Signed up for the fall for a welding class, 6-10pm one day per
week. Should cover all welding processes such as stick, mig, tig, and
O/A. I am sure that I will learn quite a bit of stuff and maybe will
get "re-educated" on things that I already learned to do incorrectly.
Would be nice to be introduced to MIG and O/A, also.

i

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Where? All the evening classes in my area seem to be three to 4 times a
week...
thanks

"Ignoramus32025" wrote in message
...
Signed up for the fall for a welding class, 6-10pm one day per
week. Should cover all welding processes such as stick, mig, tig, and
O/A. I am sure that I will learn quite a bit of stuff and maybe will
get "re-educated" on things that I already learned to do incorrectly.
Would be nice to be introduced to MIG and O/A, also.

i

--
Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their
inattention
to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
from Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by
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"Ignoramus32025" wrote in message
...
Signed up for the fall for a welding class, 6-10pm one day per
week. Should cover all welding processes such as stick, mig, tig, and
O/A. I am sure that I will learn quite a bit of stuff and maybe will
get "re-educated" on things that I already learned to do incorrectly.
Would be nice to be introduced to MIG and O/A, also.

i

You're going to love it if you get a good teacher. I was fortunate and got
some good ones. Believe me, they can make you remarkably better in just a
few hours a week. And most will skip the stuff you already know and let you
advance to something you're having problems with or need to learn, and you
don't have to spend a lot of time going over stuff you already know how to
do.

It's nice, too, from the standpoint that usually you get to weld on steel
that has proper root and bevel configuration. Sometimes this translates to
the real world, but a lot of times, it just gives you an idea of how it
would be done in ideal circumstances, and then you will adapt from that to
the real situation in your shop.

Let us know how you do, and share those AHA! moments.

Steve

On 2008-07-09, Kelly Jones wrote:
Where? All the evening classes in my area seem to be three to 4 times a
week...

Our local community college, west of Chicago. It is actually rather
good based on my past experience.

i


"Ignoramus32025" wrote in message
...
Signed up for the fall for a welding class, 6-10pm one day per
week. Should cover all welding processes such as stick, mig, tig, and
O/A. I am sure that I will learn quite a bit of stuff and maybe will
get "re-educated" on things that I already learned to do incorrectly.
Would be nice to be introduced to MIG and O/A, also.

i




--
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I'm envious! The great stateof Wyoming has consolidated all of its CC (and
university) welding classes to the Casper CC. At 175 one way miles at
todays or even last years fuel prices not an option. There is no other.

--
J Miller
"Ignoramus32025" wrote in message
...
Signed up for the fall for a welding class, 6-10pm one day per
week. Should cover all welding processes such as stick, mig, tig, and
O/A. I am sure that I will learn quite a bit of stuff and maybe will
get "re-educated" on things that I already learned to do incorrectly.
Would be nice to be introduced to MIG and O/A, also.

i

--
Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their
inattention
to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
from Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by
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On 2008-07-09, John Miller wrote:
I'm envious! The great stateof Wyoming has consolidated all of its CC (and
university) welding classes to the Casper CC. At 175 one way miles at
todays or even last years fuel prices not an option. There is no other.


About 4 miles for me. This is a great CC also. I studied some things
there a few years ago.
--
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Thanks Steve. I wil let you know how it goes.

i

On 2008-07-09, SteveB toquerville@zionvistas wrote:

"Ignoramus32025" wrote in message
...
Signed up for the fall for a welding class, 6-10pm one day per
week. Should cover all welding processes such as stick, mig, tig, and
O/A. I am sure that I will learn quite a bit of stuff and maybe will
get "re-educated" on things that I already learned to do incorrectly.
Would be nice to be introduced to MIG and O/A, also.

i

You're going to love it if you get a good teacher. I was fortunate and got
some good ones. Believe me, they can make you remarkably better in just a
few hours a week. And most will skip the stuff you already know and let you
advance to something you're having problems with or need to learn, and you
don't have to spend a lot of time going over stuff you already know how to
do.

It's nice, too, from the standpoint that usually you get to weld on steel
that has proper root and bevel configuration. Sometimes this translates to
the real world, but a lot of times, it just gives you an idea of how it
would be done in ideal circumstances, and then you will adapt from that to
the real situation in your shop.

Let us know how you do, and share those AHA! moments.

Steve



--
Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their inattention
to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
from Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by
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"John Miller" writes:

I'm envious! The great stateof Wyoming has consolidated all of its CC (and
university) welding classes to the Casper CC. At 175 one way miles at
todays or even last years fuel prices not an option. There is no other.

So... the definition of "Community College" there calls for only one
community to have the college?

Joe Pfeiffer wrote in
:

So... the definition of "Community College" there calls for only one
community to have the college?

It's a cost-effective way of maximizing the use of the existing equipment
without spending anything upon either maintenance or consumables.

The CCC may also get a subsidy from the Feds as part of a job-training
program.

