Interesting Facts About Welding
1. You don’t need a degree to be a welder
Many people think that to earn good money, they need to go to college and get a degree. The reality is that there are a number of real-life positions in the world where you can make decent money and not get a four-year degree.
Take welding for example.
If you were to become a certified welder you could get a certificate in about 9 months and be well on your way to making enough money to sustain yourself. And get this, as you get better as a welder you can charge more.
2. There are a vast number of career paths that welders can choose from
Not only do you not need a college degree to become a welder but you also don’t need to worry about a lack of opportunity in a variety of industries, because there is always opportunity. Welding is one of those career paths that opens people up to a wide variety of possible industries to work in – all you would have to do is pick one and focus on it. Because of the scarcity of welders in the US right now welders are finding themselves working in a wide variety of industries such as:
- Sales
- Project Management
- Education
- Engineering
- Inspection
- Robotic
3. You can be a traveling welder
Another great thing about being a welder is that you don’t have to restrict yourself to one locale either. You can work in places ranging from the ocean all the way to space – how amazing does that sound?
Now, there are a plethora of traveling welder positions, all you would have to do is a bit of searching for them (and with sites like Indeed and Ziprecruiter it’s pretty easy to find them).
Here are a few of the jobs where you could work as a traveling welder and make a decent amount of money:
Underwater Welding
You may not have known this but you can literally work in the bottom of the ocean. As an underwater welder you would have to be a bit more specialized than other welders but you open yourself up to more opportunity than them as well. You would also have the opportunity to travel to places that many people simply haven’t had the opportunity to visit. Due to the fact that it’s such a specialized skill, companies are always looking for underwater welders.
Ship Repair
Here’s a fun fact, many ships have communities that they build for welders to live so that they can keep them on hand. If this doesn’t demonstrate the need that they have for welders then I really don’t know what does. Now, considering the wide variety of ships that need repair you’ll likely spend quite a bit of time traveling on these ships.
Military Support
Our troops constantly require a welder or welders on hand to repair their equipment. In order to secure a position as a military welder the most helpful mode of entry would be to work for a contracting company. These companies send their welders out and require people who specialize in welding infrastructure and military equipment If you have this type of experience it wouldn’t hurt to consider this type of position.
Installing Pipelines
Pipe welding isn’t the easiest welding job in the world. It’s also one of the welding jobs that appear to remain evergreen. As a pipeline welder you’ll have to travel to incredibly remote areas in order to go to your work. Typically the company you work for will pay for all of your expenses and, considering that you’ll be going to some pretty nice places it doesn’t hurt to consider this as a job.
Motorsports
Since most cars have metal exteriors it makes sense for racecar drivers to require a welder right there on the track with them. As a welder for motorsports, you’ll also have to travel from place to place – the good thing is that you’ll be able to travel with a race car team.
4. You will always be in demand as a welder
Since so many people have decided that the college route is the best way to make money in this economy the welding industry has been barren for quite a while. If the above positions and the accommodations that companies make for them doesn’t signal to you that there’s a demand for welders then I don’t know what will. Keep in mind, no position is perfect. There will always be ups and downs. The good thing is that the opportunities that come with welding far outweigh it’s downs.
To give you an even better idea of the demand for welders, by 2026 there is a projected demand for 372,664 welders in the U.S.
5. Your salary can be as high as a doctor or a lawyer.
Fact of the matter is that, as a welder you can make quite a bit of money. There are endless opportunities and with skill comes income. Unlike other vocations, welding is a trade where one can make as much as either a doctor or a lawyer – this means that income can sometimes be as high as 6 figures. Considering that income such as this is possible without getting a degree that’s pretty darn impressive.
- Underwater welders can make as much as 200000 a year.
- Pipe welders can make up to 185000 a year
- Military welders can make as much as 200000 depending on where they are stationed at.
Salaries tend to vary quite a bit – it varies with the areas that the welder is willing to travel to.
6. Welding is slowly becoming one of the best green collar industries
When we say green collar jobs, we mean those jobs that draw the energy industry towards them. Many of us already know this but, there is a growing need for alternative energy sources in the world – the only issue is figuring out which energy source will actually win. Despite what energy source is chosen to fuel the majority of things welders will still be needed to put together the things that will contain and distribute that energy. As long as there’s metal involved welders will be needed.
7. Not all welding requires heat
Despite popular belief, not all welding requires heat. There is a method of welding that’s done in space called “Cold Welding”. This welding process requires 2 pieces of metal to touch without having any coating on them. Cold welding happens when 2 similar materials join without heating or fusing happening on the surface of the object being fused.
8. There’s need for welders in manufacturing
A large number of welding jobs can be found in manufacturing. According to statistics gathered by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the manufacturing industry employs about 300,000 people in the U.S. The most common businesses who hire in the manufacturing industry are those who ork mining and agricultural manufacturing, structural metals manufacturing, and architectural and structural metals manufacturing.
9. In 1961 GM created the Unimate, a robotic arm used for spot-welding.
Unimate was the first industrial robot built, ever. It was equipped with hydraulic actuators and memory so it could perform the hudreds of pre-programmed steps (with position repeatability being at around 1 mm, I might add). Not to mention that this robotic arm, the Unimate, was designed to spot weld.
*not to mention that it took about 2 years to finish the prototype of this arm.
The Unimate
10. The S.S. Robert E. Perry only took 4 days, 15 hrs, and 27 minutes to build
The fastest a ship has ever been built is 4 days, 15 hrs, and 29 minutes. The ship was buit during WWII and was so done in hyperdrive. It took the shortest time to build than any vessel in the worls at that time (11/12/1942). The funny thing about the S.S. Perry was that it was built so fast only because of a competition that took place between another shipyard.
11. Welders have a median age of late to mid fifties.
This means that pretty soon they’ll have to be replaced. Possibly by you. In fact, according to an internation news organization named Reuters, the median age is actually 55. (this data was also ased on us having 450,000 welders in the U.S. In fact, it’s expected for the welding industry to continue growing by 3 percent from 2018 to ’28.
12. We can use both wet and dry welding methods underwater.
So, yeah you can weld underwater (which is kind of a given). You can also weld underwater using a dry method (otherwise called hyperbaric welding).
Hyperbaric welding is a welding process whereby a person seals a chamber around a structure, fills it with gas, and essentially welds.
The benefits of using hyperbaric welding are that:
- It increase the safety of the welder
- Produces quality welds (higher than other welding methods)
- Etc.
Video of an individual using hyperbaric welding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEGL_589rQU
13. 70 percent of man-made products are made using welding.
A high percentage of manufactured products are made using welding/the skills of welders. This data shows how important welding is to the country’s health economically and that welding is essential to keeping the USA strong internationally and domestically.
14. Explosion welding can almost weld any material together (or should we say dissimilar/incompatible materials together)
Explosion welding accomplishes welding by speeding up one of the materials being welded using chemical explosives. It doesn’t melt the metals being welded but it does plasticize their surfaces so they can blend enough to form a weld. It’s great for bonding large surface areas quickly and creates a relatively clean weld.
*Fun fact: Explosion welding is a fairly new discovery.
The downside to this is that you need some experience with explosives to be decent at this.
15. Welding’s history dates back thousands of years
Welding is a form of technology that dates back at least 10,000 years. Some even claim that before fire was invented, earlier man used hot rocks to develop weapons and tools by melting them together – this is hard to prove though.
During the Bronze Age, people have been said to use tin and copper to develop weapons and tools using smelting. To do this they heated rocks up until they were molten, added some molten ore, and continued to heat it up until it melded with the rock.
During the Iron Age, it’s been said that people who lived near what is now Turkey had a method to make steel and iron by adding charcoal to heated rocks. They would then take what is now a molten mixture and pour it into a mold to make whatever they needed.
16. Back in 1969, welding was first performed in outer space
During the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1969, the first welding test project was performed in space. Special equipment was used to build a helical antenna that made completely of metal while the person who made it, Alexei A. Leonov, was on the Soyuz spacecraft, which was necessary for testing if Russian and U.S. technologies were compatible.
17. The creation of welding helped us invent electricity
Welding wasn’t only used to help us make things; it was also used to find a fundamental piece of nature that’s used every single day. Before the discovery of welding, people didn’t know how to make electricity using electric current and magnetism. Once welding became popular, scientists studied it and found a secret that could be used to harness electricity.
18. To become useful, welding needed electricity
Welding wouldn’t be used to help people develop industries until electricity was invented which happened between 1831 and 1879. Once electricity was discovered, it had to be used to make other devices like motors and generators before welding had any useful applications.
This essentially means that without having invented electricity, there isn’t much that could’ve been achieved with welding. With this in mind, electricity wouldn’t have been found without having already had basic welding processes that were already there.
In the year 1885, the scientist William W. Jacques made a procedure for welding named resistance welding, which harnessed electricity as its main source of heat.
19. Welding was used by humans to make the wheel
Welding was a crucial skill in the making of the wheel. Before human beings knew how to meld metals and make wheels for machines or transportation, we didn’t have a way to use metal for anything. If welding hadn’t been invented, humans may still be using carriages and carts to this day.
20. Bronze probably isn’t the first metal humans have ever worked with
Bronze is known as the first metal that was widely used in history and it’s considered to have been discovered nearly 5,000 years ago. Before that, tools were typically made using wood or stone. Having said that, research shows that the Neanderthals who lived in what is now known as France could’ve used metals to make their weapons and tools. It has been stated that there were meteorites that landed in that area during the Stone Age, and some of these meteorites held raw materials.
As you can see welding has a long history and a ton of applications. To view more on welding go to our other articles here.
