Advice for the younger guys

>>1183440
prepare to hop from state to state chasing work, and save up money now for when your body gives out on you in your mid 40s

>>1183469
My girlfriend is currently going to college still (programming, if you're curious), is there a way to stay in one place for a good amount of time?

>>1183440
For the last 100 years the oilfield has came and gone every 5 years. It'll be crazy good money and stupid busy, then die out with huge layoffs. Plan accordingly. Give it time, they keeping finding new pockets and better technology allows new ways to access older deeper ones. Just save your money.

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>>1183440
-work smarter not harder
-get a fuckin' degree at some point, whether it be in engineering or management. when you get older you want to minimize the wrench spinning time as it will wear you down faster than the young bucks
-be safe and follow the safety rules even if it sounds retarded
-keep your reciepts
-get a side hustle, diversify your skillset for when>>1183485 happens.
-last but not least, don't drink so much and save some fuckin' money.

t. old dude

>>1183487
>-be safe and follow the safety rules even if it sounds retarded
this

and don't do something stupidly unsafe just because the boss says to

>>1183440
Im an older guy and would love to meet young guys to teach them and give them some advice, if you know what i mean.

>>1183440
bump

>>1183440
I'm a younger guy (29) with a 2 year degree in welding technology, 3 college certs (entry level TIG, MIG, and stick), and AWS certs in 3G and 4G stick, and only 1 year of welding work experience (MIG welder in a fab shop) I feel I might have some advice worth considering as beginning tradesman in 2017.

-You're only worth what you have to offer. Trade school and/or a degree is a good start but don't be surprised if you lose a job offer to some redneck the same age who never finished the 4th grade and has frog legs hanging out his mouth because he can run a better bead on the welding test. Welding is a skill and takes practice.

-There's no substitute for on the job experience. If you get out of school only making $12, don't worry. You're getting paid to learn valuable skills and you WILL move up - whether in that job or another.

-Work smart AND hard. If you haven't already, check out Mike Rowe and his pro-trades movement. Some of the best advice I've ever heard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVEuPmVAb8o

-Always be dependable and honest.

>>1183440
Go to welding forums.

Miller forum, Weldingweb, migwelding.uk if Eurofaggot etc. Also go to American Welding Society forum. Read them heavily and be an information sponge. You should be able to keep all your equipment maintained with minimal outside assistance.

Weld for others for a few years to learn the trade and get pipe welding experience since that's where the money is, along with hot little thots in pancake hoods like pic related.

>>1183480
Not if you want money. School grads are still "green" weldors. Hit the road and hit it hard or you'll lose your perishable skill and not expand your abilities.

You are young so don't get tied down to a college chick because both of you are too young to plan a life together.

>>1183480
>My girlfriend is currently going to college still (programming, if you're curious)

That job market is just like the welding market. It can be volatile, and the only way to get ahead in your career is jump from job to job every couple years. And with how job networking is, she will potentially be moving state to state for coding jobs too.

>friend is programmer
>right out of college moved all the way to chicago
>2 years out, moved to san fran
>1 year later potentially moving up to Seattle

Just wait till Seattle coding jobs shit out, there will be mass migration somewhere else

>>1183480
You won't make good money.
I've been welding for 25 years.
I could be making $80+ an hour if I was willing to travel to the oil fields or work down at the shipyards- and that's not constant, you'll have downtime where you have to live off savings. But then I'd be living in an apartment in some melting pot city. Or buying some breadbox house thats 7 feet away from the neighbors house. I want to be home every night.
So I work in a shop where I can hustle and make $25 an hour from production bonus.
I own rural property so bills are low- its a fair tradeoff.

Another option is take your training and enlist in a comfy specialty in the Air Force (NOT the Army or Marines, they are proud of treating their troops like shit). Metals Tech folks lead very comfortable lives and do machining along with welding. That AFSC mostly involves light fab and repairs so it's a chill way to serve and earn a benefit and retirement package unmatched civilian welding.

https://www.airforce.com/careers/detail/aircraft-metals-technology

I was not one but worked with them fairly often as a Production Super and am familiar with their career.

>>1183440
I'm a machinist fag but I probably can give you some advise.