"Ignoramus32025" wrote in message
...
Signed up for the fall for a welding class, 6-10pm one day per
week. Should cover all welding processes such as stick, mig, tig, and
O/A. I am sure that I will learn quite a bit of stuff and maybe will
get "re-educated" on things that I already learned to do incorrectly.
Would be nice to be introduced to MIG and O/A, also.

i

Which do you want first the good news or the bad news? Okay, I'll give you
the good news. Taking a beginning welding class is in general a good idea if
you plan to do much welding. I took one a year or two ago and since I knew
absolutely nada about welding at the time it was a necessity that I learn
the basics, which I did. The bad news; unless you are very lucky you will
not get nearly as much help from the teacher as you need. There will be a
bunch of other people constantly asking him for his help, so you have to get
in line. The other thing is that all you will learn is the most basic
principles of each type of welding so you won't get very good at any of
them. What it does most is prepare you for the next class where you will
learn a lot more because after the first class you will know what's going
on. So you really need to take about a year to really get things down pat.
I'm glad I took the class, for sure. But I didn't get nearly as much as I
wanted to out of it. Then there was the part of reading the book and taking
tests and having to be graded on everything. Maybe you won't have that to
worry about but I went to a community college and they make the whole thing
like the rest of the curriculum. Have fun and get the fundamentals down as
well as you can because that's all you will probably glean from it.

Hawke

On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:59:33 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
"John Miller" jamwfourtwo writes:
I'm envious! The great state of Wyoming has consolidated all of its CC
(and university) welding classes to the Casper CC. At 175 one way
miles at todays or even last years fuel prices not an option. There is
no other.

So... the definition of "Community College" there calls for only one
community to have the college?

John means that only the Casper school has welding classes --
there are 9 more CC's in 7 other Wyoming towns. Wyoming is #50
in population among US states, has about 5 people per square mile
and 10% as many people as Cook County, Illinois.

-jiw

COD Iggy?

Rob


"Ignoramus32025" wrote in message
...
On 2008-07-09, John Miller wrote:
I'm envious! The great stateof Wyoming has consolidated all of its CC
(and
university) welding classes to the Casper CC. At 175 one way miles at
todays or even last years fuel prices not an option. There is no other.


About 4 miles for me. This is a great CC also. I studied some things
there a few years ago.
--
Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their
inattention
to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
from Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by
more readers you will need to find a different means of
posting on Usenet.
http://improve-usenet.org/

On 2008-07-09, Hawke wrote:

"Ignoramus32025" wrote in message
...
Signed up for the fall for a welding class, 6-10pm one day per
week. Should cover all welding processes such as stick, mig, tig, and
O/A. I am sure that I will learn quite a bit of stuff and maybe will
get "re-educated" on things that I already learned to do incorrectly.
Would be nice to be introduced to MIG and O/A, also.

i

Which do you want first the good news or the bad news? Okay, I'll give you
the good news. Taking a beginning welding class is in general a good idea if
you plan to do much welding. I took one a year or two ago and since I knew
absolutely nada about welding at the time it was a necessity that I learn
the basics, which I did. The bad news; unless you are very lucky you will
not get nearly as much help from the teacher as you need. There will be a
bunch of other people constantly asking him for his help, so you have to get
in line. The other thing is that all you will learn is the most basic
principles of each type of welding so you won't get very good at any of
them. What it does most is prepare you for the next class where you will
learn a lot more because after the first class you will know what's going
on. So you really need to take about a year to really get things down pat.
I'm glad I took the class, for sure. But I didn't get nearly as much as I
wanted to out of it. Then there was the part of reading the book and taking
tests and having to be graded on everything. Maybe you won't have that to
worry about but I went to a community college and they make the whole thing
like the rest of the curriculum. Have fun and get the fundamentals down as
well as you can because that's all you will probably glean from it.

What I will get out of the class, is all speculation at this
point. Hard to say. Even in the worst case, I will get an introduction
to welding methods that I never tried, like O/A and MIG. Also, I will
get a chance to practice harder welds like vertical and overhead, and
have someone knowledgeable who would correct my mistakes.

Plus, having access to proper welding setups, test materials etc, will
also be useful.

My welding experience for now is 90% stick like this one

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/Home...th-M105A2-Bed/

and 10% TIG.

--
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to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
from Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by
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posting on Usenet.
http://improve-usenet.org/

On 2008-07-09, Rob Fraser FraserRacing wrote:
COD Iggy?

Yep.

i

Rob


"Ignoramus32025" wrote in message
...
On 2008-07-09, John Miller wrote:
I'm envious! The great stateof Wyoming has consolidated all of its CC
(and
university) welding classes to the Casper CC. At 175 one way miles at
todays or even last years fuel prices not an option. There is no other.


About 4 miles for me. This is a great CC also. I studied some things
there a few years ago.



