Seabass,
You are correct about accredited test facilities:
AWS EG2.0
A8.0 AWS Accredited Test Facilities (AWS QC4)
"AWS Accredited Test Facilities are designed to iimplemejnt the QC7 Program. Under this program instructors may not test and qualify welders they have trained...."
However, the same doccument states:
"...In the QC10 program for entry level welders, instructors are afforded the lattitude of training, testing, and qualifiying trainees."
If the program you intend to work in (high school, college, private) is a one man show, than being an accredited test facility is going to be very problematic.
But... You may easily be a S.E.N.S.E school and an "EIM" Educational Institution Member through the AWS no matter what the size of your instruction/inspection staff. When I took over the program at my Tech College we had no affiliation at all. We now participate in SENSE and are an EIM, and are hoping to grow the program so that we might entertain the idea of becoming an accredited test facility some day. I strongly endorce both and judge the investment to be minimal when the returns start comming in.
Here is a link to the SENSE and EIM data with some good frequently asked questions near the bottom of the link.
http://www.aws.org/w/s/education/sense/
Note: For the sake of being accurate, I'm not a CWI :)
Chris,
The Main Cert Committee made a discision on teaching and testing several years ago. Its OK. The new QC-7 and QC-4 have removed 4.3 . The new generation of certified welders QC-7 will allow trained CWIs to give an AWS cert test as long as the work through an ATF. Look for alot of changes in the next QC-4 and QC-7. We are about a year and half away . Good luck MR. Inspector
Stan
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