{"id":7580,"date":"2018-11-30T13:50:43","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T13:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/?p=7580"},"modified":"2022-12-06T09:46:21","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T09:46:21","slug":"why-what-and-should-i-become-a-welder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/why-what-and-should-i-become-a-welder\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything You Need to Know About a Career in Welding."},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Should I become a welder? What is the work like?<\/h2>\n<p>Welding is a method of providing a high strength joint in metallic components. It does this by melting metal to form a bridge between the parts to be joined.<!--more-->A large amount of welding is done by manual techniques, where an electric arc or a gas flame is used to melt the metal in the joint.<br \/>\nThe welder is therefore in direct control of the process, making judgements that decide the quality of the finished joint.<\/p>\n<h3>The 4 Main Manual Welding Processes.<\/h3>\n<p>These are called Manual Metal Arc welding (MMA), Tungsten Inert Gas welding (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/tigwelders.aspx\">TIG<\/a>), Metal Inert Gas welding (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/migwelders.aspx\">MIG<\/a>) and Oxy-acetylene welding (OA).<br \/>\nEach has its own field of application, but they all require a high degree of skill to achieve sound welds.<\/p>\n<h3>Mechanised Welding.<\/h3>\n<p>Some techniques are mechanised, where many welds requiring exactly the same result are required. This \u00a0occurs in the volume production of, say, cars or washing machines.<br \/>\nThe skill required in this type of welding lies in the setting up of the control system, and is usually the responsibility of a technician. In this instance, the welder would operate the machine.<\/p>\n<h3><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/user\/image\/welding%20city.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"387\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"5\" \/><\/h3>\n<h3>Why Choose Welding?<\/h3>\n<p>Welding is one of the few remaining skills used in manufacturing and construction.<br \/>\nAs the quality of the weld depends on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/careerinwelding.aspx\">skill of the welder<\/a>, you can take a pride in your work as a craftsman, and have a sense of achievement.<br \/>\nThere is also the continuing challenge of developing new skills to meet different situations.<\/p>\n<p>Also, welding is a transferable skill, it is not confined to one industry or one country.<br \/>\nWelders are required for applications as diverse as jet engine manufacture and bridge building, to laying pipelines and fabricating equipment in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quora.com\/What-are-exotic-metals\">special materials<\/a> like Cobalt.<\/p>\n<p>Welding skills and qualifications obtained in the UK are equally in demand in Europe and the rest of the world.<\/p>\n<h3>What Skills or Interests Do You Need?<\/h3>\n<p>Most people can learn the essentials of welding, but not everyone can develop the skills needed to consistently meet the standards required by modern industry.<br \/>\nTo start with, a welder needs good eyesight and must be physically fit. You must have patience and be able to persevere \u2013 it takes a lot of practice to become a good welder.<\/p>\n<p>Welding demands undivided attention for periods of up to five minutes.<br \/>\nAny variations in the operation of the system must be observed and translated into immediate corrective movements of the hand. This is often referred to as hand-eye co-ordination.<br \/>\nIf you are good with your hands and enjoy working with tools, you would probably be able to respond to welder training.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, you would need to gain an understanding of the tasks that you perform. So you must be able to learn about the technology used in the welding processes.<\/p>\n<h3>Are There Hazards in Welding?<\/h3>\n<p>There are hazards; the processes use heat to melt metal, so there is a risk of burns.<br \/>\nThe \u2018arc\u2019 of the welding instrument produces fumes and a bright light, both of which can be injurious to the welder and other workers.<br \/>\nThere are also the usual hazards associated with working with electrical equipment.<\/p>\n<p>However, there are well defined working procedures protecting the welder\/operator\u00a0against these risks.<br \/>\nIf these procedures are followed,\u00a0there is no reason why welding should be any more\u00a0hazardous than other occupations in engineering. Safety first!<\/p>\n<p>Are you still keen to find out more?<br \/>\nFollow this link to a NEW idea from one of the UK&#8217;s leading metal fabricators.<br \/>\nJCB\u00a0have launched a school for young Engineers, who can attend from the age of 14.<br \/>\nMany people prefer to learn with a &#8220;hands on&#8221; approach, and here you can at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.westermans.com\/jcbacademy.aspx\">JCB\u00a0Academy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/user\/image\/DANGER%20welder%20at%20work.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"177\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"5\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Take a look at this blog page with this amazing Infographic we created on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/the-most-dangerous-jobs-infographic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Most Dangerous Jobs<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Should I become a welder? What is the work like? Welding is a method of providing a high strength joint in metallic components. It does this by melting metal to form a bridge between the parts to be joined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[383,46,7],"tags":[63,132,62,11],"class_list":["post-7580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-customer-resources-library","category-how-to","category-jobs-for-welders","tag-career","tag-jobs","tag-training","tag-welding"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/arc-welding.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Ygth-1Yg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7580"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10499,"href":"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7580\/revisions\/10499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westermans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}