Signed up for Welding class

Joe Pfeiffer wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@snowball.wb.pfeifferfamily.net:

Here in my small Texas town, we have a Junior College which offers HVAC classes and Auto Mechanics classes.

The local high school offers a Tractor Mechanics class as a part of the Agriculture program.

The nearest Welding course, though, is an another town 25 miles away.

30 years ago, the Conroe, TX, Vocational High School offered adult night classes in welding, machine shop, and general metalworking.

Each was a 40-hour class taught by the same teacher at the same time.

The best description of the welding class was "40 bucks for 40 hours and all the rods that you can burn."

At the time, they only had O/A and stick.

They also had a pair of engine lathes and a mill that was in need of repair.

Still, it was enough to learn some of the basic basics.

If you are going to a good community college in the Chicago area I expect it will be a lot like mine even though I took my class in northern California. My class was a typical college class. There was a syllabus, a big expensive book, 130 bucks when I bought mine, quiz's every week, mid terms and a final too. I took the class at night too and the first part every time was classroom work then we went into the shop. The problem I had was that there was only one instructor. He was good but there were too many people wanting his time and I had to wait in line to ask a question. You may not have that but you probably will. My class was a full 16 week semester but it still wasn't enough to learn what I was hoping to. If you learn the fundamentals of welding, how to O/A weld pretty well, basic stick, and some MIG consider yourself lucky. Don't expect to learn any TIG in a first class. If you do I'd be surprised. It takes too long just to learn the other forms of welding to have time to get into TIG, which is the most difficult to learn. After you know how to weld pretty well with the other processes then you will be ready to learn to TIG weld. Unfortunately, learning to weld takes quite a while. I would like to have had a skilled welder work with me as a master/apprentice approach. It would have made things go a lot faster but the college was all I had access to so I took what I could get. After spending so many years in college I just hate the way they do things. It's so slow and tedious and overly structured.

Hawke

What you say is probably true for the daytime classes. The night classes tend to get more to practical hands-on since the people in the class often have some experience already. In my Welding II evening class I did all TIG (and fixed a few machines in the class too).

James Waldby wrote in news:I-mdncOe68EMy-nVnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@bresnan.com:

Yabut the people who ARE there are very friendly.

I'd just like to add that CCs are also feeder schools for further education at a four-year university. Around here, in southern California, the majority of students are going to CCs to either get an AA, or to go on to a university. There are a lot of people who don't get the chance to go to a university right after high school and community colleges give them another chance.

But, with that said, I agree that CCs should have a strong job- training component. Maybe, with the decline in mining, in Wyoming they had to consolidate the welding classes because there just wasn't enough demand to support them.

You can use that truck crane to keep all the welding in-position. I hung the scaffold frames from a tree to weld the pipe joints. The truck can be protected by scrap sheet metal, I use water-heater shells, or welding curtains made of cotton cloth soaked in alum and borax.

And the sheep are cute, too..............................

On my last trip to NW Wyoming, I found that the favorite obsession of the local young women was to find men who they hadn't "known." Visitors were considered Gods. It was a lot of fun until I met all of them. That took about two weeks. Still, a fun vacation. Even caught some fish and found some arrowheads in-between all the horizontal air hockey.

Steve

On Jul 9, 12:01=A0pm, "Hawke" My class was a full 16 week semester but it still

My experience was completely different. While I was in high school, I took welding during the summer. As far as I know the class ran continuiously. There was no cost for me and I think that was true for everyone. Lots of guys taking welding to collect on their GI Bill benefits. I was working so the classes were evening classes. You could go either 3 hours or 6 hours. I did as much of the 6 hours as I could, but staying to midnight made me pretty sleepy if I did that two days in a row.

The instructor showed me a few things and then I spent the first month doing Oxy/Acet. welding or at least trying. With about fifty students and one instructor, I saw the instructor for a few minutes at a time. I found O/A difficult to learn.

The second month I did stick welding. Much easier. Just one hand needed. I went to welding school at night for three years as I remember. There was no Tig or Mig welders at the school.

So about fifty years lator, I thought I would get a TIG welder. But with all the talk about TIG being hard to learn, I enrolled in a CC welding class. You could take a regular set of courses leading to certification, or you could take what is called " welding refresher ". Basically come and do whatever you want to do. Again there was about 50 students. About 40 working to get certified as stick welders. About 8 taking O/ A. And three of use wanting to learn TIG welding. Half the first night was a lecture on safety. The instructor was pretty busy with all those students and did not get to the 3 doing TIG until about ten minutes before the end of the class. Fortunately we had figured out how to get started and had been welding without any help from the instructor. We had read some books.

I found TIG to be much easier than O/A fifty years earlier. In fact easier than O/A or stick welding. You can see the puddle better and you can control the heat. Before the class was over, I could run a bead across the end of a pop can. Easier than running a bead along the side.

