Lovely way to end the day.
Compared to the pics in the top of the thread these are night and day.
I haven’t.you have managed to teach this fella better in a day than I was taught in my 4 years time.
I haven’t.
He already had the tools.
I just had to slow him Derek down a notch and occasionally remind him post flow is there for a reason. I never once mentioned arc length which is very rare.
It annoys the hell out of me when companies don't give apprentices the proper training, they are selling the lads short and not ensuring the skills continuity of their workforce. It's true that you tend to learn more once you're "let loose" but you have to have all the basics in place which are best achieved by close instruction. When we run training course we always ensure the ratio is never more than 2 trainees to one instructor, there is always more than enough materials and the guys get a minimum of 6 arc hours per day, in truth most of them are fed up of welding by the time we've finished with them. We ran a course a couple of weeks back for some guys who had never TIG welded before and after 2 1/2 days they all passed an aluminium butt and fillet test to BS 4872
It's disgraceful, and consequitive governments keep bleating on about a skills shortage, my apprenticeship was 5 years, 1st year at college every day then 3 years of day release plus 1 night a week, at work you were on the tools under close supervision all the time so when you came out of your time you could tackle anything that was thrown at you to an acceptable standard. I used to judge some of the regional heats for the apprentice welder of the year awards and to be honest the standard of some of the entrants was pitiful, not the lads fault as they received virtually no trainingWell, I'm sure they'll be laughing on the otherside of their faces once the tribunal is over..
I would say I probably had around 150 arc hours total over a 4 year period. I constantly got taken off jobs to do menial labour (despite the fact there were five labourers with nowt to do..!) Same with fabrication side of things, hardly any teaching there. One fella was consistently great for me: really tried to take time out to show me the ropes and get me learning the tips and tricks... but the foreman would clamp down on that whenever he could. Bah. I'm still bloody bitter, even now!
Derek, what is the part for in the photo....looks interesting.
When i served my time almost 50 years ago, i spent hours being taught to do all sorts of welding and brazing,even furnace brazing . I wasn't even serving time as a welder but a Fitter/Turner. As a result i got a 1st class welding ticket before i came out of my time and it's served me well over the years, but it's been a while since i used a Tig So it's back to school for a while .On the subject of people using young persons as cheap labour, it is damned annoying,especially as the last young man i worked with was the product of such an education. We had a Kempi tig which was pretty daunting for any beginner to use being overly complicated to set up for each job. i was away and a special job came in so the newly minted tradesman was asked to repair it. After a few hours wrecking tungstans and ta grinding wheel,he rang the local agent and got them to send a service guy out to show him how to use the welder....Wow.
I worked as an "apprentice" for 4 years, and I can honestly say that you have managed to teach this fella better in a day than I was taught in my 4 years time. Now I'm even more annoyed at the place I just left!
- And when I say "apprentice", I mean that I was on the proper framework, and I was going through the modules... but I wasn't getting any bloody teaching from the guys as my foreman (for whatever bloody reason) didn't feel that time should be set aside to teach me owt. My aluminium TIG is pretty sweet as one fella insisted on getting me to do all the fiddly thin stuff ( "it's good practice for ya!" .. more like he was too hamfisted and didn't want the hassle of dressing and polishing his welds afterwards!! ) but my stainless is really lacking in comparison. Might book a flight and come for one of your sessions!
Can I just chip in with how difficult it is to get onto a course, even a one day course. I’ve applied online, and also phoned about courses, some at colleges up to 50 mile away. I leave my info, and get told they will contact me when the course is taking folk on.
Nowt, nada, zilch.