Aluminum TIG welders

Date 07-06-2007 19:35

You might want to consider branching out to more than just aluminum tig. There is a market for stainless and inconel too.
Try looking at weldingjobs.com for nationwide opportunities.

By speedball1981 Date 07-07-2007 08:11

if you are willing to move, the place i work might be perfect, for you, it isnt just tig, but mig welding is also important, i have been there a year and a half, and my first year i made 40k, so far this year i have made 27k, to work there you have to pass 9 cert tests in 3 months, 4 of witch are in 2 weeks, mig and tig... the company is called chart energy and chemicals, 2191 ward ave, la crosse, wi, 54601.
good luck.
cole

By Tommyjoking (****)

Date 07-08-2007 03:02

If you just want to stick with one process....(really you should branch out all metals on tig and learn some smaw)

The small boat plants in Lousiana and Arkansas pay good money for somone who can tig a few pounds of rod a day..run hot and make it look good. Even better for someone who can tig, run aluminimum wire, swing a mallet and fit. If your young and in good shape you can make good money being a boat builder. I averaged 650-800 a week working four 10 hour days. Look up small specialty fishing boat manufactures like: Weldcraft, Allweld, Weldbuilt, Southfork, Legendcraft, War Eagle, X-press many others.

If you could master some Stick and TIg on stainless, inconel and carbon you would have a much wider choice of work.

By Greg G. (**)

Date 07-08-2007 13:39

I put TIG because that is what I had as a Supervisor the hardest thing to find, a good TIG welder that was good at Aluminum. Personally I do both TIG and MIG on aluminum, stainless steel, and carbon steel. I have done some Titanium but not in the correct enviroment. My back ground is working with close tolerances such as .005 to .030 of an inch. The latter is a lot. I would still like to land a Supervisors job in my area that I can teach people how to read blueprints, calculate dim., work to close tolerances and help the precision industry. You can't imagine how hard it is to find a good precision sheet metal welder. I would get all kinds of welders from people that worked on fences to people that built ships. When asking them to weld a corner to corner weld on 18 ga., well lets just say it was not a pretty site. The precision welding industry is in bad shape for welders.
Let me know if you know of any place that needs some instruction. I could even fly there and have a class.

By Tommyjoking (****)

Date 07-08-2007 18:10

Greg

With that type of experience you might want to consider the aerospace field, in a lot of areas that field is booming. I have been doing some internet searches on aerospace jobs just to compare my pay rate to other companies if nothing else. There are a lot of parts contractors/manufactures looking for welding/sheetmetal and a few supervisory positions. Most of these openings are far flung across the country but you might find somthing worth checking out.

I agree with you that the pool of workers with the right skills is in bad shape. My company and a competitor made a deal with the state to hold regular skills classes to try to get some entry level workers. We are teaching anyone that wants to sign up including high school students....all to try to find people with the basic apptitude to read calipers, prints, basic mechanical ability. My salary is on par with every aerospace opening I could find for welding....its not that we cant attract talent...it seems there is not a lot to draw from at all.

Regards
Tommy

By speedball1981 Date 07-08-2007 19:00

good welders as a whole right now are at a decline, for every ten welders that start were i work only one 2 or 3 make through the tests, 5 yrs ago in my town you couldt make more than 10 or 11 bucks an hr welding, those same places are paying 16 to 18 to start now, out of my class in high school i was the only welder, and out of the 17 kids that i went to weld school with i think only 11 or so are still doing it, and i dont think that trend is just in my area.

By Greg G. (**)

Date 07-08-2007 21:33

Its hard to get companies in Texas to go in for the training as this requires money for training. I read articles on companies needing to invest in training for skilled craftsman, but a lot of them won't pony up to get this done, they just put the pressure on the supervisor to find the talent. I can not tell you how many temp agencies I have contacted and had them send welders out and fail to be able to set the machine them selfs. I had one guy tell me that he had been welding Aluminum for years in an interview. I told him that I was going to test him and he still insisted that he could do it. When testing him on a T-joint with a fillet weld he could not even tack the material together to start welding it. After seeing this and looking at resumes of applicants and noticing that they all have some type of welding class on them I have to wonder what are they teaching them. Are they teaching them how to weld a coupon, and set the machine and then sending them out to work. Then letting the places where they go to work worry about the other things like teaching them things like fit up, how to read calipers, verniers, and blue print reading. I have been amazed at the amount of people that you have to hire that don't even know the first thing about reading a drawing. All they know is how to strike an arc and burn the rod.

By chris2698 (****)

Date 07-09-2007 04:18

[deleted]

By speedball1981 Date 07-09-2007 08:34

i think i lucked out in school, i only had 9 months of schooling, about 35 hrs a week, on full 8 hr day was fab class, i got alot of information about alot of different stuff, we did a little of everything i think, they didnt "teach us" to do it, the gave us the necasarry info so that we could do it ourselves, however, i think alot of responsibility should lie in the company training the qualified individuals, my first welding job expected me to be able to preform like the guys that had been there for ten years, yeah, i could weld, and read a blue print pretty good, but i had never layed out a 45 foot I beam before, or a 35 foot handrail, i mean i was 19, i got layed off (permanently fired) because i was too slow, i was 19 yrs old, fresh out of welding school, how many doctors can preform a surgery right out of med school alone? and i've talked to alot of other welders from my area were the same thing happened, alot of good welders, that got discouraged like i almost did, the job i have now, one of the first things they said to me after i made it passed the tests, was that it didnt matter how much i got done, just dont f*(k up, that was the first time i had heard that in any of my jobs, my first weldin job actually made a rule that you couldnt take your welding helmet off between welds, fit up etc, cause it took to much time. its a funny thing there bankrupt and out of business now isnt it?