- Joined
- Aug 14, 2014
- Messages
- 81
I'll tell you what I did. I struck my first arc when I was twelve trying to fix a road blade I broke using it as a wheelie bar on the tractor before my Dad came home. The weld held the two parts together long enough to put it back in its place. But when Dad went to use it, yelp it broke. I got my ass whipped for not breaking the equipment but for hiding the fact. Then Dad said let me show you how to do it better next time. That was 1976.
From that time on I have welded any and everything I needed to. Eighty percent of my welds looked crappy but most worked. Around 1994 I bought a brand new Snap-on mig welder and after some time became decent with it. Up until this point, I had no formal training what so ever.
Around 2006 I started producing a product around my hobby, almost over night orders exploded for this product. To reproduce some of the parts that were originally stamped, I had to make them in multiple pieces and weld them together. Mig welding was not working too well so I paid a Welder to tig them for me. After a couple years of this, someone mentioned I should check on the Adult night class at the local Vo-tech.
So I checked on the classes, three hours a night, two nights a week for six weeks, $175.00. I signed up. long story short, I was tig welding the last week of the class! I asked my instructor if I signed up again, could I bring my own material in to practice on which he said yes. I was paying my Welder $250.00 per batch. I paid the $175.00 fee and welded my own parts at school. I took the class another time when I needed another batch of parts and have since bought my own tig machine.
What a difference those classes made! it initially did not make me a better welder but it taught me to identify what I was doing wrong and how to correct it, which has made me a better welder.
From that time on I have welded any and everything I needed to. Eighty percent of my welds looked crappy but most worked. Around 1994 I bought a brand new Snap-on mig welder and after some time became decent with it. Up until this point, I had no formal training what so ever.
Around 2006 I started producing a product around my hobby, almost over night orders exploded for this product. To reproduce some of the parts that were originally stamped, I had to make them in multiple pieces and weld them together. Mig welding was not working too well so I paid a Welder to tig them for me. After a couple years of this, someone mentioned I should check on the Adult night class at the local Vo-tech.
So I checked on the classes, three hours a night, two nights a week for six weeks, $175.00. I signed up. long story short, I was tig welding the last week of the class! I asked my instructor if I signed up again, could I bring my own material in to practice on which he said yes. I was paying my Welder $250.00 per batch. I paid the $175.00 fee and welded my own parts at school. I took the class another time when I needed another batch of parts and have since bought my own tig machine.
What a difference those classes made! it initially did not make me a better welder but it taught me to identify what I was doing wrong and how to correct it, which has made me a better welder.
That is a bit strange, it sounds like your setup is about right.