--
Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their inattention
to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
from Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by
more readers you will need to find a different means of
posting on Usenet.
http://improve-usenet.org/

Hawke wrote:

"Ignoramus32025" wrote in message
...
Signed up for the fall for a welding class, 6-10pm one day per
week. Should cover all welding processes such as stick, mig, tig, and
O/A. I am sure that I will learn quite a bit of stuff and maybe will
get "re-educated" on things that I already learned to do incorrectly.
Would be nice to be introduced to MIG and O/A, also.

i

Which do you want first the good news or the bad news? Okay, I'll give you
the good news. Taking a beginning welding class is in general a good idea if
you plan to do much welding. I took one a year or two ago and since I knew
absolutely nada about welding at the time it was a necessity that I learn
the basics, which I did. The bad news; unless you are very lucky you will
not get nearly as much help from the teacher as you need. There will be a
bunch of other people constantly asking him for his help, so you have to get
in line. The other thing is that all you will learn is the most basic
principles of each type of welding so you won't get very good at any of
them. What it does most is prepare you for the next class where you will
learn a lot more because after the first class you will know what's going
on. So you really need to take about a year to really get things down pat.
I'm glad I took the class, for sure. But I didn't get nearly as much as I
wanted to out of it. Then there was the part of reading the book and taking
tests and having to be graded on everything. Maybe you won't have that to
worry about but I went to a community college and they make the whole thing
like the rest of the curriculum. Have fun and get the fundamentals down as
well as you can because that's all you will probably glean from it.

Hawke

I expect it varies quite a bit. When I took a similar evening welding
class the book portion was pretty much limited to the first class and
just about everything after that was practical hands on time. The
student to instructor ratio was low enough to get an adequate amount of
time with the instructor. There is usually an advanced class or welding
II you can continue in, or given the low cost of most of these classes,
you can easily take it twice if you need more instructor time.

Pete C wrote:
I expect it varies quite a bit. When I took a similar evening welding
class the book portion was pretty much limited to the first class and
just about everything after that was practical hands on time. The
student to instructor ratio was low enough to get an adequate amount of
time with the instructor. There is usually an advanced class or welding
II you can continue in, or given the low cost of most of these classes,
you can easily take it twice if you need more instructor time.

Tentatively, if this class goes well, I will take a TIG class and a
stick class to lean more about out of position welding, which is my
weak spot (among many).

--
Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their inattention
to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
from Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by
more readers you will need to find a different means of
posting on Usenet.
http://improve-usenet.org/

"RAM³" writes:

Joe Pfeiffer wrote in
:

So... the definition of "Community College" there calls for only one
community to have the college?

It's a cost-effective way of maximizing the use of the existing equipment
without spending anything upon either maintenance or consumables.

From my perspective (I'm a computer science professor at NMSU), it
just seems totally contrary to the whole community college concept.
Having local access to vocational training like that is exactly what
CCs are supposed to be good at. Let's see... three of NMSU's four
community college campuses offer welding (I wonder why the fourth
doesn't... hmmmm...)

The CCC may also get a subsidy from the Feds as part of a job-training
program.

Wouldn't surprise me a bit.

"Hawke" writes:

Which do you want first the good news or the bad news? Okay, I'll give you
the good news. Taking a beginning welding class is in general a good idea if
you plan to do much welding. I took one a year or two ago and since I knew
absolutely nada about welding at the time it was a necessity that I learn
the basics, which I did. The bad news; unless you are very lucky you will
not get nearly as much help from the teacher as you need. There will be a
bunch of other people constantly asking him for his help, so you have to get
in line.

I fully realize I was very lucky to get as good and patient an
instructor as the one I had. I hope I'm as patient with my backward
CS students as he was with me!

The other thing is that all you will learn is the most basic
principles of each type of welding so you won't get very good at any of
them.

Well, yeah. How much of a skilled craft can you learn in 10 weeks?

What it does most is prepare you for the next class where you will
learn a lot more because after the first class you will know what's going
on. So you really need to take about a year to really get things down pat.
I'm glad I took the class, for sure. But I didn't get nearly as much as I
wanted to out of it. Then there was the part of reading the book and taking
tests and having to be graded on everything. Maybe you won't have that to
worry about but I went to a community college and they make the whole thing
like the rest of the curriculum. Have fun and get the fundamentals down as
well as you can because that's all you will probably glean from it.

Actually, the videos/book/tests were the easy part for me. But then,
that's the sort of thing I'm good at....

Joe Pfeiffer wrote:

"RAM³" writes:

Joe Pfeiffer wrote in
:

So... the definition of "Community College" there calls for only one
community to have the college?

It's a cost-effective way of maximizing the use of the existing equipment
without spending anything upon either maintenance or consumables.

From my perspective (I'm a computer science professor at NMSU), it
just seems totally contrary to the whole community college concept.
Having local access to vocational training like that is exactly what
CCs are supposed to be good at. Let's see... three of NMSU's four
community college campuses offer welding (I wonder why the fourth
doesn't... hmmmm...)

The CCC may also get a subsidy from the Feds as part of a job-training
program.

Wouldn't surprise me a bit.

Having spent several years working for a community college system, I can
tell you that the sad truth is that colleges exist to serve their
bureaucracies and the egos of their faculty, not the needs of the real
world and certainly not the needs of their students.

Welding and other "dirty" classes aren't trendy, so they get shoved to
the side in favor of trendy classes and of course the handful of classes
that serve no purpose other than to employ otherwise unemployable
faculty.

Even calling those classes "vocational" is a sign of the discrimination,
since virtually all classes beyond art appreciation are "vocational".

SteveB wrote:

On 2008-07-09, Hawke wrote:

Which do you want first the good news or the bad news? Okay, I'll give
you
the good news. Taking a beginning welding class is in general a good idea
if
you plan to do much welding. I took one a year or two ago and since I
knew
absolutely nada about welding at the time it was a necessity that I learn
the basics, which I did. The bad news; unless you are very lucky you will
not get nearly as much help from the teacher as you need. There will be a
bunch of other people constantly asking him for his help, so you have to
get
in line. The other thing is that all you will learn is the most basic
principles of each type of welding so you won't get very good at any of
them. What it does most is prepare you for the next class where you will
learn a lot more because after the first class you will know what's going
on. So you really need to take about a year to really get things down
pat.
I'm glad I took the class, for sure. But I didn't get nearly as much as I
wanted to out of it. Then there was the part of reading the book and
taking
tests and having to be graded on everything. Maybe you won't have that to
worry about but I went to a community college and they make the whole
thing
like the rest of the curriculum. Have fun and get the fundamentals down
as
well as you can because that's all you will probably glean from it.

What I will get out of the class, is all speculation at this
point. Hard to say. Even in the worst case, I will get an introduction
to welding methods that I never tried, like O/A and MIG. Also, I will
get a chance to practice harder welds like vertical and overhead, and
have someone knowledgeable who would correct my mistakes.

Plus, having access to proper welding setups, test materials etc, will
also be useful.

My welding experience for now is 90% stick like this one

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/Home...th-M105A2-Bed/

and 10% TIG.

What do you want first: the good news or the bad news? I heard that
recently from some profound pundit, but can't for the life of me remember
who jolly positive fellow was.

YOUR experience is going to be YOUR experience. You're going to a buffet,
be sure to get your money's worth. In all, I had four instructors. Three
were retired Navy, and were artful in their laying on of metal. One weighed
near 400# and the other barely 120 and did not look like they could hold up
the cable very long.

All the places I went to school, I went in night classes, which may have
something to do with it. They get a lot of people who have to go there,
either court directed, or some other reason. They also have people who are
taking up usable oxygen and instructor time, and will never enter the trade
or even follow their urge to make better yard art. Even a couple of babes
with big hair who finally at least learned why welders wear those funny
hats. But they did learn to run beads, women make some good welders because
most like to draw.

In night classes, I found that there were mostly serious people, and that
the student to pupil ratio was good so you could have one on one time.

Ahhhh. Next comes attitude. Attitude has a lot to do with a lot of things
in life. I never had a problem with any of my teachers. Maybe it was my
attitude. One I saw years later when he was having a yard sale to raise
money for his cancer treatment. He had dropped dramatically from his 120
fighting weight, and looked like crap. We immediately recognized each
other, and reflected about the ten years or so that had passed. We had both
come on some major health issues and were changed people. Point is, we were
friends from school, not teacher pupil. I bought about five bucks worth of
stuff and handed him a Franklin. He had very little for sale that was worth
anything.

During school, he was like the other two. They let you flounder a while,
then bring in their hood and say, "Watch this." (Tip: when you see the
instructor coming to your booth with his hood, it is a G-O-O-D thing.) Then
they would show you a secret that would end days of burning blobs. But in
the meantime, you'd take in a patch of blobs and they'd say, "That's good,
keep working on it. You got one good spot right .................THERE."
They had to get the idiots set up and going, but they always were there to
give you those pearls and AHA moments. But I REALLY think it was the
attitude I presented to them. I can see why someone like Hawke may have
problems with people, based on his attitude. And obviously, Mr. Hawk went
to different schools than I did. Where I went, the instructor found your
weak areas and then let you work on them instead of boring you with stuff
you already knew. We were not classes. We were all working on different
machines doing different things at any given time. I remember working on
TIG one time, and the doofus down the way came and said, "Dooood, why do YOU
get to work on TIG and I have to burn these dumb rods?" (He still had
trouble striking an arc and maintaining it on flat plate after 2 weeks.)

So, Iggy, it all depends on the school, the teacher, and you. I can't say
anything about the school, or the teacher, but I know you will view it as
going to a buffet and already decided to get your money's worth before the
first class. Some people will sit there and wait to be served and never
grasp the concept. If you luck into a good teacher, or someone who will see
you already know something, they should let you skate to the area you want
to improve in or work on. If the school isn't so rigid that they have the
syllabus set and allow for no deviation, my experience was that it was night
time, the school was closed, and for all intents and purposes, the welding
instructor WAS the president of the college for a few hours. But if they
are strict, fall back on the buffet principle. Even if it's mediocre food,
I have full confidence you'll get your money's worth.

And, if by chance, you get caught up in a structured situation, you will
know next time which questions to ask before you select a school or course.

I still say that you might do better if you could hook up with a pro, and
learn on the pizza/beer/football/friendship/bass fishing principle. But
good friends are getting as rare as good welders.

I'm done. Stick a fork in me.

Steve

Another advantage of the evening classes is you often get instructors
who actually have real jobs in that field during the day, in the welding
case the instructor had years of sub welding shipyard experience and had
semi retired to running his own welding business during the day and
teaching the welding class a couple nights a week for beer money.

On 2008-07-09, Hawke wrote:

Which do you want first the good news or the bad news? Okay, I'll give
you
the good news. Taking a beginning welding class is in general a good idea
if
you plan to do much welding. I took one a year or two ago and since I
knew
absolutely nada about welding at the time it was a necessity that I learn
the basics, which I did. The bad news; unless you are very lucky you will
not get nearly as much help from the teacher as you need. There will be a
bunch of other people constantly asking him for his help, so you have to
get
in line. The other thing is that all you will learn is the most basic
principles of each type of welding so you won't get very good at any of
them. What it does most is prepare you for the next class where you will
learn a lot more because after the first class you will know what's going
on. So you really need to take about a year to really get things down
pat.
I'm glad I took the class, for sure. But I didn't get nearly as much as I
wanted to out of it. Then there was the part of reading the book and
taking
tests and having to be graded on everything. Maybe you won't have that to
worry about but I went to a community college and they make the whole
thing
like the rest of the curriculum. Have fun and get the fundamentals down
as
well as you can because that's all you will probably glean from it.

What I will get out of the class, is all speculation at this
point. Hard to say. Even in the worst case, I will get an introduction
to welding methods that I never tried, like O/A and MIG. Also, I will
get a chance to practice harder welds like vertical and overhead, and
have someone knowledgeable who would correct my mistakes.

Plus, having access to proper welding setups, test materials etc, will
also be useful.

My welding experience for now is 90% stick like this one

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/Home...th-M105A2-Bed/

and 10% TIG.

What do you want first: the good news or the bad news? I heard that
recently from some profound pundit, but can't for the life of me remember
who jolly positive fellow was.

YOUR experience is going to be YOUR experience. You're going to a buffet,
be sure to get your money's worth. In all, I had four instructors. Three
were retired Navy, and were artful in their laying on of metal. One weighed
near 400# and the other barely 120 and did not look like they could hold up
the cable very long.

All the places I went to school, I went in night classes, which may have
something to do with it. They get a lot of people who have to go there,
either court directed, or some other reason. They also have people who are
taking up usable oxygen and instructor time, and will never enter the trade
or even follow their urge to make better yard art. Even a couple of babes
with big hair who finally at least learned why welders wear those funny
hats. But they did learn to run beads, women make some good welders because
most like to draw.

In night classes, I found that there were mostly serious people, and that
the student to pupil ratio was good so you could have one on one time.

Ahhhh. Next comes attitude. Attitude has a lot to do with a lot of things
in life. I never had a problem with any of my teachers. Maybe it was my
attitude. One I saw years later when he was having a yard sale to raise
money for his cancer treatment. He had dropped dramatically from his 120
fighting weight, and looked like crap. We immediately recognized each
other, and reflected about the ten years or so that had passed. We had both
come on some major health issues and were changed people. Point is, we were
friends from school, not teacher pupil. I bought about five bucks worth of
stuff and handed him a Franklin. He had very little for sale that was worth
anything.

During school, he was like the other two. They let you flounder a while,
then bring in their hood and say, "Watch this." (Tip: when you see the
instructor coming to your booth with his hood, it is a G-O-O-D thing.) Then
they would show you a secret that would end days of burning blobs. But in
the meantime, you'd take in a patch of blobs and they'd say, "That's good,
keep working on it. You got one good spot right .................THERE."
They had to get the idiots set up and going, but they always were there to
give you those pearls and AHA moments. But I REALLY think it was the
attitude I presented to them. I can see why someone like Hawke may have
problems with people, based on his attitude. And obviously, Mr. Hawk went
to different schools than I did. Where I went, the instructor found your
weak areas and then let you work on them instead of boring you with stuff
you already knew. We were not classes. We were all working on different
machines doing different things at any given time. I remember working on
TIG one time, and the doofus down the way came and said, "Dooood, why do YOU
get to work on TIG and I have to burn these dumb rods?" (He still had
trouble striking an arc and maintaining it on flat plate after 2 weeks.)

So, Iggy, it all depends on the school, the teacher, and you. I can't say
anything about the school, or the teacher, but I know you will view it as
going to a buffet and already decided to get your money's worth before the
first class. Some people will sit there and wait to be served and never
grasp the concept. If you luck into a good teacher, or someone who will see
you already know something, they should let you skate to the area you want
to improve in or work on. If the school isn't so rigid that they have the
syllabus set and allow for no deviation, my experience was that it was night
time, the school was closed, and for all intents and purposes, the welding
instructor WAS the president of the college for a few hours. But if they
are strict, fall back on the buffet principle. Even if it's mediocre food,
I have full confidence you'll get your money's worth.

And, if by chance, you get caught up in a structured situation, you will
know next time which questions to ask before you select a school or course.

I still say that you might do better if you could hook up with a pro, and
learn on the pizza/beer/football/friendship/bass fishing principle. But
good friends are getting as rare as good welders.

I'm done. Stick a fork in me.

Steve

Which do you want first the good news or the bad news? Okay, I'll give
you
the good news. Taking a beginning welding class is in general a good
idea if
you plan to do much welding. I took one a year or two ago and since I
knew
absolutely nada about welding at the time it was a necessity that I
learn
the basics, which I did. The bad news; unless you are very lucky you
will
not get nearly as much help from the teacher as you need. There will be
a
bunch of other people constantly asking him for his help, so you have to
get
in line. The other thing is that all you will learn is the most basic
principles of each type of welding so you won't get very good at any of
them. What it does most is prepare you for the next class where you will
learn a lot more because after the first class you will know what's
going
on. So you really need to take about a year to really get things down
pat.
I'm glad I took the class, for sure. But I didn't get nearly as much as
I
wanted to out of it. Then there was the part of reading the book and
taking
tests and having to be graded on everything. Maybe you won't have that
to
worry about but I went to a community college and they make the whole
thing
like the rest of the curriculum. Have fun and get the fundamentals down
as
well as you can because that's all you will probably glean from it.

