Yes I worked in a factory. We made turbine engine parts. The high volume parts that ran 1000-2000 welds a day. That is because work was being outsourced to Thailand and Mexico, so the use of more automation was necessary to keep the work in the US. We did have some orbital welders who also did manual TIG work. Their products were more custom, and they had the ability to do their own orbital set-ups.
For field Orbital Welding (GTAW), are used in nukes, high tech microchip and pharmaceutical plants on pipe.
If the project needs to train a new operator, it seems they always pull the top hand/golden arm to do it.
Offshore pipelines on lay barges use GMAW Orbitals also. Was testing some welders last fall in Houston, and one fella had never run one, practiced with intense supervision for about 3 hours and passed his test the following day. Punched in the pre-approved parameters and all was good except for....
Opps! Looks like he ran off the road. That's a good one.
white tiled floors, music etc.... $23 an hour with full bennies sounds like paradise for a welding job. I worked for high tech tool and die shop that had similar conditions a long time ago. Ice cold AC vents and smoke eaters also.
LOL, it seems like every welding outfit I go to looks like a metal scrapyard that's ready to go under..
Most around here do also.
If you have a reasonable amount of experience with it....some of those laybarges like off the coast of Africa are paying very well from what I understand. I have never even been near one.
Platinumbased,
I use to do machine/mechanized welding in nuclear/fossil fuel/petrol plants for more than a decade but that was about 10 yrs ago. It is not too difficult to learn if you have the opportunity and can read the puddle. That is the key. There are lots of different joint configs and applications in field pipe work so it takes lots of experience to get a good handle on most of them. For instance; you may be on one job welding boiler tubes, open butt with an Arc Machine 81 head. Next job is pulling a K-ring on 9 chrome with Dimetrics, then J-prep and narrow groove with hot wire GTAW on XXhvy wall, then overlays, etc. The different weld heads, models, specially designed heads, remote (video) or direct (hands on) alloys, variables are almost endless. But if you can learn how to make the puddle do what it NEEDS to do with your experience and knowledge by using a combination of mechanical controls on the weld head and using the programmer to set and change the arc characteristics (current, travel, arc volts (gap), oscillation, dwells, etc,) it isn't rocket science. Some people never get good at it and some learn quickly.
There are other factors; if you think you are doing every thing right and it all goes to pot on you, could be cables, hardware, programmer, circuit board, modules, grounding issues, purge/trail/torch gas issues, camera problems. My point is that there are a lot more variables that can eat your lunch. I became pretty good at lots of different applications but I had my share of problems along the way as most have had that has done it for a while. It takes several years to be able to handle most anything that comes your way. You have to be very conscientious to become good at machine welding.
There are union companies that specialize in it so you make what ever union scale is where you are working with a base scale of whatever the company has predetermined, probably in the upper twenties as the base wage. I've been away from it for a while so i don't know what the non union wages are for the machine welders but it probably varies greatly with your experience and capabilities; my guess is 22-35 DOE just a guess.
I think there will be much more machine welding opportunities in the near future with many companies that will be building the new wave of nuclear power plants....that's if they ever build them. But keep in mind that if there are many machine welders their value will diminish and wages will cease to rise or possibly even fall. Supply and demand rules.
I miss it.
This is a very good description of what mechanized welding is like, at least on heavy wall or big metal deposition type jobs - fusion tube is a whole different bag of tricks. Orbital TIG welding procedure development is the bread and butter of the company I work for now. Today's weld du jour is run by an AMI 415 with a M15 head and NGT (wiggly) torch. Detail oriented is an understatement when building a procedure that only requires the operator to hit start and stop with as little operator involvement as possible. If you decide to get into this end of things, you'll quickly learn that setup is absolutely crucial, and learning to weld looking at video screens is a skill unto itself. And when it comes to problems, you learn very quickly that you're not in Kansas any more Toto. These systems are complicated and take a person with good cross disciplinary (computer, mechanical, electrical, welding) skills and experience to troubleshoot. After grinding out a few welds, you learn that if your shielding isn't absolutely perfect, you're toast. Heat tape and trailing shields are your friend. High quality gas and liquid argon doesn't hurt either. That said, once you get a handle on things and you get good at making the equipment sing, you'll never want to manually weld again.
Awesome replies on the subject! Much more info than I expected. Many thanks. I'm printing this out for future reference.
If anyone has any company links they can PM me, it would be greatly appreciated. I'm determined to get into orbital welding,no matter how long it takes.
I have a few outfits I found on my own and I'm willing to relocate also. Can anyone help a mid 40's experienced GTAW tube welder out? Also have a valid CWI but never used it. Computer literate also. Thanks.
Try searching for orbital welding on careerbuilder.com and monster.com. Some recruiter found my resume there and contacted me about two orbital jobs. I was not interested so I deleted the emails though. It was over Christmas when this happened. Also, you could try loading your resume at careebuilder and monster to see what happens. Make sure you have the words orbital welding so they can find you in a database search. You had the training so it should go on your resume. The big companies are Hobart/Liburdi, AMI, Magnetech, and a few others. If you put in orbital welders in a Google search you will easily find all the suppliers. From there you can get to process information and get reports for training. They thing most say is a 3:1 pulse ratio (high to low current) and 1 amp for every .001" of tube wall thickness - all based upon 5 ipm starting travel speed.
Magnetech is the company that provided the 40 hour training course at my union hall but this was back in '06. I also took a 50 hour course with another union contractor who had older machines they used for training. That was in '05. I've never used them in the field. Our hall frowns on orbital welding in our jurisdiction because it means less manpower (less union dues) required. Old school dummies that I'm trying to get away from!
I'm a very good GTAW/SMAW tube and pipe welder (manual). Worked overseas before and have security clearance for nukes. I'm hoping one of these orbital outfits will bring me in for a try. thanks again for all the tips.
By swsweld 
Date 01-10-2011 22:11
Edited 01-15-2011 14:58
Oh...forgot to mention how much fun it is to make finicky adjustments by hand or with an allen tool in very tight locations on the weld head with either=400F preheat baking your hands or= with a pair of rubber gloves and one pair of cotton gloves and a health physics looking at every move you make (on camera of course)
I got my opportunity to learn the machines after a year or two of manual welding with the company. Had to earn the opportunity. It certainly helps if you know someone that can give you a recommendation.
The smart company will not throw a new M/welder to the wolves but will put them with more experienced M/welders until they become the stronger welders. Not all companies are smart.
ALWAYS know where the BRB (Big Red Button) is.
Good luck.
