Posted on 04/22/2014 8:16:56 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
In American high schools, it is becoming increasingly hard to defend the vanishing of shop class from the curriculum. The trend began in the 1970s, when it became conventional wisdom that a four-year college degree was essential. As Forbes magazine reported in 2012, 90% of shop classes have been eliminated for the Los Angeles unified school district's 660,000 students. Yet a 2012 Bureau of Labor Statistics study shows that 48% of all college graduates are working in jobs that don't require a four-year degree.
Too many young people have four-year liberal-arts degrees, are thousands of dollars in debt and find themselves serving coffee at Starbucks SBUX +0.95% or working part-time at the mall. Many of them would have been better off with a two-year skilled-trade or technical education that provides the skills to secure a well-paying job.
A good trade to consider: welding. I recently visited Pioneer Pipe in the Utica and Marcellus shale area of Ohio and learned that last year the company paid 60 of its welders more than $150,000 and two of its welders over $200,000. The owner, Dave Archer, said he has had to turn down orders because he can't find enough skilled welders.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
It’s like buying a Rolls Royce....if you have to ask the price....you can’t afford it.
Son learned welding in the navy. When he got out, he got his bachelor’s degree. He worked for a properties company - a desk job. Now he and wife are moving back to our area and he still doesn’t have a job lined up.
He doesn’t want to do welding.
I don’t bring it up any more. He won’t listen! How to knock some sense into him??”
***Bring Back Shop Class****
That;s what I’ve been saying for years!
For what? Industrial electrical work, ag/ranch/oilfield, residential, light industrial, etc?
There’s electricians and then there’s electricians.
No.
Hand a stinger to a liberal arts major and odds are, they’ll never be able to successfully start an arc, much less run a bead that looks like a chicken crapped on the metal.
“Underwater welding — there’s a handy skill.”
The welder I use finally closed up his shop. Is having shoulder surgery and it would be a year before he could work again. But - he is an older guy.
He will still take his once-a-year (sometimes twice!) safari to Africa.
I didn’t pry, but in conversation it came up that after the Navy he went into underwater welding. I was surprised he was still welding at his age. But you could tell he enjoyed the specialized work that he did.
“Yeah - it pays for the cartridges.”
lol.
From my observation, it depends on what type of welding we’re talking about.
If you’re talking of dual-shield or MIG, then lots of people can weld.
When we get to out-of-position stick, or pipeline stick, now the number of people who can pull it off gets much thinner.
And then there’s TIG, and some specialized TIG welders make huge money, but they’d got a very difficult job in tight spaces (eg, in power plant piping on stainless).
The hardest jobs require Xray inspection of every weld. If you botch more than two per month, you’re probably going to be given your walking papers pretty soon.
residential - remodeling.
That’s because dual shield is pretty easy stuff compared to other technologies.
PIpeline guys who work out in the field and bring their own rigs to the job (usually a Lincoln machine) get upwards of $30/hour, and then $15 to $20 for rig rental on their rigs.
There’s more than a dozen “certificates” in welding. There’s certificates for process, then position, then some application certs as well. Saying “we’re hiring certified welders” is a pretty loose specification.
$65/hour on up.
Thanks
most of the structuiral these guys are welding they are using 1/16 wire and welding 3/8 to 2” sections in the shop.
The ones National are looking for are to fab hulls of commercial and navy ships.
They are looking for 2,000 to weed out to an eventual 1,500 full time employees.
I am a low voltage electrician.. (48 volts or less. computer networks, alarm systems, that sort of thing).
My advance notice rate is 75 hour. After hours is 95 and drop and run (be there in 4 hours or less) is 125.
electrode in one hand.. ground in the other..
Turn welder on.
Repeat as necessary.
There's no doubt that honest work was disparaged by obama by his relentless attacks on Joe the Plumber back in 2008.
A self-made man who rose through the ranks of a blue collar job working tirelessly to provide for his family, Mr. Wurzelbacher was ridiculed endlessly by obama, whose only "job" was that of a community organizer.
Wowsa....do you ever have a helper? If so...then what do you charge?
That’s about what I reckoned. 1/16th dual-shield is pretty easy going to lay down a bead all day, every day.
The guys up in the oilfields are usually running hot and hard on pipe. They’re out of doors most all the time, often down in a ditch in all kinds of weather, sometimes up to their butts in freezing mud, laying down X-ray quality weld after Xray quality weld on a big pipe with stick.
Part of what isn’t explained how they get to six figures is the brutal schedules they endure - 60+ hours a week. When the weather is good, these guys can work 80+ hours a week, making tracks to make up for the times when the weather prevents progress.
The guys who are really good don’t even have to look at what they’re doing. I’ve seen guys get their rod started, flip up their mask, light up a cig and carry on a conversation, all the while laying down a cover pass downhill. To the guys who have lots of experience, stick welding becomes a tactile skill with sound feedback - so they tell me.
For me, stick welding is something I have to pay only a little less attention to than my TIG welding.
The highest paid welders I’ve met are teams - they weld inside power plants and other high-risk environments (ie, the welds really better hold up, or really Bad Stuff[tm] happens) and in spaces so tight, you’d better be a contortionist to get in (and out) of these places. Most of that is scratch-start TIG on stainless. They’re a team because when one guy can’t get wrapped around to finish the weld, his buddy is on the other side to take the torch, filler metal (if any) and possibly a mirror and keep going around the joint - without breaking the arc.
The couple of guys I’ve met who did this (and were about ready to retire and do something else in their late 40’s) said their working relationship was better than their marriages.
My daughter is an excellent example of what this article is stating. She went to two different private colleges and got an art degree and a mountain of debt. She worked as a waitress (and did quite well) for a number of years. She decided to get out of that, took a two year course in marine maintenance (which she finished in one year), and now has a good job as a boat mechanic - and loves it. Never did use the art degree...
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