Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Welding jobs?

A lot of you are clueless about welding. The certifications listed are not pipe or tubing certs. D1.1, D1.3 are structural welding codes, D9.1 is sheet metal. None of these are high demand nor high paying jobs. Structural welding be it ship yard, bridge work or building trailers or some such junk in a shop are 20-25$ hourly jobs most anywhere. No body gives a [bleep] about a scissor lift, fork lift or over head crane cert that’s a helper job lol.

You want money to weld? Boiler tube welding, pipeline welding or refinery turnaround work period. This involves a lot of travel but a good welder will make 50$ hourly plus Perdieum. The job I’m on right now we paying tube welders $50 and double, that means after 8 hours these guys making $100 hour. Plus Perdieum.

Of all the alloys stainless steel is the most common and least skill required to weld.

As for the guy saying look up inspection and NDE? NDE is non destructive testing PT, X-ray or RT etc. and the techs that do the testing make maybe 30-40 tops. How do I know ? Cause I’m the guy that calls them and wakes them up out of the X-ray truck to come shoot the welds I’ve inspected lol. I welded for 15 years and am a certified welding Inspector not a part time trailer hitch dirt dobber wanna be welder .
If those certs listed are all he’s got he needs to go back to welding school an learn to weld the big boy stuff or live with sub 30$ pay in a dark sweat shop lol.

There ain’t no trade offs you travel you make money you wanna be sitting on your couch a 5 pm everyday your wife’s gonna work at Wallmart lol.

Real certifications that make money, I know cause I got them.
Aws CWI
API 510,570, 1169

We’ll I guess that settles that….
OP will be along shortly to thank you.

South Dakota is full of them. Mitchell, Aberdeen, Watertown

Journeyman pipefitters make good money, benefits, and retirement. My nephew works out of Hanford, and brings in well over a hundred k. Five year apprenticeship. Worth every minute in the long run. Plus he goes home every night.

Language warning,


but some of this discussion reminded me of the “typical welder video”.

Go ahead and laugh because you know the stereotype is true..

[video:youtube] [/video]

Gotta Love
I deal with that stuff every day when I go out to Inspect welds
the 433 Union boys think that they are badder than this guy.

I as well am a CWI Inspector since 1/95 and a Welder since 74.
I make more welding with my own Rig than I do Inspecting 1 1/2 times more and i am not a Pipeliner.
Just a Crappy Structural D1.1 6GR TKY Counter Clockwise Qualified Welder. Counter Clockwise because I am Backwards
Can I weld Pipe Yeser but I am no Artist like some of them are.

TIG Welders if they are good can make good money.

Dip [bleep] like him make me laugh! Always one somewhere! Wonder if he stands in, on King of the Hill, on his non welding days.

This. I made my mark building large food processing plants and I paid very good money to the guys I had on who could tig weld stainless. One of my best sources finding these guys was two companies just south of St.Paul MN where they made tanker trucks. The guys were inside/outside welding those tank backs up. That may be an Avenue as well.

Osky

I love this post so much. The only thing I would add to your list of jobs that you make great money as a welder would be at power plants, working on casings and turbines.

Not in my opinion or experience, I've done both and much prefer being a pipeline welder.
The best paying welding jobs is being a pipeline welder in my opinion and experience. Yes you have to travel, but this specialized type of welding is easier on your body and the pay is at the top of the profession.

Shipyard welding is much lower pay and worse conditions

Anchorage and Fairbanks are going to have a lot of work this year, including a sealift to Prudhoe Bay. Lots of bridge work also.

True, made $74.94 per hour straight time, time and a half after 8 and $18 per hour for my truck.

Often brought home $5,00.00 per week, worked 6 months and made $100,000.00 plus thousand dollars

Forgot to add almost $27.00 per hour in benefits that pays our health insurance and life insurance.

That video is joking but it’s pretty close to the attitude of a lot of pipeline welders. “Nothing finer than a pipeliner” lol.
Thing is the code they weld to on pipelines is 1104 and about as easy as it gets. Other than ark marks on the pipe they can get away with some of the ugliest [bleep] on a weld you ever seen. I’ve seen it a 100 times and I’ve welded both pipelines and refineries. A good refinery welder will weld circle around a pipeliner. Take even a decent refinery welder and he’ll do fine on a pipeline take the biggest mouthed pipeliner you know and most won’t make it past the first production shot in a refinery, the welding codes and acceptance criteria is that much more strict in refineries.

Also if your making less money inspecting welds than the guy doing the welding you hired in wrong lol. No way Ima make less than a welder I DGAF what they welding

Working in a shop, structural in particular is a good place to gain that experience and work towards those certifications you don't have because you don't need the certifications while working under the shop's certification, especially if you can get in one of the union shops that have a paid apprenticeship program.

Phil

Thanks again for all the great information!

My SIL is still relatively early in his career and I said he is really good, not that he is the greatest, most experienced welder ever to strike up an arc. He continues to learn and get all the training and certs that are available to him. He will succeed and I am proud of him. He and my daughter will do what it takes. Colorado Springs has gotten incredibly expensive in the last couple of years so the cost of living delta may work in their favor in some of the places mentioned. (I am pushing for locations with good hunting and/or fishing so I have something to do with the grandkids when I visit.)

Some great leads & ideas, especially around pipefitting, utility companies and food processing equip, and some sobering perspectives.
I'll provide it all to SIL.

Good luck to him, I’ve never seen a welding thread yet that didn’t turn into a pissing match!

JWP,

I always worked non union when I was in the field and made a decent living, especially working offshore back in the Cooper Brother's day.

Around 2009 I setup a large diameter double joint rack. We used all union labor through the UA. Welders were mostly 798 and the rate was around $55.00 an hour plus all the extras you mentioned even though they used our equipment. I will say this, we always got really good welders from 798. The mechanic was union and was great. We made some serious money with that rack. Three welding stations would average over two hundred 30" welds in a 10 hour day. We got up to 300 welds per day on an 18" job once, that is a completed 18" diameter weld every two minutes. All that with very few repairs.

Both Clarence and AL Cooper were 798 welders before starting Cooper Brothers Welding. They had the best welders there were at that time.

I thought Mr. John hung the moon, he was a great man, very honest and straight forward

Just curious - did SIL ask for any input?

You can’t learn to weld boiler tubes or pipe in a structural shop period. You learn to weld them by welding them, with instruction from a good welder. You can weld plate in a structural shop until your 80yo and that’s all you’ll ever be. You also won’t learn how to weld the exotic alloys by welding anything else period. Each alloy has different properties and techniques of welding.

Fab shops don’t have welding certificates to weld under lol. A welder takes the test for the job , that welder is then certified on that process to that WPS. The fab shop cannot be certified because fab shops can’t weld lol. It’s a building g not a welder for [bleep] sake