What I will get out of the class, is all speculation at this
point. Hard to say. Even in the worst case, I will get an introduction
to welding methods that I never tried, like O/A and MIG. Also, I will
get a chance to practice harder welds like vertical and overhead, and
have someone knowledgeable who would correct my mistakes.

Plus, having access to proper welding setups, test materials etc, will
also be useful.

My welding experience for now is 90% stick like this one

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/Home...th-M105A2-Bed/

and 10% TIG.


Here's what you'll get, from my experience. You won't get any of the hard
welds like vertical or overhead, that is advanced. What they do in a college
class is just like any class. They start at the very beginning and give you
the basics, a lot of safety, different metals, history of welding, etc. Then
they start you out on O/A because once you have the hang of that you can
pretty much do the rest. In my school we only got through oxy, stick, and
barely some mig. But once you understand how to do oxy the only thing you
need to know about mig is how to set up the machine for your specific job.
The joke is that a monkey can mig weld if a human sets up the machine for
him. We never even got to TIG at all. I doubt if you'll get to that in a
first semester class. That's why I said you just scratch the surface in a
first class in a community college. You really need to do another semester
to learn what you probably want to know. That said, I'm glad I learned all
the fundamentals the right way. Welding can be dangerous if you don't know
what you are doing. You have to start somewhere though and that first class
is a must even though you won't learn what you hoped to.

Hawke

"Joe Pfeiffer" wrote in

Well, yeah. How much of a skilled craft can you learn in 10 weeks?

Sometimes, just enough to survive the next layoff at the shop?

Steve

Joe Pfeiffer wrote in
:

"RAM³" writes:

Joe Pfeiffer wrote in
:

So... the definition of "Community College" there calls for only
one community to have the college?

It's a cost-effective way of maximizing the use of the existing
equipment without spending anything upon either maintenance or
consumables.

From my perspective (I'm a computer science professor at NMSU), it
just seems totally contrary to the whole community college concept.
Having local access to vocational training like that is exactly what
CCs are supposed to be good at. Let's see... three of NMSU's four
community college campuses offer welding (I wonder why the fourth
doesn't... hmmmm...)

The CCC may also get a subsidy from the Feds as part of a
job-training program.

Wouldn't surprise me a bit.


Here in my small Texas town, we have a Junior College which offers HVAC
classes and Auto Mechanics classes.

The local high school offers a Tractor Mechanics class as a part of the
Agriculture program.

The nearest Welding course, though, is an another town 25 miles away.

30 years ago, the Conroe, TX, Vocational High School offered adult night
classes in welding, machine shop, and general metalworking.

Each was a 40-hour class taught by the same teacher at the same time.

The best description of the welding class was "40 bucks for 40 hours and
all the rods that you can burn." grin

At the time, they only had O/A and stick.

They also had a pair of engine lathes and a mill that was in need of
repair.

Still, it was enough to learn some of the basic basics. grin

I expect it varies quite a bit. When I took a similar evening welding
class the book portion was pretty much limited to the first class and
just about everything after that was practical hands on time. The
student to instructor ratio was low enough to get an adequate amount of
time with the instructor. There is usually an advanced class or welding
II you can continue in, or given the low cost of most of these classes,
you can easily take it twice if you need more instructor time.

Tentatively, if this class goes well, I will take a TIG class and a
stick class to lean more about out of position welding, which is my
weak spot (among many).

If you are going to a good community college in the Chicago area I expect it
will be a lot like mine even though I took my class in northern California.
My class was a typical college class. There was a syllabus, a big expensive
book, 130 bucks when I bought mine, quiz's every week, mid terms and a final
too. I took the class at night too and the first part every time was
classroom work then we went into the shop. The problem I had was that there
was only one instructor. He was good but there were too many people wanting
his time and I had to wait in line to ask a question. You may not have that
but you probably will. 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 but
the college was all I had access to so I took what I could get. After
spending so many years in college I just hate the way they do things. It's
so slow and tedious and overly structured.

Hawke

Hawke wrote:

Which do you want first the good news or the bad news? Okay, I'll give
you
the good news. Taking a beginning welding class is in general a good
idea if
you plan to do much welding. I took one a year or two ago and since I
knew
absolutely nada about welding at the time it was a necessity that I
learn
the basics, which I did. The bad news; unless you are very lucky you
will
not get nearly as much help from the teacher as you need. There will be
a
bunch of other people constantly asking him for his help, so you have to
get
in line. The other thing is that all you will learn is the most basic
principles of each type of welding so you won't get very good at any of
them. What it does most is prepare you for the next class where you will
learn a lot more because after the first class you will know what's
going
on. So you really need to take about a year to really get things down
pat.
I'm glad I took the class, for sure. But I didn't get nearly as much as
I
wanted to out of it. Then there was the part of reading the book and
taking
tests and having to be graded on everything. Maybe you won't have that
to
worry about but I went to a community college and they make the whole
thing
like the rest of the curriculum. Have fun and get the fundamentals down
as
well as you can because that's all you will probably glean from it.

What I will get out of the class, is all speculation at this
point. Hard to say. Even in the worst case, I will get an introduction
to welding methods that I never tried, like O/A and MIG. Also, I will
get a chance to practice harder welds like vertical and overhead, and
have someone knowledgeable who would correct my mistakes.

Plus, having access to proper welding setups, test materials etc, will
also be useful.

My welding experience for now is 90% stick like this one

http://igor.chudov.com/projects/Home...th-M105A2-Bed/

and 10% TIG.

Here's what you'll get, from my experience. You won't get any of the hard
welds like vertical or overhead, that is advanced. What they do in a college
class is just like any class. They start at the very beginning and give you
the basics, a lot of safety, different metals, history of welding, etc. Then
they start you out on O/A because once you have the hang of that you can
pretty much do the rest. In my school we only got through oxy, stick, and
barely some mig. But once you understand how to do oxy the only thing you
need to know about mig is how to set up the machine for your specific job.
The joke is that a monkey can mig weld if a human sets up the machine for
him. We never even got to TIG at all. I doubt if you'll get to that in a
first semester class. That's why I said you just scratch the surface in a
first class in a community college. You really need to do another semester
to learn what you probably want to know. That said, I'm glad I learned all
the fundamentals the right way. Welding can be dangerous if you don't know
what you are doing. You have to start somewhere though and that first class
is a must even though you won't learn what you hoped to.

Hawke

What you say is probably true for the daytime classes. The night classes
tend to get more to practical hands-on since the people in the class
often have some experience already. In my Welding II evening class I did
all TIG (and fixed a few machines in the class too).

James Waldby wrote in
:

On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:59:33 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
"John Miller" jamwfourtwo writes:
I'm envious! The great state of Wyoming has consolidated all of its
CC (and university) welding classes to the Casper CC. At 175 one
way miles at todays or even last years fuel prices not an option.
There is no other.

So... the definition of "Community College" there calls for only one
community to have the college?

John means that only the Casper school has welding classes --
there are 9 more CC's in 7 other Wyoming towns. Wyoming is #50
in population among US states, has about 5 people per square mile
and 10% as many people as Cook County, Illinois.

-jiw



Yabut the people who ARE there are very friendly. grin

On Jul 9, 8:58*am, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
"RAM³" writes:
Joe Pfeiffer wrote in
t:

So... *the definition of "Community College" there calls for only one
community to have the college?

It's a cost-effective way of maximizing the use of the existing equipment
without spending anything upon either maintenance or consumables.

From my perspective (I'm a computer science professor at NMSU), it
just seems totally contrary to the whole community college concept.
Having local access to vocational training like that is exactly what
CCs are supposed to be good at. *Let's see... *three of NMSU's four
community college campuses offer welding (I wonder why the fourth
doesn't... hmmmm...)

The CCC may also get a subsidy from the Feds as part of a job-training
program.

Wouldn't surprise me a bit.
I'd just like to add that CCs are also feeder schools for further
education at a four-year university. Around here, in southern
California, the majority of students are going to CCs to either get an
AA, or to go on to a university. There are a lot of people who don't
get the chance to go to a university right after high school and
community colleges give them another chance.

But, with that said, I agree that CCs should have a strong job-
training component. Maybe, with the decline in mining, in Wyoming they
had to consolidate the welding classes because there just wasn't
enough demand to support them.

On Jul 9, 9:05*am, Ignoramus2215
wrote:
...
Tentatively, if this class goes well, I will take a TIG class and a
stick class to lean more about out of position welding, which is my
weak spot (among many).

You can use that truck crane to keep all the welding in-position. I
hung the scaffold frames from a tree to weld the pipe joints. The
truck can be protected by scrap sheet metal, I use water-heater
shells, or welding curtains made of cotton cloth soaked in alum and
borax.

"RAM³" wrote in message
0...
James Waldby wrote in
:

On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:59:33 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
"John Miller" jamwfourtwo writes:
I'm envious! The great state of Wyoming has consolidated all of its
CC (and university) welding classes to the Casper CC. At 175 one
way miles at todays or even last years fuel prices not an option.
There is no other.

So... the definition of "Community College" there calls for only one
community to have the college?

John means that only the Casper school has welding classes --
there are 9 more CC's in 7 other Wyoming towns. Wyoming is #50
in population among US states, has about 5 people per square mile
and 10% as many people as Cook County, Illinois.

-jiw



Yabut the people who ARE there are very friendly. grin

And the sheep are cute, too..............................

"RAM³" wrote in message
0...
James Waldby wrote in
:

On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:59:33 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
"John Miller" jamwfourtwo writes:
I'm envious! The great state of Wyoming has consolidated all of its
CC (and university) welding classes to the Casper CC. At 175 one
way miles at todays or even last years fuel prices not an option.
There is no other.

So... the definition of "Community College" there calls for only one
community to have the college?

John means that only the Casper school has welding classes --
there are 9 more CC's in 7 other Wyoming towns. Wyoming is #50
in population among US states, has about 5 people per square mile
and 10% as many people as Cook County, Illinois.

