Anvil jockey
New Member
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- 1
Hello all, new to the site. Quite a nice site by the way, lots to read up on here with so many talented folks participating.
I have worked as a mig welder in the past but it's been years. Started off with mig welding by welding the galvanized track for roll up doors on semi trailers which is really just tacking then went to a railcar repair facility for a few years as a "car knocker" doing all sorts of fabs & repairs to rolling stock until union troubles mucked that all up so took a job welding cement mixer truck bodies until that company did the dead guppy float.
Ironically I was to learn the parent company was mainly in the railcar business, manufacturing thousands of cars annually in Texas, my truck body division was in New York. At the time there were only two railcar repair facilities in all of Mexico. After NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) some 40 railcar shops sprang up in Mexico almost over night which gutted the industry in the U.S. and my company hoisted the white flag. Those Mexicans will work for $40 a week but apparently the politicians thought the whole idea was just marvelous.
So I haven't done any mig welding since 2002 but then went to work for an aluminum V process foundry for three years but left it because of frequent lay offs, boom & bust does not a steady paycheck make.
Have been doing machine maintenance since but I find it endlessly mind numbing and am seriously considering going to school to learn more welding processes and become certified.
Have been a backyard blacksmith for about 5 or 6 years now and love it. Can take a perfectly good piece of mild steel or old wrought and turn it into unrecognizable scrap in no time! Actually I'm not that bad but I have a long way to go before I can say I am a well rounded blacksmith.
Glad I found the site, no doubt I'll learn a lot here. Cheers! Dan.
I have worked as a mig welder in the past but it's been years. Started off with mig welding by welding the galvanized track for roll up doors on semi trailers which is really just tacking then went to a railcar repair facility for a few years as a "car knocker" doing all sorts of fabs & repairs to rolling stock until union troubles mucked that all up so took a job welding cement mixer truck bodies until that company did the dead guppy float.
Ironically I was to learn the parent company was mainly in the railcar business, manufacturing thousands of cars annually in Texas, my truck body division was in New York. At the time there were only two railcar repair facilities in all of Mexico. After NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) some 40 railcar shops sprang up in Mexico almost over night which gutted the industry in the U.S. and my company hoisted the white flag. Those Mexicans will work for $40 a week but apparently the politicians thought the whole idea was just marvelous.
So I haven't done any mig welding since 2002 but then went to work for an aluminum V process foundry for three years but left it because of frequent lay offs, boom & bust does not a steady paycheck make.
Have been doing machine maintenance since but I find it endlessly mind numbing and am seriously considering going to school to learn more welding processes and become certified.
Have been a backyard blacksmith for about 5 or 6 years now and love it. Can take a perfectly good piece of mild steel or old wrought and turn it into unrecognizable scrap in no time! Actually I'm not that bad but I have a long way to go before I can say I am a well rounded blacksmith.
Glad I found the site, no doubt I'll learn a lot here. Cheers! Dan.