Al,
Very good points. I am a firm believer in “the quality of the welder starts at the test booth” Sourdough is experiencing what most of us experience in trying to get good qualified (not just certified) welders. On my projects I tell our QC mangers that you have to draw the line in the test booth. Because if you don’t you will be paying for it in the field with higher reject rates, more man hours spent with welders that are constantly having issues. We finished a 750 coal burner about 4 ½  years ago. We had a 65% reject rate in the test booth but had a less than 5% reject in the field on tube welders. We were running tube welders though tube simulators like cattle trying to get good welders. Many a time HR and boiler superintendents would complain about us being too tough in the test booth but when you are, it usually pays off in the field.  When I go to our projects, that is the first thing I talk to my QC manager about. “what is your reject rate in the test booth” because I know it is somewhat of an barometer of the quality of welders in the field.
Just my thoughts.

Thanks
Jim

I always say, "The dumber they are, the more money I make."

That was the case when I made my living with my welding helmet and it is still the case now that I earn a living with my laptop and code books.

If everyone one knew everything and if no one made mistakes, I would be out of work.

Al

Well, Lawrence...

I've trained many welders who were worth training, and they are good welders today. But that small handful of young guys embraced learning. They wanted to be instructed.

How do you train someone who goes through life "knowing" everything? How do you tell a person that's 26 years old, and who has 30 years of welding experience that they don't know what they're doing?

Ron White said it best....you can't fix stupid.

I mentioned this in a forum post a few weeks back about welding not being a trade.  what I would really like is a national certification for welders similar to plumbers or electricians that's a mix of book skills, blue print reading, fitup and fabrication PLUS welding skills to say that no only can this guy make a bead, but he can read a print but he knows what a staggered fillet is on a blue print and how to set this up, plus basic code requirements.   With different levels of testing off of that you could have the equivalent of a "master mechanic" or master plumber. A Certification that carries legal weight.

right now welder qualification just certifies that you can make a halfway decent bead in a certain configuration under certain circumstances. Back when I was in college, the dean would grab one of the janitors during the final and within 4 hours he could get them to pass a basic flat position CJP GMAW bend test. The point was that we had no excuse for not learning how to pass our tests after a whole semester. technically the janitor was now a "qualified" welder, but obviously he lacked any of the book and practical knowledge required to make sound welds.

What we need is more stringent and better recognized welder certification program that has legal weight and covers more than just making pretty beads.

Excuse me, but as the argument has been made that trained monkeys could be taught the requisite skill set as welders I feel the neccesity to take issue.  The small business endeavor I undertake to run profitably operates on slim margins and we are constantly seeking more efficient means to enlarge those margins.  As labor is the highest cost of goods sold, at a certain point in our history we attempted to decrease this burden with cheaper labor.  Why NOT monkeys we asked ourselves.  The housing, upkeep, payrate and feeding should be minimal.  Extensive testing was undertaken.

By chance our first set of candidates were a small clan of Spider monkeys acquired from a South East Asian Zoo from a purchasing agent willing to overlook certain standards of importation documentation.  These fine animals seemed promising at first, with their pre-hensile abilities they were able to hang from nearly any point of purchase and weld soundly.  Unfortunately hanging upside down was their preferred position of comfort, so while they could and did produce many xray quality weldments for us we found ulitmately the cost of positioning equipment too expensive and they had to be let go.  I believe they have found more suitable employment somewhere in the southern states repairing waffle making machinery.

We next undertook the training of a pair of adult, male Howler monkeys, provided us through a freind from the Yucatan Penninsula that came already certified in no less than three welding processes.  Superb craftsman.  One couldn't fault their work based on the most stringent codes or standards.  But the noise.......... my god the noise.  Three different TPIs needed hospitalization and a long respite to the local State Facility for nervous conditions after only a week of inspection.  We thought it cheaper to replace the inspectors but in the end the neighbors started complaining so our Howlers went home to their beloved jungle.  We do miss them sorely.