- Its good you went to school, but don't expect that to get you far. What it does do is show a potential employer you have enough drive and commitment to finish school, and you are serious about doing this as a trade. Pretty much school will get your foot in the door, which is well worth it because of my second point

-Consider your first job as where you actually start to learn your trade. Trade school is like high school, your first job is university. You will learn more in your first month than you ever did in school. Maybe during this time you may learn you don't even like this type of work. During this time you will hopefully advance your skill on real world jobs and get a feel what a welder really does and its place in the bigger picture of the whole production process. You will also learn invaluable "work place skills". (not sure what else to call it) You will learn how to interact with others on a job site or around the shop. You will learn what will fly and what won't when it comes to behavior. You will learn "shop politics". Which brings me to my third

-Listen to and respect the old timers. They know more than you. And more often than not, if you respect them they will not mind showing you the ropes and helping you out. In fact they will go out of their way to. I have found that really good tradesmen, especially older ones, enjoy passing on their knowledge. Take advantage of it. It's better than any teacher you had. Take in everything they have to say. Ask questions at break ect. Show that you really want to get good at this and you are asking them how to do it. It boosts their ego also. There is a time and place for all of this and hopefully you can pick up on it.

-Stay out of shop or job site politics. You know nothing. Keep your mouth shut. You aren't being paid to come to work and run your cock sucker

Cont

>>1184300

-Take pride in your work. In the beginning you may not be the best, your welds might not look the best, but it will be obvious if you gave a fuck about what you did. In machining leaving burrs is a huge indicator of this. If you can hit your tolerances but not take the 10 seconds to run a deburring knife around the part what use are you? Make a habit of taking pride in your work from the start. Remember there is a good chance someone else will have to look at your work down the line either it be another welder, a machinist, quality assurance, a painter, inspector, customer, ect. If you take pride in your work, it will show and will be a direct reflection on you.

-Build up your experience. If you want to make a career of this you have to work at it. If you land some comfy job welding a carbon tab to another carbon tab all day and you get comfy with welding a carbon tab to another carbon tab so you pass up a job of welding 4 aluminum tabs on a slanted aluminum spool with the occasional stainless tab to a stainless hook, you are fucked when all the work for carbon tab to carbon tab joining runs out. Push yourself. Its fine to focus on a certain area of welding (pipe, structural, ect) but try to be great at it all and be greater at a certain area. Especially at the beginning because you need to pick up all the skills so you can have choices in your career path. Which will bring me to my last point

cont

>>1183440
if you have patience for kids/teenagers.

Become a tech teacher, if the education field interests you. Schools are literally sucking dicks to hold down carpentry and tech teachers for their schools and will hire you instantly.

>New yorker, that actually works at a high school

>>1184309
I'll just write this from experience and maybe you will get something out of it. After you get years of experience under your belt and you are good at what you do, you can guide your career to a point. I have done machining in large production atmosphere to small job shops. And at the beginning I chased money. Nothing wrong with wanting to get paid well for what you do. But I soon realized it is not the most important thing. I could go down to the ship yards and get a machinist job and make extremely good money. They would work my ass off for 12 hours a day 6 months to a year until their contract runs out and then I get laid off. In another 6 months they would probably pick up another contract and I could start again but who knows. Also down at the shipyard I would be one of 3500 people working my shift. I would just be a number to them. Now nothing is wrong with this type of work but its not for me. I make substantially less at my current job. It's a mix between a job and production shop. The money is still good but not when you go comparing to ship yard work or oil work. In the 35 years my employer they have never laid anyone off. Since I have worked there we have never worked more than 40 hours. Full benefits. Management cares about you as a person. When shit comes up in your life they care, and will work with you on it. Workplace stress is almost non existent. Just all that is worth $10/hr to me. The moral of this story is if you work hard at getting good at what you do, take pride in your work, show respect, build a reputation, you can find yourself in the situation where you can go work at the ship yard OR work at the small job shop OR wherever you choose because you have all those things going for you....
I have rambled too much.
Good luck to you. I find that the trades are noble careers even if the rest of the world doesn't think so.

>>1184314
>>1184309
>>1184300
This is all pretty sound advice. Thanks for taking the time to type all of that.

>>1184352
No problem. I figured OP wanted advice on how to get a job, make good money, or any other various useless tidbits. I figured I'd give him something different that may be a little more worthwhile. And I actually have been thinking about it a lot lately for some reason so that helped.

>>1183491
Fag

>>1183480
your problem would be your girlfriend holding you back from taking the road and finding jobs.

>>1183469
This. Got a metal plate on my foot. Greying hair and beard. Got some welder buddies.

>safety first
>you dont need a brand new look at my inverted dick dodge and camper with 14 slideouts and a million dollar house u dont use
>start learning personal finamce and investing in what little downtime u have. >maybe save up money to take a year off and go to hvac school, then electician, etc...
>u have to work your ass off in shit weather and shit hours but u get months off at a time. Take advantage of it early or choose a place to live and make half the money with twice the life.

