I have a Tulsa Welding school down the road from me. I asked how much for a general welding 101 class. $15,000 LMAO! That's more than BOTH of my 4  year degrees combined.....for a stupid welding class . Yea ok.

What's the best way to learn on my own?

Buddy up to someone that does weld.  Most of the welders I know are pretty friendly and willing to give pointers.  Ask your friends and you will probably find someone that has a friend/relative that welds   

-Jessie

Practice at home with Kraft spray-cheese in a can and pieces of cardboard. 

If you want to skip the $15,000 tuition I'd say a free welding book from the library and a $80 Harbor Freight welder. Once you get the hang of it you can go and spend more on one. I've been looking into learning as well, but at this point I don't have a clue what any of the amps and reels and everything else they always talk about, which I'm sure will make perfect sense once I actually start doing it.

welding is not actually that bad. the hardest part I have found is getting the gear all setup correctly, after that its just practice. get a bunch of little bits of scrap and start sticking them all together.  plate and solid stuff is much easier than welding tubing.  i think if you got a cheap set and a book, you would be fine. someone who actually knows what they are doing helping you out would be very helpful as well.  it would only take them a few minutes to get you started anyway.

Once you get practicing I'd definitely have someone who knows what's going on too. I know that just because a weld doesn't look nice doesn't mean it's strong. If you're building random things it wouldn't be as crucial, but I know I'll definitely end up building some subframes and stuff like that, and that's definitely something I don't need breaking, so I say just jump into it, and once you've got some practice have someone you trust check it out.

It really depends on what you want to weld. What's your project and purpose? Best is to buddy up with someone. I learned on oxy-acetylene in high school shop classes, and picked up MIG / flux core later on my own. There's plenty of info out there. For $15K, they had better be teaching pipe fitting and handing out apprentice cards at the end of classes so you can earn that tuition back.

In order of difficulty:

MIG. It's really the easiest. Also no spatter; you could run it with bare hands.

Flux core isn't bad either. But get some gloves on.

Stick welder would be next. Only one I haven't personally tried. Again with gloves.

Oxy-Acetylene. Not sure anyone does this anymore.

Tig. I never really got the hang of it. Good for really thin steel (I've welded cookie sheets with this process) and aluminum.

$15,000 would buy a lot of equipment to learn with yourself.Yes it takes some knowledge but not to the point of being a Genius.

Quote from: Jughead on December 10, 2009, 09:36:37 PM
$15,000 would buy a lot of equipment to learn with yourself.Yes it takes some knowledge but not to the point of being a Genius.

+1

For around $500 you can buy a 110 Lincoln Mig/Flux core and a bottle and teach yourself on scrap. It will handle up to 1/8" in one pass with flux core. That's my current setup. 220V would be nicer, but for what I do (welding exhausts and other bike bits) it would be total overkill.

If you learn well from books, there are good ones out there. Some good stuff on the web as well, now. I'll look some up and post when I have more time.

Also a lot of practice and destructive testing of your practice welds. But if you have no idea how do do either of those, it won't help much (doing it wrong 500 times is not the same as doing it right 500 times in terms of helping your welding, or anything else for that matter.) As such a big vise and a BFH should be on your tool list if you don't already have them.

It is a physical/manual skill. As such, I find that when I haven't done much for a while, it's a good idea to start with more practice before diving into something that needs to be done right. And it is helpful when first learning to have someone that knows what they are doing that you can watch, and they can watch you. But it can be a bit difficult to know who's really competent if you don't know in the first place. There are a lot of hack weldors out there. (welder=machine - weldor=person, BTW)

Get adequate protective gear, and use it.

You might see if any community college or (not too likely these days, but there may still be some) high school adult-ed classes are available - those tend to be far more reasonably priced. The "welding schools" are all about charging people lots of money so they can dream about making lots of money on oil rigs, etc. from what I can see. I took my welding classes at the agricultural engineering department of the university I attended (as my free electives). Check with cooperative extension for your area and see if they have anything in the way of workshops for farmers repairing their equipment.

Quote from: DoD#i on December 11, 2009, 08:48:26 AM

You might see if any community college or (not too likely these days, but there may still be some) high school adult-ed classes are available -

I wish I would've had a better idea of the kind of things I wanted to do when I was younger. Looking back, there were a lot of classes like that I would've loved to actually take, or just to have paid attention in the ones that I did take so I'd have a better idea about those kinds of things.


