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NewLou
14th Oct 2007, 01:26 PM
Gidday:D

For all the Welders regular to the forum Heres some experienced welders willing to pass on their Wisdom n skills to those interested!

As an apprentice I find this kind of thing inspirational and an invaluable resource. Comes from my FAV welding forum in the states!

Hope all you guys get as much from this as i have!

http://www.weldingweb.com/showthread.php?t=12125

and another:

http://www.weldingweb.com/showthread.php?t=14640&highlight=pipe+fitter

Heres also an excellent video of brazing carbide tips!

http://www.tools-woodworking.com/video.html

REgards Lou:2tsup:

BobL
14th Oct 2007, 06:12 PM
Lou, thanks for the lead, I learned 3 things in about 3 minutes. I'm sitting in a airport lounge reading this and I'm peed off cos there's no welder handy for me to try these things out on :(

Cheers

Vernonv
14th Oct 2007, 06:47 PM
They are some good links. I will definitely bookmark them.

One web site I found handy when I started MIG welding (I was already familiar with stick welding, but was new to MIG) was http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/. Probably more aimed at the hobbyist, but still some great info.

Grahame Collins
14th Oct 2007, 09:54 PM
Hi Lou and the gang
I am sorry but I am unable agree with you on the master welder statement. I intend these comments to be read as a constructive post .
I am not knocking for the sake of knocking,but I say you are looking at the wrong people to emulate.
I wouldn't get carried away with too much of what some of those blokes are saying. Masters at self promotion perhaps and making themselves look good.

Of course, use the sites to pick up a hint or two and if it works for you fantastic, but remember its not all gospel and these blokes are not the cream of the crop. I often lurk on some of the yank boards and pick up a idea or two.One has to watch out for the show ponies.It is interesting if you hang around long enough the fair dinkum welders come out and bust the show ponies BS.

Do you know that the yanks were coming to Australia in my time in the industry to recruit Aussie welders.
Why?
Because the training the Aussies got is some of the best organized and delivered in the world. This goes across most trades evidently.Talk to any tradie who has worked overseas and they will likely tell you Aussies tradies are sought because of their overall skill levels and versatility.

The oil pipeline through Alaska Canada had quite a few Aussies there. We are trained in all of the aspects of the trade not just bits of it. Certainly those on the links are very good in their niche areas, but you could be too if you had the time on just one or two processes like these fellows have.

As a case in point the welder (Elvis the welder) did his welding from a rest in the shop and rotated the work on a rotator (a positioner). It is not hard to look good.

Aussies train in positional welding. Every boilermaker at Tafe was taught how to weld in the flat vertical and overhead positions .Eventually one needs to weld the job on site where you cannot use a positioner.

Elvis mentioned about his fitter- thats a pipe fitter folks.
In Australia the pipe welder can be expected to measure, cut and prepare his own pipe for welding and set up and align the pipe flanges. Yes! Elvis displayed some good work but only in his niche area which appeared only to be in flux core welding.

He shows a photo of a weld made by his certified pipe fitter mate which evidently passed the X ray.What he neglected to tell you that the small diameter welded manually in position ( with stick) is very much harder to perform and keep neat,than the large diameter butt weld welded with Fluxcore on a rotator, was.

I won’t say anything specific but perhaps those with welder backgrounds may wish to make comment on the quality of this weld..
The photo subject, does say volumes about their training and standards.

The man went on to discuss titanium welding.I admit to having never welded it, but have taken the time to discuss aspects of it with blokes that have. What I was told by them is that you can’t even leave so much as a finger print on it.
This bloke covered it in masking tape-a major no no, it is a contaminate.It was pointed out in a reply by someone who had really welded the stuff.

The man set up some ellipse shaped titanium practice pieces. Check out the tack length at each end –not enough tack to prevent contraction from distortion. Sorry that’s not the action of a master.

I have met a couple of Americans who said they were machinists. To me a machinist is someone who can operate a lathe, a milling machine, a shaper and a number of other machine shop tools names that I can't think of at the moment. When questioned a bit further it turned out that the Yanks had only driven a lathe not much else.

Again don’t get me wrong there are some very fine overseas trained welders and Yanks among them..

If you want to see some good welders try the Dutch they are some of the best all round welding tradies I have met.

Any powerhouse or sugarmill will have welders that can easily better the results spruiked about in those links, because they do it on a regular basis and to much higher standards.
And that something we Aussie welders can aspire to.


Grahame

Ashore
15th Oct 2007, 01:55 AM
Totally agree with Grahame The same hold true for the marine engineering buissness Australian trained are still sought out , I still get offers from companies based in Singapore for work all over the world,

Lou the best training and knowledge I ever picked up for welding was on the job watching asking questions and being shown , hands on with someone who knows what they are doing, welding in front of them and getting them to show you how to improve or what you are doing wrong sometimes its only the angle or speed but if theres no one to physically show you , you may never get it right.

We once had a turbo that was cracking away from the main engine after a particular patch of rough weather, so we looked for the best welder we had every one had a little practise ... one of the Greasers approached me and said that if I gave him a day to sober up he would do the repair this guy was nothing out of the box but a reasonable hand though he hit the grog a bit, so on further talk he told me he still held his pressure ticket , he had been in the navy a specilast welder on the voyager and had worked on it buing built etc but had been on leave when it went down, lost most of his mates left the navy and hit the booze then went to sea as a greaser, He did the weld repair and was one of the best welders I have ever seen , so good that when we got to the next port the pro's couldn't improve on his work and that repair made at sea while the ship was still rolling and flexing was incredable and was there till the ship was scrapped,
He showed me a heap while doing the job and I learnt plenty from him , unfortunately he got back on the turps , I heard he died about 2 years later on another ship a huge loss of talent and ability :(

NewLou
15th Oct 2007, 10:45 AM
Thx for the comments fellas muchly appreciated!

I'm simply only attempting to pass on information that i find HAndy N hope someday soon some Aussie Welders will be posting too!:2tsup:

I totally agree that nothing beats getting instructed by the experienced! And jump at the opportunity when ever i can to get 'hands on' knowledge

I guess at the end of the day there 'tidy' welds! N gives me a starting point to aspire too!

Great to hear that Aussie welders are considered some of the best in the World...........n really appreciated both ur insights n experiences!

Always take on board ur comments grahame n have edited post accordingly!

Its what its all about!

REgards Lou :2tsup: