Having a career to sustain a family

So I always see Sup Forums telling people that having a trade job is the best way to go about living a successful, traditional life. I'm interested in Welding, however the pay is not good enough to sustain a 2+ kid marriage, like I want to do someday. So what do? Get a trade job and work overtime, or go to college and get a desk job, but it pays more?

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MIG welding is shit tier pay because its the welding equivalent of running a hot glue gun. If you want to make big money you need to learn TIG and stick. MIG is used almost entirely indoors and can be done by a brainless highschool dropout with a little training.

Is the pay difference significant?

This

Also, you can get certificates for specialized weldings, like boilers and other high-pressure vessels, and you will be earning a very respectable salary

Okay, thanks a lot user.

Depends on your trade certs.

Aluminum welding is decent, underwater welding is very high pay but your body will wear down pretty quickly.

this.
I know some welders who work in shitty conditions doing work that plain sucks. they make 6 figures.
and they tell me stories of the sick cunts who do underwater welding. not to mention deep sea welding. that takes balls of steel to do, and the pay is relative to the size of their balls.


another good trade is HVAC. All the boomer cunts in the industry now are fucking off and leaving. Next to no one to fill the void since ain't no kids in high school right now dreaming of being an AC/furnace monkey. Everyone has furnaces and ACs, every new building needs ventilation installed, there's tons of stuff to do in the field. Plus, all you need to start your own HVAC business is a truck, the experience to know what you are doing, and customers who know your name. Work for some other cunt, build up your name as a man who does a good job, and then get your own truck and call up all your past clients telling them that if they want your quality work again, they'll have to call your company for now on.

I've heard that underwater welding is dangerous from a lot of people, but how does it fuck up your body so bad?

If you even have to ask this, you're probably not cut out for it. Seriously, those guys are insane

Dont u have to breathe liquid oxygen? I imagine that takes a toll

However I know an underwater welder that only works 3 months out of the year and he is very comfortable. Don't know what his take home is

>go on welfare
>get money
>have children
>get even more money
Man, that was hard.

Yeah I wasnt really planning on doing it, I have actually seen some videos about why its so dangerous, I just forgot about it. It is pretty damn insane.

>not adopting even more kids for double welfares

Pressure, weight, and I assume the liquid oxygen. I just know the guys who do it all the time have a lot of joint pains. But the pay is there so theres that.

>adopting
Sorry, but I'm not going to spend my countrymen's tax money on kids that aren't mine.

Many different ways of welding. Also, different welding environments. If you get a scuba diving certification, you can become a underwater welder.

Yes, ridiculously so. Welding among other trades is dependent purely on your drive. You can be a shovel head who won't understand it and do it for fourty years, or you will try to train and challenge yourself and then demand higher pay. Artisan welders are paid their worth in gold and are practically unfirable.

What this user said is partially true you can just hot glue plates together, or you can weld gigantic warm collectors, submarine casings, smelter pots, do upward welds, welds above head, tested by rentgen or ultrasonic test. Even MIG can be art.

But of course TIG is the master discipline. my teacher used to say that a welder should start with TIG, because if he starts with MIG he will never be able to master TIG, and I tend to agree.
TIG is also very demanding - you can't drink, or be overtly tired, because your hands will shake and you will fuck everything up. Often times you have just one attempt and you need to be alert.

All in all, with welding, you will be paid what you are worth. it can be comfy almost office job with leather chair, or it can be living hell where you will weld in places so narrow that when you catch fire, you won't even be able to wiggle to put it out.

It is also a lifetime experience - where else will you find out a peculiarity of welding an oil pipe in desert - no one in school will tell you what is the catch with it.

Also when they arent welding underwater, they get hired on to scrape ships clean of algae and barnicles under water.

i've heard underwater welding pays well but it can be dangerous, another option, but im unsure if it can pay for a family, is line repair.
If i'm remembering right it takes 2-3 months job training and starting salary can be 70-80 thousand a year.

Thanks for the input, I'll keep it all in mind. What's the huge difference between TIG and MIG, though?

What is google?
Seriously, you're going to have to move where the work is. Welding starts at 25/hr here because oilfield work. If you can't survive on that, wage isn't your issue.

What user said. Also since it is in liquid environment, there is much higher chance of the welded parts slipping or moving in unexpected ways and it can cause serious injury. Since the welding is based on a firm stance, imagine doing it strapped on helium filled balloons.

If you have any propensity for problem solving I urge you to get in to refrigeration. I completed a one year HVAC/R course and had seven job offers after graduation. I went with a commercial refrigeration and restaurant equipment repair company and started at $20 an hour. The journeymen at my shop are all in the $30-35 an hour range. The work is difficult and frustrating at times and you'll work sixty hours a week when it is your turn to be on call but companies will bend over backwards for you because there are so few technicians out there. Any of the trades are good bet for an upper-middle class lifestyle, but you need to go where the demand is.Hope this gives you some help / ideas.

Difference between TIG and MIG
MIG - imagine holding a gun and follow straight line with the muzzle
TIG - do circles with one hand and do up and down movements with the other hand - if you can't do it, don't do TIG. It has ridiculous eye-to-double hand coordination

You also mentioned college and office job - right now I am paid more than average parliament member, just with the MIG welding and carefully chosen job.
Once I chose badly and it ruined me. I shit you not, the place was so bad that I have flashbacks, with sweating and stomach aches.
My foreman ended up in mental asylum and his health will get worse if he so much as get close to that factory.

you must be getting shited welding is a lucrative job.

Refrigerating - like fixing fridges or setting them up?

