104 replies to this topic

[Ryan313]

...Ask Shnitzer if he will show you how to cut stainless with an O/A torch.  If he says it can't be done tell him an old man with a gray beard said it can if you lay some mild steel strap on top and use the steel for the fuel to burn through the stainless.

We don't mess with stainless, it is a carcinogen. The same goes for all of the other metals, alloys and plating that cause toxic fumes. He might not listen to an old man with a gray beard, as he is an old man with a gray mustache!

[Ryan313]

Yesterday the class was informed of a DOT certification test that has been scheduled. I don't remember when exactly, but it is at the end of the month sometime.

 

Since I went over to the O/A for a while I fell behind others with my stick welding, but I also gained a lead on them with the O/A welding. If I stayed with the stick welder everyday I would have (hopefuly) been ready for the certification test, but I am not ready. There is going to be another test sometime towards the end of February that I hope to catch.

 

This week I went back into my stick booth to get ready for the certification test. I have done a day or two worth of vertical welding before the O/A stuff, and it was actually at about a 60 degree angle. This week I went back in and I am doing true vertical welding now. They where all pretty bad until my last rod or two of today, hopefully I will be able to get the vertical position down next week. After vertical, I have to start all over again with overhead. After overhead I can go back to vertical with a 7018 to prepare for the DOT test. I think I will be able to get all of that done by the February test, but I don't know how many times (if any) I will be pulled off the welder to work on another project.

[chris m]

Sounds great Ryan! I know you can do it! Remember practice makes perfect. Good luck on the DOT test

[Ryan313]

Sounds great Ryan! I know you can do it! Remember practice makes perfect. Good luck on the DOT test

 

 

I was confident until the student who was giving me some vertical pointers told me how many people have passed it. He said that last year out of 20 people in the class only one passed, and many took it more then once. That is including both first and second year students.

[chris m]

I was confident until the student who was giving me some vertical pointers told me how many people have passed it. He said that last year out of 20 people in the class only one passed, and many took it more then once. That is including both first and second year students.

But this is you we are talking about!! You can do this!! How many of your class mates have GT's and how many have done projects like you have.

 

While they are busy playing Black ops you are out in the shop making things. So you have the edge!

 

But no matter what don't pressure yourself, just relax and practice when ever you can! We are all in your corner rooting for you! Good Luck!!

[HDWildBill]

I was confident until the student who was giving me some vertical pointers told me how many people have passed it. He said that last year out of 20 people in the class only one passed, and many took it more then once. That is including both first and second year students.

 

Ryan I don't know how many times in my life I have heard things like this and yet when it came to me doing it I usually made it.  You can too!  We have seen your work and we know how focused you are so like Chris said just relax, don't pressure your self and just to the best you can.  I think you will do fine.

[olcowhand]

"Can't" never got nothing done!  You can do it Ryan, just get that into your head, get your mind into it, and pass it!

[Ryan313]

Thanks for the encouragement guys! I am not worried so much about the actual welds, I think I will develop enough skill by then to pass. It is the cleaning part that makes me nervous! They x-ray the joints, so ANY slag that is left will be seen... and you WILL fail! There are a lot of practice joints that have been cut in half just laying around the shop, and some off to the side that are used as examples. I have only seen one that did not have any porosity in it, and that is just what could be seen where it was cut. To make the cleaning harder, you can't remove your joint from the stand once you have welded onto it. They do that to simulate real world welding scenarios, because if you are welding 50 stories up... it is pretty hard to put your joint into a vise to remove slag!

[MH81]

Ryan, you got this. Just remember we're behind you no matter how it turns out, but we all have faith in you.

