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Permalink Reply by JMayo on August 24, 2011 at 6:24am

If we don't get a storm by 2013 then stay with welding. Go up to Canada and work up in the oil sands fields. Learn to weld pipe 6g and you can easily find a job anywhere. Alot more jobs for welders then Divers right now. If the industry does pick up go to school in Morgan city for alot cheaper or go to PDC in South Africa for half the price of the big named schools over here.

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Permalink Reply by Fred C. Johnson on August 24, 2011 at 7:57am

Santa Barbara City College is the best in the USA, great reputation and graduates have best chance for employment. Stick it out and get your AA degree.

6G AWS pipe certs is the ticket to have. also learn tig.

Welding will keep you working in lean times.

Diving companies I owned all hands that had welding certs. were given priority on employment.

All divers that worked for me had to be welders. Things break or you need to fab up something for the job and a welder will save the contractor thousands in down time.

Look at the big picture, education first then put on your work gloves.

Do not sign up with for profit puppy mills and put your self in the h*** owing a lot of money.

Diving is the transportation to the job site its what you do when you get there is what the contractor pays for , skills, skills, skills.

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Permalink Reply by Will on August 24, 2011 at 7:33pm

Ok here is my 2 cents I gotta jump in.

 

First off, learning to weld 6g pipe and coming up to Canada isnt gonna fly, it dosnt work like that.

We have incredible high standards up here on the patch for welding pipe, basically you need to be a journeyman welder and then have the 6g ticket on top of it, Alberta and Sask wont accept just any 6g welding cert. If we get our welding cert in another province they are gonna want you to have whats called a interprovincial red seal journeyman ticket as well as the pressure cert. Its about a 4-5 year process.

Not too mention all the other safety tickets you are gonna need and usually pipe welders up here have thier own rig (a 1 ton truck generally, with a welder and cutting set up plus all the hand tools and stuff you need to weld) thats around a 100,000 dollar investment for the average guy. And even if you get all that then your welds are going to be constantly picked apart and xrayed. You dont just get a job and go, you get offered a job then do a weld test and if you pass then you could screw up 2 welds a day later and be run off site. Hack welders just dont cut it. Its stressful but yes Jay is right there is some serious money in it if your good and have contacts.

 

I suggest you go to weld school and then spend a couple years 1 or 2 out in the industry, becuase being able to run a nice bead is not going to make you a great welder or a great diver. Welding is the smallest part of the job, for every weld I usually do there is about 30 minutes of work prepping the peice cutting it getting the fit right, grinding and buffing or painting post weld. So you have to be a good fitter and fabricator as well.

Get into welding then work in a shop for a bit learn the fabrication side of things and then work in the field in industry, Mills Mines plants Oil Feilds whatever, and learn to work around equpiment run come alongs, chain falls, turfers, bottlejacks, screw dogs and all the other little tools and tricks of the welding trade,

THAT and that alone is what will also make you a good diver. As Fred said diving is just transport to the job site its the skills you have once you get there thats gonna make or break a career.

 

And last but not least, never ever stop learning

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Permalink Reply by brandon brooks on August 25, 2011 at 11:14am

Stay a welder, get cert'd on pressure vessels and boilers much more job opportunities for pipe and pressure welders than divers

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