Does anyone know of any welding teachers in Burlington or Halton area?

[J.mac]

I recently bought a welding setup to start learning basic welding in my "spare" time, and I'd really like to find someone local who can teach me the basics. I know I can just use Youtube and learn myself by building projects, but I'd like to excellerate the learning process (if possible) by having someone walk me through the basics. Hopefully, that way I can try and avoid common mistakes, as well as avoiding bad habits. I'd like to build a new lathe stand very soon and would rather not spend months fumbling my way through that project.

I'm more than happy to pay them for the lessons, I just don't want to have to take a full course at a community college as I have no intentions of making it into a career. And my searches for workshops hasn't really turned up any results.

Thanks,

Jason

 

[MashingMetal]

What kind of welder did you buy? What do you want to learn, Tig, Mig, Stick?

 

[J.mac]

I purchased the MIG-205 from Yeswelder, a multi-process welder capable of performing Stick, MIG, and Lift TIG welding. I did a fair amount of research on decent, inexpensive welders, and this one got good reviews. I'm not quite ready to commit to $2000+ welder for something I'm only likely to use here and there.

Initially, I was going to focus on learning MIG with flux-core as it didn't require investing in gas right away. Eventually, I would like to learn TIG, but I haven't purchased the TIG torch yet; it only came with the MIG and Stick ones.

The first real project I'd like to do is a lathe stand using 2"x2" steel tubes.

 

[MashingMetal]

@J.mac
That’s not too bad to learn on, you have some control there. Buy a good flexcore wire like Lincoln. Do you have a good helmet? You can see better to learn. I was showing a friend how weld Mig, it wasn’t too hard to get him going. Thicker metal is easier too, can grind out your weld and redo.

 

[J.mac]

@J.mac
That’s not too bad to learn on, you have some control there. Buy a good flexcore wire like Lincoln. Do you have a good helmet? You can see better to learn. I was showing a friend how weld Mig, it wasn’t too hard to get him going. Thicker metal is easier too, can grind out your weld and redo.

Yup, I have everything I need like helmt, gloves, apron, wire, etc. I'm currently lacking a table, but I'm not sure how much I want to invest in one until I get a sense of how often I'll use it, as I have limited space in my one-car garage shop.

 

[David]

I have and ESAB Savage A40 helmet and really like it. Autodark and the clarity and colour rendition is excellent. I had the previous version which was not even close on clarity or colour.
I also stuck a LED headlamp on the chin of the helmet which helps tremendously because it lights the area I'm welding. Highly recommended.

 

[MashingMetal]

@J.mac
I have never bothered with a welding table. I just weld on cheap particle board, and let it burn with wet rags handy to put out the flames. More essential is welding blankets to cover anything important and a fire extinguisher.
Let me know if you need help.

 

[J.mac]

@J.mac
I have never bothered with a welding table. I just weld on cheap particle board, and let it burn with wet rags handy to put out the flames. More essential is welding blankets to cover anything important and a fire extinguisher.
Let me know if you need help.

Good point on the fire extinguisher. That one slipped my mind.

 

[PeterT]

We have discussed this before. Its really sad that evening courses at our technical colleges (at least SAIT in Calgary) has gotten so expensive. Unfortunately they seem to be dropping trade related courses at an alarming rate. Not sure what the issue is, but it certainly is not benefitting the community or people who want to make things in general. I took MIG & TIG separately several years ago & thought they were quite beneficial for intro level. Its the same equipment used for(guessing year-1) apprenticeship training. Just enough theory to get you going on the process & working safely. Lots of coupons which is kind of boring but also probably important - different alloys, orientations, and a small project at the end.

I don't know what the answer is but I think you are on the right track. If you can find someone willing & knowledgeable to get you going, look over your shoulder on specific type of welding projects you will be tackling, even paying someone would be good investment. There is a lot of good YouTube content but that is different than physical feel & setup etc. If there are no forum folks available, maybe an option is approach a local welding shop that does your target work. Put a feeler out that you were looking N sessions or a budget of $400 or whatever. Maybe some guy wants to make some side money in a field he knows well, especially if it was at your shop, your materials, power, gas etc. All he has to do is show up. I can see this being good or bad depending on the individual, but at least you are in the drivers seat just getting a feel for the person beforehand.