>Actual welder here to answer any questions.
idk how you got the the idea that welders get paid badly. most entry level workers i know make between 30 and 40. i would say most make between 50 and 60. but i also know some who make 100+

you dont get certificates for being a boiler maker, you just have to pass a weld test for it.

My cousin trained in welding and he never really got anywhere with it. Not sure why exactly. He retrained to work doing something in offshore wind and does pretty well for himself now.

I'm a pipe welder and know a couple guys who went underwater.

To do underwater you need to start just learning stick welding. Get all your certs and get good. Once you're ticketed and have been working a bit go and get your master diver certifications and then you can apply for underwater jobs where they'll take the training a bit further and put u to work.

You're looking at like $75 an hour and up for there... and that's low calling it, I know guys making $120 an hour doing it.

Now the downside.

Underwater welding is absolutely hell on your body and if you make a career out of it you'll die on average 10 years earlier than normal. The pressure changes are basically what do it. You'll be brought to extreme depths in a decompression chambered elevator of sorts, you have to sit inside it for however long it takes for you to adjust to avoid getting the bends. Even the most guys will experience the bends at least once in their careers.

Do more research on it before pursuing it. If you want to go for it you'll certainly be compensated handsomely but you can also make a substantial living stick welding on land as well without worrying about significantly shortening your life span or having an accident underwater and dying.

Weeeell, it depends. I once saw posting for job - looking for TIG welder, stainless steel, aluminium, high pressure pipes, three shifts, 100% roentgen testing, ISO and German specific certificates + electrode welding - 320 Euros per month.
When I read it, I started to tear up, that there are people so brazen to suggest something like this

welding jobs highly depends on location. I live in SETX by the oil fields so work is always great near me.

Commercial, as in walk in freezers/cooler for mass food storage at grocery stores, the display freezer / coolers at grocery stores, and the reach in freezers / coolers at restaurants among other things. You'd be troubleshooting and repairing them when they go down (which happens frequently which means job security). Domestic refrigerators and appliance repair techs do well too.

Jesus, use some fucking additional knuckle shielding. I know a guy who cannot close his hands because the heat to knuckles have fucked up his tendrils. He looks like he has deep cuts in his palms.

robotics

I’m going through a 6 month massage therapy school, my friend did it and she works at a chiropractic office making 30 an hour.

Let me guess - you are paid per repair + hours + miles driven. Sounds like sweet specialty job.

Those are the ones to follow user - niche specialties.

Can you also mention the cost, since I suppose the underwater training is something you have to pay yourself.

BTW OP, if your company isn't the one paying the cost of certificate renewal, prepare to dish out some ridiculous cash every few years.

Protip: That meme doesn't work in the current environment. You can't run before you can crawl.

yah this is true, i mostly use my tillman gloves for oxyfuel cutting but yah my hands look about 20 years older than me.

most underwater welders are former military (Navy) and get into the career through that. but unless you have a big company willing to train you, it is very hard to get into the profession.

buddy, I live in the south near the beach and no one is hiring for HVAC. no one.

Ouch, protect your hands man, it is your livelihood.
That guy I know - 40 years old - can only get fingers into a kind of loose claw position, so he holds the pistol as if he was a clothing shop mannequin.

>no one is hiring for HVAC. no one.

Of course, since that is a job that needs you to start your own company. No one is going to hire you for that.

Eyy, son of a welder here, apperently some welding jobs can sustain a 3 kid and 3 dog family so

How does one start this sort of career? I have the drive but I just don't know where to start. I should've taken welding class in high school.

Trade school/welding school, probably.
What state do you live in, bud?

Maine.

Quick google search led me to this: www . newenglandschoolofmetalwork.com/welding/
check that out, see if it helps.

D E L T A P

>D E L T A P
Right away sir

youtube.com/watch?v=AEtbFm_CjE0

Not really welding but giving a shoutout to pipefitting. There aren't many young pipefitters today and even less that plan on becoming journeymen. My father is a pipefitter and 80% of his coworkers will be retiring within the next 15 years.

When my father had to be let go after an accident on one site due to insurance reasons (The company would have had to pay a lot more if they kept him on the payroll) 2 other companies he applied for got into a bidding war over him eventually netting him twice the original salary he was offered. A good pipefitter is worth a lot.


Plus if you're good enough at your job your parent company will look the other way when you use company tools on side jobs.

I'll tell you right away. No. Liquid o2 does exist and you CAN breathe it but you would suffocate after ~15 minutes of doing so. Liquid o2 is a thick viscous liquid like oil and it's too exhausting for your lungs to pump it in and out for long. After a while they get too tired and you suffocate.

damn physics, you scary

nice digits

Are you that faggot that started the union thread?

Nope. I don't know that much about unions actually. Like I said my dad's the pipe fitter. Not me.

I actually think I'm in a union since I work at UPS but it's not like they've done anything good for us. We get one 15 minute break for a shift lasting up to 8 hours.

Must be different in the US. You don't have to be former military in leafland. Just be a ticketed journeyman stick welder with master diver certs and good recommendations and apply. The guys i know doing it used to work out in the oilpatch with me.

witnessed

I honestly don't know the costs to get master diving certs. It probably varies alot from place to place. Just do research on places closest to you and find most reputable diving school with reasonable prices.

As for the cost of becoming a stick welder, that varies too. I did a 9 month welding certificate course at a local community college, it was under $3500. At the end of the year we did the CWB (Canadian welding bureau) SMAW (shielded metal arc welding) test in all 4 positions and if passed got ticketed. Then it was just a matter of applying for jobs and apprenticeships and getting hired.

It's all about the drive you have. If you want to go far with it and make money you gotta fucking work and want to work.

You get out of it what you put in.

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