by CourseAdvisor

Welders use heat to melt and fuse metal parts together. Most welders work in manufacturing. Some applications are:

• Building ships
• Manufacturing automobiles
• Joining metal beams in buildings and bridges
• Connecting pipes in pipelines and power plants

There are many different types of welding, although arc welding is the most common. Welders may do manual welding or semiautomatic welding, which is done with the assistance of machinery. Soldering and brazing are similar techniques to welding but, in these processes, only the metal used to join the metal pieces is melted and the parts themselves are not distorted.

Skilled welders:

• Work from specifications
• Select fluxes and base metals to use for joining parts
• Set up welding equipment
• Weld parts together
• Evaluate their work and make changes accordingly

Less skilled welders perform jobs according to instructions. Increasingly, welders function as welding machine operators while robots perform the welding tasks.

Welding, soldering, and brazing workers can learn less skilled tasks on-the-job. However, highly skilled workers have often taken formal training in high school or afterwards.

Median hourly earnings in 2004 were $14.72. Welding machine operators in motor vehicle parts manufacturing earned $15.43. Job opportunities are expected to be excellent because of a shortage of qualified welders, solderers, and brazers.

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