Noiseguy: When you say 220V would be nicer, that reminds me of one other thing I've never been too sure about. Does your welder plug into a normal wall outlet, or do you have a special circuit for it? I eventaully need to have someone come over to put in a circuit so I can get some outlet strips on my workbench, but I've been curious if I should try to get something put in for a welder, or if I can handle normal tasks on one that fits in a standard outlet. By normal tasks, I mean fixing random things that broke from around the house, welding up a subframe or two over time. Things like that.

my brother has a 220v welder that plugs into the 220v outlet for his clothes dryer.

he uses a heavy gauge 220v extension cord that reaches from his garage to the clothes dryer outlet.

That sounds like a good option to me! I just had one of those put in a year or two ago. I'd probably need at least a 20-30 foot cord, but that wouldn't cost any more than a new plug anyway.

we actually made the cord from some kind of wire off a big roll at home depot with a dryer cord spliced on the end of it.

It was pretty cheap, maybe $50 or less? Just make sure you get a thick enough wire to handle the longer distance.

Quote from: noiseguy on December 10, 2009, 09:02:37 PM

MIG. It's really the easiest. Also no spatter; you could run it with bare hands.

Flux core isn't bad either. But get some gloves on.

Stick welder would be next. Only one I haven't personally tried. Again with gloves.

Oxy-Acetylene. Not sure anyone does this anymore.

Tig. I never really got the hang of it. Good for really thin steel (I've welded cookie sheets with this process) and aluminum.

If your welding with any wear gloves.  if you can weld it without gloves your not using enough heat.  I MIG 8 hrs a day every day and there is spatter and everyone wears gloves.  I recommend a cheap auto darken helmet even while your learning as it helps to see while your getting ready to weld without having to flip you hood open every time you move to a different weld. as for flux core being harder then MIG i beleave your wrong.  Flux is MIG without the gas usually a lower voltage welder and not as good as MIG.  Any Flux core welding that i have ever seen anyone do looks like a pill of dog sh!t that i wouldnt trust to hold up a for sale sign on the side of the road let alone anything that was going to hold any weight.

best way to learn: make a living at it. you'll be trained by an older hand, learn what matters and what doesn't, and get paid in while doing it.

drop by a few machine shops, and tell em you want some 2nd shift work. there is always TONS of production welding in shops, and not all of it needs certification (which you won't have).

the old hands there will appreciate (and torment) you being there, and wonder what the hell is wrong with you for wanting to learn how to dob.

I'm fair to good with a stick, and very good heli-arc. production welding of tiny pieces taught me in machine shops. it sucks, but you learn fast how to make something strong and efficient use of the welder.

teh books are fine, but hands on is where it's at. refine your skill with the information on the net. get dirty, and have fun !

Quote from: noiseguy on December 10, 2009, 09:02:37 PM
MIG. It's really the easiest. Also no spatter; you could run it with bare hands.

Flux core isn't bad either. But get some gloves on.

Stick welder would be next. Only one I haven't personally tried. Again with gloves.

Oxy-Acetylene. Not sure anyone does this anymore.

Tig. I never really got the hang of it. Good for really thin steel (I've welded cookie sheets with this process) and aluminum.

OA is mostly used for things other than welding (ie cutting and heating, though plasma is making large inroads in the cutting side of it), because of gas cost and (lack of) speed. Also, it takes about as much skill (and very similar skills) to OA weld as to TIG, since in both cases the torch is just heat, and the filler is done by the other hand. TIG is the process which can weld anything, and very cleanly - but it is also slow, and slow is expensive (so is argon). For many "exotic" things, it's the only way. I love to TIG, but have no justification for dropping the money on one for what I need to do, so I have a big nasty stick welder that could also do TIG, if I spent more money on accessories.

In the wire feed processes, there's "real" MIG (gas and solid wire), flux-core (no gas, flux cored wire - the cheapies) and dual-sheild (gas and flux-core designed to work with the gas - the fancy stuff). For small home shop work, you can do a lot worse than the readywelder (portable spool gun which can run off batteries or a welding supply).

http://www.lincolnelectric.com/knowledge/articles/content/migvsfluxcored.asp

One problem with MIG is that it's the easiest process to get a beautiful weld bead that isn't actually stuck to anything, or at least not very much. This is why breaking your practice welds is important. With stick or TIG, it is far more difficult to make a good looking but bad weld (though with stick, it's quite possible to make a bad looking but good weld, for low-aesthetic values of "good.")