Dan

On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:05:26 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, Ignoramus2215 quickly quoth:

I'd do that here but the local CC (just 8 miles away!) wants something like $425 per class ($275 for the class and $150 for supplies) or $3,500 for the entire welding class array. They have a very extensive setup here.

---------------------------------- VIRTUE...is its own punishment ==================================

My experience was completely different. While I was in high school, I took welding during the summer. As far as I know the class ran continuiously. There was no cost for me and I think that was true for everyone. Lots of guys taking welding to collect on their GI Bill benefits. I was working so the classes were evening classes. You could go either 3 hours or 6 hours. I did as much of the 6 hours as I could, but staying to midnight made me pretty sleepy if I did that two days in a row.

The instructor showed me a few things and then I spent the first month doing Oxy/Acet. welding or at least trying. With about fifty students and one instructor, I saw the instructor for a few minutes at a time. I found O/A difficult to learn.

The second month I did stick welding. Much easier. Just one hand needed. I went to welding school at night for three years as I remember. There was no Tig or Mig welders at the school.

So about fifty years lator, I thought I would get a TIG welder. But with all the talk about TIG being hard to learn, I enrolled in a CC welding class. You could take a regular set of courses leading to certification, or you could take what is called " welding refresher ". Basically come and do whatever you want to do. Again there was about 50 students. About 40 working to get certified as stick welders. About 8 taking O/ A. And three of use wanting to learn TIG welding. Half the first night was a lecture on safety. The instructor was pretty busy with all those students and did not get to the 3 doing TIG until about ten minutes before the end of the class. Fortunately we had figured out how to get started and had been welding without any help from the instructor. We had read some books.

I found TIG to be much easier than O/A fifty years earlier. In fact easier than O/A or stick welding. You can see the puddle better and you can control the heat. Before the class was over, I could run a bead across the end of a pop can. Easier than running a bead along the side.

Dan

My experience is this:

either one has the talent or not. Just like guitar playing. One can LEARN a lot about welding or guitar playing, but the actual performance speaks for itself, and the inspector or critic don't want to see or talk theory.

Some people learn too much and it messes them up.

Steve

I'm with you, I find TIG to be easier than stick. I attribute some of that to many years of electronics soldering before I tried TIG.

I think that evening classes will also give an opportunity to meet some interesting people, including the instructor.

My class will have 17 people in it, max.

i

"SteveB" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.infowest.com:

SWMBO is from Wyoming, so whenever I'm in the area so is she.

The next time you're in the NW corner, don't forget to spend some time in Thermopolis' State Park. Your back will thank you profusely.

That's good but welding classes are not like your ordinary college class where most of the students don't give a shit and can't wait to get out of the room. Most people in welding class want to be there and want to learn how to weld. They are usually older and are a lot more motivated than normal students. So you will only have to fight with sixteen other guys, probably, to have access to the teacher. Part of my problem was that I had no experience at all when I took the class. Everyone else in the class already knew how to weld at least to some extent so I was way behind to begin with. You would think that since most people had experience welding they wouldn't have as many questions for the instructor. Wrong! Like I said, every time I wanted to ask a question I had to wait in line with half a dozen people ahead of me and that went on all night. Maybe you won't have that problem, if not count your blessings. One thing that I learned in that class is that welding is not one process but a bunch of them. A good welder knows about all of them and can do them all at least fairly well. That is what takes time. A guy can learn how to do stick pretty quick and if that's all he does he's not really a welder. When you can do all of it on all kinds of metal, then you can weld. By that criteria, I'm not a welder.

Hawke

On Jul 10, 1:35=A0pm, "Hawke"

Where did you go to college? I want to make sure my grandchildren do not go there.

I can not remember anyone at college that was not enjoying the classes, and some going to classes where they were not enrolled in the course. Just because the class was interesting.

Dan

Where did you go to college? I want to make sure my grandchildren do not go there.

Mostly in California but I also attended a college in Oregon as well. I went to at least a half a dozen different colleges in my time and I found it to be universally true that most students want to party and not go to class or to study.

I can not remember anyone at college that was not enjoying the classes, and some going to classes where they were not enrolled in the course. Just because the class was interesting.

What college did you go to? Was it a religious one? Because from what I saw most students were like the ones you see on TV's Girls Gone Wild, and Spring Break gone wild. Getting drunk and getting laid were the main time killers for a large portion of the student body. Want some proof? Fully 50% of freshmen that enroll in college don't make it through the first year. Why, because they don't work at it and they don't go to class. How do I know? That's what I did the first three times I went to college. Eventually I went there to work and graduated but I know full well how many kids don't go to school to work. It's not the college it's the kids. Oh, and girls are a lot better at going to college and graduating than boys do these days.

Hawke