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On Jul 9, 12:01 pm, "Hawke"
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

Hawke

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