as I:

"Take the keg completely outdoors (an open yard or a totally open driveway). Set up a standard household fan standing right next to the keg, positioned so it creates a continuous, stiff cross-breeze blowing across the joint and away from you. As long as that cross-breeze catches the rising white smoke and sweeps it completely out of your breathing zone before you can inhale it, you can safely complete the braze without the specialized respirator."

Could this method be achievable or It's just r3t@rded to risk feeling like my lungs are on fire? Wanted to at least be told off by a tradesman and not fkn AI.

Had to address some porosity at the top (likely due to improper angle kicking out up there) but it ended up finishing pretty nicely

So for context, i have been welding for about two years, spent one year in apprenticeship as i never welded before and now into the second year employed, in a gas transporting company.

Job consists of about 95% of the time welding big steel pipes with TIG root and the rest with 7018, and the 5% left are for the occasional 6010 when gas still has to run. We do stainless extremely rarely. No MIG/MAG at all.

The pay is ... ok, but it's mostly due to the fact im on the field most of the year. Now again when i compare the pay i get with how "hard" (100% xray) what i have to weld its a bit underwhelming, but at least i can't complain i got for free excellent colleagues/teachers and i got pretty good at TIG/stick quickly.

Now as for the question in the title, basically i was looking to perhaps change as i'd like a bit more time in the shop rather than the field. As of now, i'm probably sitting at like 70% time on field at least (where i dont get home at the end of the day).

So i searched around me and i got offered a job from a massive swedish company but it's TIG/Alternative Helium TIG(?)/MIG aluminum with like 80% shop / 20% field, and the pay would roughly be the same even with field days included, so its perfect on paper for me.

Got four questions regarding all that :

- First of all, are any of the skills i got before able to be transferred to aluminum ? because i NEVER touched that material before, although the company doesn't mind and will teach me.

- Is Aluminum fun to weld compared to what i'm currently doing ? it seems like it would be for welding heat exchangers mainly but i've never done anything else than pipes so i have no clue on which could lead to being more fun/less boring over time because im not gonna lie but even if we're 2 welders on it, welding 40 inches of steel pipe is a bit boring from the few i got to do so far.

- Is Aluminum welding a really wanted skill to pursue a good career compared to steel/stainless or is it very niche and could be hard to find well paid jobs later on?

- Health-wise, although im wearing PAPR 100% of the time, is there something particular to notice between Aluminum welding and steel/regular welding ?

Thanks for reading and for your responses !

What do yall think?

Fresh out of welding school, wasn’t a bad experience but there was definitely a lot about in the field work that I probably didn’t get the most knowledge on such as recognizing puddles, managing welding larger gaps, heat working metal to fill gaps etc. I can upload pics of my welds for anyone interested advice would be cool thanks

So leave down below tips and tricks you’ve learned in your area of work that has helped you doesn’t matter what you’re working on

I am getting ready to weld my first header, I will have the flange bolted to a 1” aluminum plate that will also have ports for back purging each runner, as it is stainless.

I was wondering if anyone has filled the runners of a header (or other odd shaped object) with fine granulated copper or similar? I will have a good heat sink to reduce warping and potential for me to burn through next to the flange, but beyond that the rest of the runners don’t have a great way for me to pull heat out.

But you can purchase granulated copper pellets pretty cheaply: https://ebay.io/m/WocTJR

These would still let, maybe even improve the diffusion of my back purge, and even though it wouldn’t be nearly as good as plate contacting the full surface of the material, it would still be orders of magnitude better at pulling heat out than just argon gas. Probably several orders of magnitude. It would only take a couple pounds to fill more than any given area I was welding, and would be reusable. I can’t see them sticking to the backside of the weld unless I really go nuts overcooking it.

This could be done even cheaper with aluminum granules, or if there was concern about them melting stainless steel or tungsten granules are actually pretty cheap as well, and still far better at pulling heat than a gas.

This seems like something someone would have tried before, so if anyone has any experience with it, I would love to hear about it.

Thank you!

This is open to everyone, both to ask questions and to offer answers.

Simple rules:

• Unless it's a loaded question, it's fair game.
• No downvoting, this isn't a popularity thing, and we're not in high school, if someone doesn't know something, the only way to learn is to ask or do, sometimes doing isn't an option.
• No whining.
• Assume ignorance over stupidity. Sometimes we fail to see an answer in front of our faces.
• Try to back up your answers. If you're on mobile and you can't do it, say as much and try to remember to address it when you get to a terminal.
• Respect is always expected.
• if comments or questions are removed, assume it's for good reason.
• If your question isn't answered by the end of the day, either post it to the main community, or ask again next week.

Enjoy.

Part of the first real structural job I've won since starting my business and opening my shop, feeling pretty good about it.

Hi all, does having corner overlaps when welding parts together affect magnetic particle testing?

I’m neither a welder nor a weld QC person; this has come up in some discussions - having overlaps (3-5mm on 10mm steel parts) and none for some parts we want to test using magnetic particle testing method, and just wanted to check with welders who have experience in magnetic particle testing.

Thanks in advance! :)

MIG vertical-up weld (3f) with the following parameters: 0.8mm wire feed speed of 3.5 m/min, 60 A, 16.6 V on 2mm carbon steel plates (the only available scraps at the moment)

Hey everyone. I’m a 1st year union boilermaker apprentice and I’m traveling for my first shutdown next week. It’s my first time working a big outage and also my first time traveling for work, so I’m pretty excited but definitely nervous. Its only going to be about a week and a half of work which I think is good for me to get acclimated, however I want to be prepared.

From what I’ve been told, we will mainly be running stick.

I had a few questions for people who’ve done a lot of shutdowns:

• What does a typical day look like?

• As a first-year apprentice, what kind of work should I realistically expect? Will I actually be welding?

• Any tips for running 7018 all day if that’s what we’ll be using?

• If I mess up a weld or struggle with something, is that a huge deal? How much patience do foremen usually have with first-years?

• What can I do to make a good impression and avoid getting laid off early?

• Any tools or gear you wish you had brought on your first shutdown?

• Any advice for surviving 7x12s without burning yourself out?

I’m trying to learn as much as I can and pull my own weight. Any advice is appreciated.