Im an AWS CWI and welding instructor at a large(Possibly the largest) welding school, AMA

I would say I'm rarely ever matched when it comes to MIG/GMAW, that is far and away my specialty, followed by thin GTAW sheetmetal/thin plate/tubing. I'm a good but not great stick and fluxcore welder, being better on plate than pipe with both of those processes but I can generally weld out a decent 2g/5g/6g 6010/7018 pipe but sometimes make mistakes. So id say in my areas of expertise im a great welder and better than most but im pretty middle of the pack among professional welders when it comes to stick/fluxcore pipe and plate and stuff like small diameter thick wall boiler tubes. Every instructor at our school is an absolutely incredible welder from the top to the bottom without exception so I may be a bit hard on myself with the stick/fluxcore. All my welding ability came from working at several shops in a row that had VERY LITTLE work and CNC/lathe departments that SUCKED and had tons of scrap machined parts laying around they had made out of tolerance. There were many weeks at one shop that I was just practicing all day every day. Being a CWI didnt make me any better at welding, but it did help me pin down the reasons for why things were the way they were. Living in a country/redneck area no one ever knew the exact reason WHY anything happened with regards to welding. For instance they just KNEW that if you quenched your pipe in water while welding it that it would fail a bend test. They didnt know the science behind it, with grain structures and martensite formation during rapid cooling etc, so it definitely helped me to answer the "why" in a ton of situations that I couldn't prior to doing my CWI studies and testing.

/r/Welding Thread Parent