/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>15324

Tired eyes, burned forearms, ruined shirts, and general badassery

headaches from the fumes, neck strain from sitting/standing in one position for a very long time, and plan on drinking lots of water because it gets hot.

Mechanical Engineer here, I am also a Certified Structural and Pipe welder, with about 2000 hours of welding time.

Wear suncream. And don't look into the light!

>>15339
Holy shit, are you future me?

>>15332
>>15339
>>15348

But don't let us scare you away, it's actually pretty fun.

>>15332

I've been doing about a month of 1g and nothing even gets close to burning you. I guess it'll change with out-of-position welding.

Automatic-darkening hoods are a lifesaver too.

Women. Women love manly men. And welding is fucking manly.
Also this >>15332

I spent 2 years in welding school and now that I'm doing engineering at uni I do a whole shit load of welding for projects.
>If they don't give you a leather welding jacket, buy one. Otherwise you will ruin many shirts and have many burns on your hands
>Don't wear pants with the cuffs rolled up or frayed ends. I caught both my pants legs on fire at once doing this.
>If you got monies and they dont have them at school, buy an auto darkening helmet. They make life so much easier.

Expect it to be shitty stick welding at first. The'll probably have you cover a steel plate with weld beads from 7018 rod, then have you move on to 6010 rod. Stick welding is really going to suck ass at first because you have to chip away the slag that forms over the weld when youre done. These hot bits of slag will inevitably go straight for your face so wear safety glasses. This wont stop some from hitting your lips and sticking, which burns like a cunt. But once you get good at stick welding the slag will pretty much peel off without any chipping

Then expect to move onto MIG which is pretty easy mode in comparison. Not as shitty as stick.

After MIG is TIG, which is a great skill but its a fucking CUNT to learn at first. You're going to ball the tungsten up on pretty much every weld which means regrinding it to remove impurities. But it is a worthwhile skill imo.

Also, be careful where you drop whats left of used up stick welding electrodes. they'll be hot as shit and will melt your shoes. best to wear some boots. my carhartts smell like waffles when i step on hot electrodes melting the rubber.

That's all I got off the top of my head. There's lots of stuff to learn, and at times it'll probably feel shitty and boring if you're not really interested in welding. Just remember that TIG is the light at the end of the tunnel, none of those nasty fumes and is overall a clean, slow, and easy going process.

>>15402
oh forgot, when you do 3g and 4g welding you WILL get hot sparks in your hair. get a welding cap, its like a goofy baseball cap that you're supposed to wear backwards. keeps sparks out of your hair/collar

>>15402

Cool stuff.

Our school actually starts out with 6010 rods because you can see the puddle easier, or so they say. In any case I'm welding beads cleanly enough that one quick pass with a brush-wheel angle grinder attachment takes all the slag off.

I'm not looking forward to overhead welding though, it looks like you get rained on by sparks.

lots of welding

/thread

>>15402
Sounds like a job for this.

I want to know, know how, and know about welding. I'm jelly. Soldering is pussy-tier :[

>>15477
How about brazing? Get a plumber's torch, practice with copper and brass to get a feel of red hot metal before moving on to steel.

>>15484
Yeah guess that is the way to start... I'll have to look into it, and find some practical uses

You can get a basic hobby stick-welding machine for about $200 and it runs on regular outlet power.

Scrap metal is cheap and you can get a 50 lb case of electrodes for about $100

Just remember that it makes a LOT of UV light, so leather up (A t-shirt won't stop it all) and don't forget a welding hood. 1-2 seconds looking at the arc with no eye protection and you will have flash-burns on the surface of your eyes.

>>15498
Repair your plumbing yourself, for instance. Also good to make jewelry.

>>15507
Yeah I'm no welder or the like (as stated) but I have a masters in Illumination Design (which sounds pussy I know) but I've spent many hours in the lab messing with the chemistry of lamps and bulbs at very high lux and know all about UV radiation and which sources can fuck you up. And yes, I do know welding torches are among the worst!

>>15520
Plumbing I think I can do :D

You can expect that you won't have to look very hard to find employment.

1) MIG is easy as hell, do not be one of those guys who gets certified in gmaw and acts like hot shit

2) always grind your tungsten so that the grind marks run parallel to the long dimension

3) if you smoke underneath a fume hood there will be no smoke and nobody will notice

4) don't fucking smoke in the fume hood because it is a dumb idea

5) better to get things square before welding than after

>>15551
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

>>15324
get a good auto dark hood. makes life hella easy.

MIG is like hot glue for steel. anyone can do it. when you know what your doing, focus on making it pretty. that ll get you a job.

you can fill a 1/8 gap in a pinch, but try to avoid it.

magnets will save you hours of grinding and rewelding.

dont smoke while welding, thats the stupidest thing i ve seen on here.

drink milk. mostly when you are welding galvanized or painted shit. that stuff is nasty, and milk will help you from getting poisoned.

>>15420
overhead sucks cock. its even worse when you need to weld in tight spaces. you cant escape the sparks.