-jiw



Yabut the people who ARE there are very friendly. grin

"RAM³" wrote in message
0...
James Waldby wrote in
:

On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:59:33 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
"John Miller" jamwfourtwo writes:
I'm envious! The great state of Wyoming has consolidated all of its
CC (and university) welding classes to the Casper CC. At 175 one
way miles at todays or even last years fuel prices not an option.
There is no other.

So... the definition of "Community College" there calls for only one
community to have the college?

John means that only the Casper school has welding classes --
there are 9 more CC's in 7 other Wyoming towns. Wyoming is #50
in population among US states, has about 5 people per square mile
and 10% as many people as Cook County, Illinois.

-jiw



Yabut the people who ARE there are very friendly. grin

On my last trip to NW Wyoming, I found that the favorite obsession of the
local young women was to find men who they hadn't "known." Visitors were
considered Gods. It was a lot of fun until I met all of them. That took
about two weeks. Still, a fun vacation. Even caught some fish and found
some arrowheads in-between all the horizontal air hockey.

Steve

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

On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:05:26 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm,
Ignoramus2215 quickly quoth:

Pete C wrote:
I expect it varies quite a bit. When I took a similar evening welding
class the book portion was pretty much limited to the first class and
just about everything after that was practical hands on time. The
student to instructor ratio was low enough to get an adequate amount of
time with the instructor. There is usually an advanced class or welding
II you can continue in, or given the low cost of most of these classes,
you can easily take it twice if you need more instructor time.

Tentatively, if this class goes well, I will take a TIG class and a
stick class to lean more about out of position welding, which is my
weak spot (among many).

I'd do that here but the local CC (just 8 miles away!) wants something
like $425 per class ($275 for the class and $150 for supplies) or
$3,500 for the entire welding class array. They have a very extensive
setup here. /drool

----------------------------------
VIRTUE...is its own punishment
==================================

wrote in message
...
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

SteveB wrote:


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.

I'm with you, I find TIG to be easier than stick. I attribute some of
that to many years of electronics soldering before I tried TIG.

On 2008-07-09, Pete C. wrote:
Another advantage of the evening classes is you often get instructors
who actually have real jobs in that field during the day, in the welding
case the instructor had years of sub welding shipyard experience and had
semi retired to running his own welding business during the day and
teaching the welding class a couple nights a week for beer money.

I think that evening classes will also give an opportunity to meet
some interesting people, including the instructor.
--
Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their inattention
to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
from Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by
more readers you will need to find a different means of
posting on Usenet.
http://improve-usenet.org/

On 2008-07-09, Hawke wrote:

If you are going to a good community college in the Chicago area I expect it
will be a lot like mine even though I took my class in northern California.
My class was a typical college class. There was a syllabus, a big expensive
book, 130 bucks when I bought mine, quiz's every week, mid terms and a final
too. I took the class at night too and the first part every time was
classroom work then we went into the shop. The problem I had was that there
was only one instructor. He was good but there were too many people wanting
his time and I had to wait in line to ask a question. You may not have that
but you probably will.

My class will have 17 people in it, max.

i

"SteveB" toquerville@zionvistas wrote in
:

On my last trip to NW Wyoming, I found that the favorite obsession of
the local young women was to find men who they hadn't "known."
Visitors were considered Gods. It was a lot of fun until I met all of
them. That took about two weeks. Still, a fun vacation. Even caught
some fish and found some arrowheads in-between all the horizontal air
hockey.


SWMBO is from Wyoming, so whenever I'm in the area so is she. grin

The next time you're in the NW corner, don't forget to spend some time in
Thermopolis' State Park. Your back will thank you profusely.

If you are going to a good community college in the Chicago area I
expect it
will be a lot like mine even though I took my class in northern
California.
My class was a typical college class. There was a syllabus, a big
expensive
book, 130 bucks when I bought mine, quiz's every week, mid terms and a
final
too. I took the class at night too and the first part every time was
classroom work then we went into the shop. The problem I had was that
there
was only one instructor. He was good but there were too many people
wanting
his time and I had to wait in line to ask a question. You may not have
that
but you probably will.

My class will have 17 people in it, max.

i

That's good but welding classes are not like your ordinary college class
where most of the students don't give a **** and can't wait to get out of
the room. Most people in welding class want to be there and want to learn
how to weld. They are usually older and are a lot more motivated than normal
students. So you will only have to fight with sixteen other guys, probably,
to have access to the teacher. Part of my problem was that I had no
experience at all when I took the class. Everyone else in the class already
knew how to weld at least to some extent so I was way behind to begin with.
You would think that since most people had experience welding they wouldn't
have as many questions for the instructor. Wrong! Like I said, every time I
wanted to ask a question I had to wait in line with half a dozen people
ahead of me and that went on all night. Maybe you won't have that problem,
if not count your blessings. One thing that I learned in that class is that
welding is not one process but a bunch of them. A good welder knows about
all of them and can do them all at least fairly well. That is what takes
time. A guy can learn how to do stick pretty quick and if that's all he does
he's not really a welder. When you can do all of it on all kinds of metal,
then you can weld. By that criteria, I'm not a welder.

Hawke