Getting back to the SAIT TIG course I took, one thing that stuck out, maybe it was the instructors own bright idea vs. curriculum, not sure. On a certain class dates you could bring in your machine & get instructors input. There were some fluxcore & real low end spark-o-matics & I think an Everlast? 150A.. That was very revealing to many of us who were using the course as a primer towards eventually buying a machine. Some were no different than the 5K Miller's we used & some were <cough> less than that. I mean there is learning curve & settings & all that so not a definitive answer, but I had a clearer picture of what I would probably want to get one day.

 

[Aarknoid]

I just picked up a Firstess DP200 Multi-Process MIG Welder from yeswelder myself, I'm in no position to teach anything but just chiming in in solidarity

 

[MashingMetal]

I just picked up a Firstess DP200 Multi-Process MIG Welder from yeswelder myself, I'm in no position to teach anything but just chiming in in solidarity

Let me know if you get stuck, I am happy to show you what I know. I took one welding course 25 years ago at Sheridan and just practiced after that.

 

[phaxtris]

I say this as a professional welder for 20 years, you can learn a lot from youtube, there are quite a few good channels regarding learning to weld, Mig/gasless flux core is also relatively easy

most of your time in a course is going to be practicing, an instructor will show you a demo once or twice, send you to a booth, give you some critique after some welding, then back to practice

If you can find someone local to give you some pointers in person that would likely be money well spent (and cheaper than a course), but it does come down to practice, find somewhere that has reasonable steel prices, buy a length or two of 1x1/8 flat bar and start making coupons, 5-6" long, T's, butt joints, lap joints, corner joints, you can get a lot of practice out of a length or two of 1" FB.

A horrible price for 1x1/8fb would be 1$ a foot (for a 20ft length), so your talking like 40$ worth in material + however much wire you burn through. By the time your done with that flat bar you will be good or better than 90% of garage welders

 

[Stuart Samuel]

I purchased the MIG-205 from Yeswelder, a multi-process welder capable of performing Stick, MIG, and Lift TIG welding. I did a fair amount of research on decent, inexpensive welders, and this one got good reviews. I'm not quite ready to commit to $2000+ welder for something I'm only likely to use here and there.

Initially, I was going to focus on learning MIG with flux-core as it didn't require investing in gas right away. Eventually, I would like to learn TIG, but I haven't purchased the TIG torch yet; it only came with the MIG and Stick ones.

The first real project I'd like to do is a lathe stand using 2"x2" steel tubes.

Hey J.mac, I'm pretty (really really) rusty with MIG, I haven't run a bead in close to 15 years, but I'm decent with TIG, AC or DC, and had all-position Stick tickets around the same time as my last MIG weld. I'm near the bottom of the 427, give me a shout if you want to trouble shoot something, or I can bring some scrap from work by, and trade welds back and forth.

 

[Susquatch]

The first real project I'd like to do is a lathe stand using 2"x2" steel tubes.

I can easily imagine how excited you might be to build a nice tubular frame stand for your lathe. But I'd like to discourage you from doing that......

There is WAAAY more to a good lathe stand than strength and space utilization. It's relatively easy to design and make a stand that is strong enough. But rigidity (resistance to vibrations and vibration absorption) is perhaps even more important than strength. It is much harder to design for.

Cast iron, sand, concrete, epoxy granite, etc combined with frequency tuning are very effective. Unfortunately, tubing might be one of the worst materials to use. On the other hand bigger tubing filled with epoxy granite might perform quite well.

Another requirement for a lathe stand that is different than for a mill is alignment. Many lathes use stand adjustments to facilitate alignment.

Most factory lathes come with cast-iron stands for a good reason.

Anyway, high rigidity is a bit of a black art. Just better to know about it BEFORE you start designing your own stand. Similarly, it would be good to understand how your lathe is designed to be aligned so you can include that in your design too.

If the factory stand is still available it's always worthy of strong consideration.

 

[Martin w]

If you don’t mind driving to Niagara. I can help you with mig and stick here.
Martin

 

[Dan Dubeau]

Too bad I'm at the opposite end (@ the east end) of the 407 or I'd lend a hand. If you ever wanted to make a drive out this way for an afternoon or so I could get you pointed in the right direction on my equipment.

