For many years in this country, technical craftsmen, like welders, were seen as semi-skilled workers, with little need for education beyond the basic technologies and techniques of their trade. Welders, as an example, were viewed as little more than guys and gals in masks with a blowtorch, joining pieces of metal together. There’s a lot more to welding than meets the eye.
Modern welders have more joining techniques available to them than ever before, including soldering, brazing, arc welding, and casting and bronzing. While you can still begin a career in welding with technical training and a high school diploma, many contemporary welders go on to get two-year associate degrees from technical and community colleges or bachelor of science degrees in welding engineering.
Welders need to know much more than how to turn on the blow torch and apply it to the metal. They need to know basic metallurgical theory, physics, and math. They must understand the properties of a variety of metals and how they react to different kinds of heat applied in different ways. It is a highly skilled profession.
Regardless of where they got their basic training, many welders turn to the American Welding Society for further education and certification. Visit their home page at aws.org, and you’ll find an extensive list of educational offerings, many leading to a variety of levels of certification. There are programs for Certified Associate Welding Inspectors, Certified Welding Inspectors, Senior Certified Welding Inspectors, Certified Welding Supervisors, and Certified Welding Engineers. You can be certified for different welding applications, like Arc Welding, Welding Fabrication, and Radiographic Interpretation. There are less technical certification fields as well, including Certified Welding Educator and Certified Welding Sales Representative.
Certification requirements are detailed on the web site, and AWS offers intensive five-day preparatory seminars for most of these certification exams. They have Accredited Test Facilities in 28 states in the continental United States and eight foreign countries, including China, Mexico, Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Viet Nam. The AWS web site also contains helpful information on careers in welding and technical schools and colleges offering degrees in welding.
The American Welding Society has a list of schools at www.aws.org.
How much time is required to complete education in welding depends on the type of welding education you are seeking. The American Welding Society webpage is a great place to get answers, and for Canadians, the Canadian Welding Society.
You can start whth the American Welding Society. Just google AWS.
Any standards that are welding related in the United States are designated by the American Welding Society (AWS).
American society of Mechanical Engineers American National Standards institute American Welding Society
Underwater welding is the process of using an energy source that produces lots of heat to melt together large pieces of metal while diving underwater. There are many great underwater welding schools that can provide this training. You can find these listed from the American Welding Society.
The American Welding Society abbreviations for the arc welding processes that melt a tubular electrode with alloys deoxidizers and slag formers in their cores are FCAW (Flux-Cored Arc Welding) and metal-cored arc welding (MC).
Certification is through the American Welding Society and is granted to students completing an accredited course at a technical school or college. A typical welding certification course takes about one year to complete, but advanced diploma programs are also available. These courses involve education and hands-on training in the areas of fabrication welding, metal arc welding, gas welding and pipe welding. Blueprint reading is also included as a core course. Most of these programs require no college experience, but rather only a high school diploma.
AWS D1.1 is the American Welding Society structural welding code for carbon steel of 1/8 inch or greater thickness.
Most of the community colleges offer welding education programs. You can check with you local colleges career office to sign up for a welding education program.
MIG stands for metal inert gas. It is a non-standard term for gas metal arc welding (GMAW) and flux cored arc welding (FCAW) according to the American Welding Society (AWS). It is simply Metal Inert Gas.
There are far more than 5 types or processes of welding. Currently the American Welding Society (AWS) states that there are more than 80 different welding and joining processes. However, some of the common welding processes include shielded metal arc welding (SMAW), gas metal arc welding (GMAW), gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), flux cored arc welding (FCAW), and oxyfuel gas welding (OFW).