[tractorgarden]

Ryan, A little story about me. I went to a 2-year tech school (welding&fab tech.)this came after a metal fab,based high school curriculum. Long story short, I was a decent SMAW before going to the tech school.Please learn from my mistakes,one of my biggest mistakes was being scared of slag inclusion,to the point of being the last person to finish any of my certs. I never had a qualification or cert. fail but there comes a point where 12 4 1/2 by 1/8 grinding disks in a 7 hour period is excessive.Not to say don't be cautious.I guess Im trying to say don't be your own worst enemy,start saying I can do this,I will overcome this. Go after it positive,and if you dont quite make it, try again after finding corrective action. If you ever need advice there many talented people on here to help.Do not let your nerves say no I Cant.I would much rather do overhead than flat. Good luck Ryan! Shawn

Edited by tractorgarden, January 04, 2013 - 11:52 PM.

[Cvans]

We were never allowed grinding or sanding wheels. Only a sharpened welding rod, wire brush, or slag hammer. 

Slag inclusions are a very good reason to keep your arc at the leading edge of your puddle so you will burn any

residual slag before the puddle covers it.  Your doing fine and confidence comes with practice.    

[Ryan313]

I didn't get to do any welding today, I started out the day by asking the teacher for help on some homework. We have textbook questions we do, and then something we call "blueprints." The blueprints are a bunch of packets that have normally have upwards of 75 questions each. I am got stuck on unit (each packet is a unit) 5, I think there are 12 of them. On one of the drawings it said to find the missing lines. Well, the teacher could not find the lines either... so we got out the answer book. Even with the answer book we still took a few minutes to find them! After that he wanted me to o over and work on the solar car.

 

The solar car is a project that is being shared among different programs at boces, the welding shop is building the frame. The frame is made up of aluminum tubing. I have worked on it a few days out of the year, mostly making fishtails on the tubing in the machine shop next-door. The main parts of the frame are finished, and now it needs all of the other things that will actually make it a car. For the frame we were working off of a set of drawings, none of the other components have been designed yet. So we spent some time brainstorming. After somewhat of a plan was developed, we had to make a LOT of room!

 

The frame is about 10 feet long, the fiberglass underside, and top shell (solar panels) are each 17 feet long. We ended up moving the plasma-cam to the other side of the shop, and that gave us the room we needed. After moving that, we cleaned the area, and under the lockers. There are three giant gang-boxes, if that is what you want to call them. Anyway, they are each 8 feet tall, 6 feet wide and 3 feet long; those where also cleaned under. After cleaning, it was outside to retrieve the solar car's underbody.

 

The underbody was outside under a big stage looking thing, I don't really know what it is for. Anyway, the fiberglass body JUST fit under it, but would not fit out. The reason it would not fit out was because once it got out from under the stage, it was on top of snow. The snow lifted the underbody and caused it to hit the stage; we had to shovel the snow out of the way. Then it came out with no troubles. Getting it through the hallways was another challenge! I mentioned it was 17 feet long, but it is also almost 8 feet wide! Because it was fiberglass, we had to have 6 people carry it; not because of weight, but because if one person was on each end it would have broke in half under its own weight. With people on the sides of the underbody, we ended up being about 10-12 feet wide, going down the hallways. The halls are pretty wide so it was not a problem, the problem was when we had to go into the welding shop. The shop has a set of double doors that are right in a corner, so we had to stand the whole 17 foot underbody almost straight up, turn 90 degrees, and then go through the doors as we set it back down. We did eventually get it into the shop, but there was no place to put it.. so we set it on the desks. There is a morning class (that I am in) and an afternoon class; I have no idea what the afternoon class did with it.

 

Talking about homework before, reminded me of something else! Shnitzer does not really assign homework; he tells you what he wants done each quarter and it is your responsibility to go into the file cabinets, find what you need and do it yourself. Now, you can do more work then he asks you to each quarter, and you will end up being his favorite student... like me.

[Ryan313]

I burnt down 12 rods today, doing vertical. I am now able to keep pretty steady, and my beads are very uniform; although, I am going a bit slow. When I started stick welding flat I started out to slow; when I started doing horizontal I started out to slow; now that I am doing vertical it does not surprise me that I am going to slow again! I am confident that I will have vertical down by the end of this week.

[chris m]

Sounds great Ryan! Slow and steady wins the race

[marlboro180]

Yessir, start out slow. Sounds like you are on the right track Ryan.