>>1183487
2nd this.

Gotta stay out of the drugs and booze m8

>>1183890
Mike is pretty good. Some great advice my dad always gave is show up 15 minutes early and leave 15 minutes late. People drag ass in 3 minutes late and tired and then rush out the gste sideways look weak.

Never be that guy standing around. Ask someone who knows more than you if you can help. If you can't, grab a broom and start cleaning the site/area. This is the mark of a good apprentice in my eye, keen to work and learn even if there is nothing to do, and less to learn.

Lots of useful feedback ITT. OP should take it seriously and go kick ass in a safe, professional manner.

Watch your personal tools like a hawk, don't loan them out, and do mark the fuck out of them and give stuff like grinders a shot of an ugly spray paint color like you'll see done on jobsites. Keep track of your helmet because theft is a serious problem, especially if it's a good helmet, and keep a spare fixed shade helmet if you use an auto-dark. Buy cover lenses by the box. Get good with BOTH types of helmets! You get far more tint choice with a fixed shade helmet and you can get autodark inserts for some with standard lenses.

My pipeline welder instructors turned me on to the Fiber-Metal Pipeliner and I love them because my neck is fucked (not from welding) and they are light and very comfortable.

https://www.amazon.com/Fibre-Metal-Honeywell-Piperliner-Welding-Helmet/dp/B004F7JFOG

You can tuck your Pipeliner very close to your chin if you trim the bottom with a zip disk. We used broken portaband blades for flexy straight edges to mark them with a Sharpie.

Gloves, clear lenses etc are expendable and you won't usually have time to go to get spares, so bring with and another wise move is replace your clears every night so you won't forget in the morning.

Fuck partying, make money. You can be the designated driver and get points that way since da drunks won't wanna do it. They should pay any cover charges etc.

Google says http://rigwelder.com/forum/ is unsafe so use private browsing on your device of choice, but it's a goldmine of info and educational pics of stuff like rollout wheels and other things worth being able to recognize in the field.

>>1183440
Take care of your health. Lungs and eyes are going to go first so always wear your helmet and keep some safety glasses on a rope around your neck. Work in a well ventilated area and if your working on anything with a coating (Galvi, Stainless, Alloy) wear a respirator and drink milk it boosts mucus production.

Oh, and save your money. Do FIFO jobs for a couple years so you can save some dosh and reinvest it.

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I'm a UK Locksmith just starting out, in the middle of learning, and could use some tips on getting started, what to watch out for, and some general handyman/trade tips as until this point I've never really been the /diy/ sort.

>>1183440

If you sag your pants in hurr man, someones gonna be all up in your butt.

>>1188672

> he gets into a trade because of steampunk larp

Quit being a locksmith

>>1184314
Are you really making $10/hr as an experienced welder? Did I read that wrong?

>>1188874
> he gets into a trade because of steampunk larp

...what the hell are you talking about?

>>1188874

Why are most experiances locksmiths either talkative nice guys... or more often the most collosal douches you will ever meet? Is it conditioning from having to get ornery customers to pay up and cutthroat competition and business practices?

>>1188886
>Why are most experienced (name the trade) either talkative nice guys... or more often the most collosal douches you will ever meet?
In my experience the most colossal douches are the most talkative. If you're trying to get shit done there is little room for scuttlebutt. Unless you're doing something completely tedious; while you're clocked in, the majority of your conversations should be about the task at hand.
Not to say that you should be a cigar store indian, but when someone's working save your fucking stories for lunch.

Went to school for TIG and Stick and finished last year.
Now I'm doing MIG for $11 an hour.
2 questions: How do I get into pipeline or shipyard work?

And how in the hell do you weld stainless with MIG? With tig it is no issue, but with mig I constantly have it ball up or just leave gaps from moving too fast

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>>1189007
Exhibit A

>>1189007
The increased heat conductance of stainless means your workpiece is going to heat up faster. The same changes you make when welding mild steel and the piece heats up, but much faster. You're using mild steel MIG habits and it's fucking you up.

>>1189007
>How do I get into pipeline

Pass a 6G stick and TIG weld test is the usual way, and if you bust the test look for someone who needs a fitter, but know how to fit. Hit rig welder forums and general welding forums because the info won't fit ITT. Practice with 6010 and 7018 (use a toaster oven if you don't own a rod heater for the 7018).

Google says deceptive site but I've lurked there for several years with no odd effects.

http://rigwelder.com/forum/

Also weldingweb and the Miller forums.