Unless you are really wedded to that "live fast, die young" thing, always wear gloves, and the rest of your  complete coverage clothing. All arc welding processes put out skin-cancer-enhancing amounts of UV light, regardless of wether they throw any spatter at all. As such, none of your skin should "see" the arc. If you get a "sunburn" from welding on a regular basis, you are begging for trouble. As for spatter, that provides good old fashioned burns that will teach you what not to wear very effectively, unless you are extremely dense.

http://content.lincolnelectric.com/pdfs/products/literature/e205.pdf

http://www.lincolnelectric.com/knowledge/articles/content/arcweldfund.asp

http://www.esabna.com/EUWeb/AWTC/Lesson1_1.htm

And, if you get to prying your wallet open (not too far - this is a non-profit foundation founded by the "red" company, but separate from them):
https://ssl.lincolnelectric.com/foundation/store.asp?PID=16&cat=8

dod had allot of stuff right... let's add a "TIPS" section to this thread. my first, and most painful lesson:

NEVER wear a white t-shirt while welding. no amount of aloe will sooth your skin from the flash burn.

love the leather.

unplug the grinder when you're done grinding.

un-tuck your pants from your boots.

leather aprons while sitting. biiiiig DOH here

leather.
leather.
more leather.

Quote from: tt_four on December 11, 2009, 11:12:33 AM
Noiseguy: When you say 220V would be nicer, that reminds me of one other thing I've never been too sure about. Does your welder plug into a normal wall outlet, or do you have a special circuit for it? I eventaully need to have someone come over to put in a circuit so I can get some outlet strips on my workbench, but I've been curious if I should try to get something put in for a welder, or if I can handle normal tasks on one that fits in a standard outlet. By normal tasks, I mean fixing random things that broke from around the house, welding up a subframe or two over time. Things like that.

110V depends on the house. Last house (70's), every circuit was overloaded; had to shut off the garage and basement lights to run the compressor, that sort of thing. I had an electrician install a home-run from a dedicated 20A breaker into the garage to a few new outlets to take care of this. Modern house, with massive 150A main boxes, probably not an issue.

110 vs 220 as a household welder is infinately debatable. If your mantra is bigger is better, go 220V.

Personally, I think 110V is fine for most household stuff. Keep in mind you can weld up to 1/4" in two passes if you can get to both sides, and most stuff that needs welded probably isn't that thick anyway. You start welding up old-school car and truck frames, or want to try aluminum, it's time to go to 220V. For bikes, it's about perfect. Welder is a lot lighter as well, which makes the cart more manageable.

If I decide to go to a bigger welder, I'll probably get a Lincoln tombstone AC/DC 220V stick welder to supplement. Once a project gets that big / heavy, I don't think slag cleanup is as big of a deal (MIG requires almost no cleanup.) DC process makes nice-looking welds, and AC can weld heavier / dirtier stuff that I'll probably ever need.

Quote from: noiseguy on December 12, 2009, 07:33:01 AM

110V depends on the house. Last house (70's), every circuit was overloaded; had to shut off the garage and basement lights to run the compressor, that sort of thing. I had an electrician install a home-run from a dedicated 20A breaker into the garage to a few new outlets to take care of this. Modern house, with massive 150A main boxes, probably not an issue.

I'll have to look at by breaker box sometime to see. My house was built in 1880, so I have no idea when the electric was updated, but the guy who put in the dryer outlet said I've got plenty of circuits to spare.

I'm never going to be doing anything as heavy duty as a car/truck frame. At this point, the biggest projects I'd care to do is making new subframes for bike projects. I'd love to be able to weld aluminum for the sake of newer frames, but as long as the frame has tabs for a subframe to bolt on, I'm fine with making a subframe out of steel. Other than that it would be cool to be able to make up my own headlight mounts and exhaust brackets, things like that, as well as random household projects, like if a patio chair would crack, or maybe I'd go crazy and make a storm door or something like that, but otherwise I think I'd get by with a 110v.