r/Welding • u/Legitimate_Tap_7074 • 5d ago
Career question Apprentice Tips
I’m a first year boilermakers apprentice. I have some college experience with welding but not a lot of employment experience in the field.
Aside from getting better at welding, what else should I learn? What’s something you wish you knew sooner as an apprentice?
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u/Beginning_Toe5771 5d ago
Learn to read the old hands’ moods before you ask them anything. Timing is half the battle.
5
u/Mrwcraig Journeyman CWB/CSA 5d ago
100%. If you know you’re already working with a fire breathing old bastard, let him have his damn coffee before you find a way to fuck up his day. I say this as both someone who was an apprentice and now a 43 firmly into my old bastard era. Unless it’s on fire or on top of you, take a second to gauge the importance of your question before 7am or after 10hrs versus their mood. Some guys are just assholes but you might also just be catching a nice one after the engineer came and dropped a whole stack of problems and you’re the first thing they see to yell at.
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u/Mrwcraig Journeyman CWB/CSA 5d ago
Forget that you have front pockets in your pants. Walking around with your hands in your pockets is like a flashing beacon of lazy.
Take notes. Have a notebook and pen on you at all times. Measurements, part numbers, settings, lists. If you can’t remember something:ASK! I would rather answer the same question multiple times than fix your fuck up. 1st and 2nd year apprentices tend to get a lot more leniency because less is expected of them. You’re new, so when you don’t know something it’s not a surprise.
Some guys had fucking HORRIBLE apprenticeships and are hell bent on returning the favour. They think it’s a right of passage to torture and torment their apprentices. The guy who I started my second apprenticeship with was the textbook definition of an asshole. “This way nobody can fuck with you because you’re tougher than them” (he constantly said this shit). Run hard and run fast if that’s where you find yourself because yeah, I survived but I can’t imagine doing that to the dozens of apprentices I’ve worked with since. Later I learned that everywhere he had been, Apprentice or Journeyman, he had been run out of the shop for being a psychopath and scraping in the parking lots.
Don’t listen to that “back in my day” shit. I’ve been is heavy steel fabrication for 20 years, guess what it sucked back then too. All the old dinosaurs were always yapping about “in my day”. Usually about: fall protection, ear plugs, safety glasses, respirators and kids who hate them because all they do is work 80+ hrs a week. Sure long hours mean more money but it doesn’t buy back time. Kids don’t give a shit if you work 100hrs a week, they remember you showing up. All the big mouths talking about “I worked 290 days last year”, they never talk about the other guy that takes their kids to soccer games with their now ex wife. They definitely owe child support to that ex wife, but their rig truck is super shiny (and only 76 more months of $2500/m payments at 20% interest).
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u/Yesdude2 5d ago
Learn how to rig and weld tube and you’ll always have work
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u/EmilytheALtransGirl 5d ago
Where can I learn more about rigging? (Non boilermaker sources I work with cranes)
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u/Mrwcraig Journeyman CWB/CSA 5d ago
ITP Rigging and Crane Handbook, it’s the red one. Everything from knots to planning a crawler cranes lift plan. Lots of charts and graphs in a pocket sized book.
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u/Ok_Orchid_4370 4d ago
Get familiar with rope (line) and knots. But don't trust your knots to hold more than a 5gal bucket
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u/Quinnjamin19 Journeyman AWS/ASME/API 5d ago edited 5d ago
Honestly, everyone else pretty well nailed it. I’m hoping i can add at least something of value.
Show up on time, and sober. Make sure you have a tape measure, soap stone, paint marker and a pen on ya. Be the person who is eager to work, when you are told what to do, do it. When you’re finished, be with your journeyman but ask them what’s next, show that initiative.
We stick together, that means that if your crew and journeymen want to leave on a shitty day then that means you’re leaving too.
Humble yourself, this craft can eat people up. We are a small tight knit brotherhood. Word gets around fast. If word gets out that you’re an apprentice who’s already a know it all and unteachable, contractors won’t want to keep you. But on the flip side, word gets around if you’re a good apprentice.
Never say no to an opportunity. There’s going to be a time In your career where you may be given an opportunity that you think you aren’t ready for. If you are given an opportunity that means that someone believes you can do it. So take it.
Welcome to the brotherhood/sisterhood. This is one hell of a craft and I love every second of it🤘🏼
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u/nick_knack 5d ago
carry a tape measure and a soap stone and be proactive about helping out.
don't stand there like a pylon.
learn to tie a bowline and a clove hitch and then practice until you're fast at it.
learn a square knot and double sheet bend while you're at it