×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

welding course for engineers?

welding course for engineers?

welding course for engineers?

(OP)
I'm a mechanical engineer a couple of years out of school.  I design and specify weldments from time to time as part of my work, but my only training with welds so far comes from on-the-job learning.  Sidebar - why don't they cover the practical stuff in school? I feel like a welding course and a machining course would have made me about 10000% more useful when I started.  My school had some options for this but there were limited seats and I couldn't fit them into my schedule.

Anyway, one of our senior engineers has mentioned a "welding for engineers" course he's been meaning to take, but I can't find any such thing offered by AWS or the local welding schools.  

I've considered taking a basic introductory welding course but really I'm more interested in something a little bit higher-level - besides reviewing things like symbols and conventions, maybe some detail about compatibility of metals, basic weld technology, conventions and best practices for designing / specifying welds, AWS vs ISO/DIN...  I know that's all over the place, I'm just trying to come up with topics that might be useful in such a course.  

I found links to http://www.welding.org/technical/courselist.html in previous discussions here; the non-welder course sounds like the right kind of thing but maybe a little lacking in technical depth.  Can anyone suggest other courses or resources (welding for dummies?) that might be useful?  Bonus points for something that's offered in the Baltimore area...

Cheers,
-Mark

RE: welding course for engineers?

Unfortunately, all-encompassing courses that are of any sort of practical value are hard to come by, which is why I chose to major in it at college.  

The first book I'd recommend as one of the best, to-the-point resources you can have is "Metals and How to Weld Them."  Its one of the Lincoln books, so it's very cheap, and covers topics such as mechanical properties, methods of welding, fundamentals of metallurgy, welding various steels, aluminums, alloys, and exotics, heat treating, as well as common welding problems and what makes a "good" weld.  

RE: welding course for engineers?

If you have an adult education or vocational school in your area, try contacting them to see what they offer. We have partnered with the vocational school in my area (Central Ohio) for many training activities, including a course that our production welders go through that involves several days of classroom in addition to learning how to lay a bead.

RE: welding course for engineers?

Mark, you don't need to take a course to get all the "book lernin". You can do that on your own. Most outside construction unions have welding courses for their apprentices and, by law, must offer the course to non union applicants.  Just about any welding school, technical school can teach you the mechanics, you need not go for a full certification...it's handy, but not at all necessary for you to understand the ins and outs of design/fabrication.
Also gives you something else you can "fall back on", eh?

Rod

RE: welding course for engineers?

I second the tech school route.  I know one in my area that holds welding and machining courses for about $500 a piece.  Your employer may (should) pay for it as PD.  Or for about $1000 you can get a MIG (GMAW) and stick everything in your garage together.

RE: welding course for engineers?

This a very good course to get one started in understanding welding

http://asmcommunity.asminternational.org/portal/site/www/AsmStore/ProductDetails/?vgnextoid=2f9c9cfb6e0f8110VgnVCM100000701e010aRCRD

Here is one that I found by searching "welding courses +state". State meaning your location. These type courses are very intense
at times, buckets full of information.
I was told about this particular one by a ex colleague who works for New York Transit,

http://www.aacc.edu/welding/file/WeldingCoursesF08Web.pdf

RE: welding course for engineers?

(OP)
Thanks for the input everyone.  HgTX, the Blodgett course looks especially good (especially at half the price of the ASME and ASM courses - I assume the difference pays for some combination of hands-on time and course materials).  Now I just need to convince somebody else to pay for it...

RE: welding course for engineers?

When I was look for a welding job I tried the guys at www.bbloverseas.com and they suggested a course for this, can't remember which one exactly but you can see their website and give them a call

RE: welding course for engineers?

While it may also be more in-depth than you're looking for, Ohio State offers distance learning courses for its MSWE courses in a non-degree format, so no graduate school requirements need to be met to enroll.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources