So today I had my first welding experience.. It's fun, but by no means am I good at it. I got it to hold but that's about it.

I'm going to get some self tapping screws tomorrow to screw through the bottom just to give it a little extra support. I'll have to grind the welds of course, and once I get the trim off, I'll use Herculiner around the bottom. Here's what I started with today and what I left with.

 

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that doesn't look bad for the first time. salt sucks

 

Looks better than the first time I did a weld ... and im certified lol

 

I enjoyed it. I got to try it out for the first time with a couple of buddies, and it felt good doing the work on my truck myself instead of taking it somewhere.

In the past I had thought about going to school for welding, who knows, maybe this will kick start a career for me, but I have a lot of practice before that'll happen lol.

 

Well speaking as someone who DID take those classes...if your still in high school, see if your high school offers classes. My school district (back when I was still in school years ago) had a program that teaches and certifies in wielding. It should be free or a small fee, which is MUCH cheaper than taking the actual classes later in life.

Wielding can be a very profitable career if you play your cards right, especially a special field called "Underwater Wielding". Buddy of mine has a brother that does that and easily clears 10k a month minimum wielding underwater pipe.

Personally, I never got into a wielding career because I have seen what the long term effects of long term exposure to chemicals can do to a human being. These old wielders looked in worse shape than the holocaust survivors I have met with in person...that really speaks volumes when you look much worse than the guy who was tortured for 3 years by ****'s.

 

Your first free lesson, - 'Welding' , - not "Wielding" lol.

 

Props on doing it yourself. Some advice though. That weld has a ton of contamination and will rust pretty quickly. Instead of doing a continuous bead, do spot welds every inch or so. And always weld on clean metal, never over paint. But yeah, not bad for your first time :thumbsup.

 

We used a grinder on the paint behind the weld to get some clean metal. I used a probe kit (I think that's what it's called), poked around the truck and cut out all the rust that could be covered by the panels.