We took a shot and found a promising Baboon.  Or so we thought.  Fancy hood, starched collar, spanking new rig, but really, who want's to put up with that Golden Arm Attitude.  We cut him a pink slip pronto.

Not ones to give up, we moved on to the Apes.

Gorrilas seemed like they might strain our overhead but the applicants seemed enthusiastic so we thought, "why not".  We do a fair amount of bending in our fabrication and these three fellows seemed right at home, strapping our heaviest members to be formed across their chests and gripping for leverage with their formidable triceps pulled 3" round stock into circles.  Very aggresive work ethic. They competed with each other shamelessly for the largest iron and tightest bend radii but in the end they never could quite grasp the concept of tolerances so for them the bending was enough.  Surprisingly good stick welders though.  Nothing like the solidity of a large mass to provide a really steady hand.  There was some discussion about who's responsibility it was to inform them their service would no longer be needed.  I recall we drew straw.  They were pretty good natured about.

The next and most obvious choice, which we slapped ourselves for not thinking of first was Chimpanzees.  It seemed so obvious with their overwhelming shared genetics, should be a shoe in.  Calls were made, contacts contacted, letters dispatched, funds exchanged hands and one fine crisp October morning our boys showed up, hoods and gloves in hand and doing somersaults on the asphalt, that's how ready they were.  Into the test booth, 6" stick all the way out, 35 minutes later bending coupons without failure.  Back into the booths, tig roots, lo-hy out and they're slapping their thighs with one hand and a toe hold on the filler wire with their foot and indicating it was time for lunch.  This was our first red flag and we should have paid heed but we were beggining to be really excited at the possiblitites, so we pushed them into some alloy work.  Some of the original enthusiasm seemed to cool but they began to prep coupons....... and then that was it.  Prepped em, and just let em sit, looking around out of the corners of their simian eyes and just scowling.  When we tried to communicate the urgency of finishing their testing so they could go to work they just rolled their lips and showed their teeth.  Food was brought in.  Baskets of fresh pineapple, yellow bananas, ripe mangoes but to no avail.  Apparantly these chimps had worked some gigs that paid serious per diem or maybe just permits with 798 but they weren't having any of it.  Conditions just degraded from there and we never bothered to put them on.

Finally, at wits end, an Orangatang answered our employment advertisement.  He carried a calculator with him which we thought boded well and was extraordinarally humble in demeanor.  Breezed through a barrage of testing with all coupon passing with flying colors.  Put him to work on any station in the shop and there seemed nothing he hadn't brought a journeymans skill to.  But......he was just so moribund.  Depressing really.  Does a fine job bending up a pallet of flanges on the brake, the compliments just seemed to fall on deaf ears.  Weld out 90 inches of xray sched 40 in a shift and the praise garnered just seem to depress him.  Morale was sinking with the other hands, not from jealousy but the new guy was just bringing people down with his glumness.  Just reeked of sadness, tragedy and sorrow.  We didn't want to cut him loose but one bad orange can ruin the barrel.

In the end we decided there was really only so much you could teach a monkey but we did at least make that decision through experience not assumption.

And while I'm off the subject, has anyone ever heard Sourdough do anything BUT complain?

Bit of a cheap shot I'll admit, but really bro have you ever reviewed your posts?

When we were young, we were all waiting for The Best Welder in The World to die so we could all move up a slot, but that was a long time ago.  These days we take a little pride in being able to pass on a thing or two to the guys coming up that show a little promise.  It's as much fun as I ever had in the trenches, and believe me, we had some big fun.  And just like I always look for the gig that is going to demand the most from any talent I might possess I always look for the hand that's most ready to learn from anything I can show them.  When you got the real goods you don't lose em by sharing em.

Happy Holidays to All.

I'm sorry you're not good at what you do. I wasn't born with a golden arm, just passion.

These guys get on here and think they're bashing me back for my comments about AWS.

What is hilarious is that if you read into the content of their posts, they are essentially defending the hacks I complain about so often.

It's about money, just like everything else these days.