 

[PeterT]

Most factory lathes come with cast-iron stands for a good reason

It was the norm back in the day as you say for good reason, but I think CI is quite UN-common on any typical hobby Asian machine up through 14x40's these days. The good ones are thicker gauge steel & actually not that bad. The bad ones are thin gauge tuna can alloy, tack welded, riveted, you name it. Basically holding the drawers together. A 2x2 frame would be a vast improvement. That's what I have under my 14x40 & I don't think its particularly lacking. I mean epoxy/aggregate might help but personally I think there are lots of other shortcomings in a typical Asian hobby lathe that have as much or more impact to finish & tolerance holding. Just my opinion.

CI is only available on one model, special order

Lathes

High quality machines by real life machinists. Lathes · Milling Machines · Saws · Accessories

www.precisionmatthews.com

 

[Susquatch]

It was the norm back in the day as you say for good reason, but I think CI is quite UN-common on any typical hobby Asian machine up through 14x40's these days. The good ones are thicker gauge steel & actually not that bad. The bad ones are thin gauge tuna can alloy, tack welded, riveted, you name it. Basically holding the drawers together. A 2x2 frame would be a vast improvement. That's what I have under my 14x40 & I don't think its particularly lacking.

I think you are right about that Peter. It's a bit sad, but probably also makes them affordable.

The better ones today seem to use fairly thick plate steel which would probably work well for both rigidity and alignment - albeit not as well as cast or epoxy granite filled.

I think my main point was that a tubular stand would not be conducive to great results. Ya, someone with extensive vibration control experience and knowledge could do it, but the average guy is going to be disappointed.

Casting my own is not practical for me. I'm not much of a welder either but I could prolly fabricoble two side cabinets using thicker wall square tubing or Angle Iron with solid plate steel plate back, top, sides and bottom. One can readily get 1/8 plate minimum and thicker would be better. Maybe I'd put 1/2" plate on the top. If it were mine, I'd also apply a coat of Epoxy Granite to the inside of the plates and maybe fill the square tubing too.

I noticed on a few of the Grizzly cabinets I looked at that they had added some sort of weldment to the top of the cabinets to match the bottom of the lathe bed. I suspect it is to assist in alignment.

 

[PeterT]

That brings up another point. Most lathes have some variation of mounting lugs integrated into the CI bed casting like your picture or highlight on my pic. The mounting bolts go through the lugs to secure it to the frame, whatever that frame is. The frame cross members are typically always longer than the casting footprint, providing more frame depth, matching the the chip pan or whatever. There is some design leeway there. But ultimately, once bolted down, you need some means to do leveling & twist correction. Both initially & over time if conditions ever change. You can shim under the base, but maybe the easiest way is incorporate adjustable feet. The feet usually incorporate screw jacks & vibration dampening all in one part. I'm saying you want the stand rigid enough to properly secure the machine in running conditions, but it actually must have some minor degree of flexibility to tweak the legs independent of one another. If the base was a theoretically 100% rigid or 99.99% like a solid block of granite if you could afford it, all you could do is adjust level, not twist. I'm not sure how rigid epoxy/aggregate is, I'm betting it has sufficient flexibility for the typical adjustments required. Or worse yet, it just cracks somewhere or de-bonds locally from the steel surface which negates any benefit it was providing. As we have discussed before, if the fill is for vibration dampening, that's a different property than rigidity & strength.

 

[Mcgyver]

Even a very poor weld can be incredibly strong ..... as I have proven over and over and will likely continue to validate that theory. Just start welding. I'll load your trunk up with new (unrusted) carbon steel scrap to practice on if you like, then have at it. Read a page or two on it or watch a basic MIG video, then start welding. Then start asking questions about the results you're getting. There are many ways to approach learning something, and my first stop is usually to acquire a book on the topic and read ..... but for welding, read a couple of pages on the basics and dig in is my recommendation.

not sure how rigid epoxy/aggregate is, I'm betting it has sufficient flexibility for the typical adjustments required. Or worse yet, it just cracks somewhere or de-bonds locally from the steel surface which negates any benefit it was providing. As we have discussed before, if the fill is for vibration dampening, that's a different property than rigidity & strength.

Vibration damping is irrc is a property of how fast a wave decays. As I recall EG has about twice the damping properties of CI, which is twice that of steel. A normalized steel exoskelton filled with EG always struck me as the ultmate machine tool frame. Young modulus of EG 1/4 - 1/2 that of cast iron (more or less, memories from a long time ago), so its less rigid but it contributes a lot as you usually end up producing fairly large section compared to that of a steel or CI structure.