Thread: you know you're a welder' or have welded, when.....

Originally Posted by meadow street

you know you are a welder, or have welded, when ........................

Your shirt sleeve catches on fire and you keep on welding so not to stop and spoil the bead.

You know what burning flesh sounds like

Originally Posted by meadow street

you know you are a welder, or have welded, when ........................

Well you know you are NOT a welder when you are approached by the local SES because someone is stuck in a car, asking you to weld them in - knowing that you are such a poor welder that in the process you will blow holes in the metal large enough to drag the victim out through.

This didnt actually happen BUT when I was a member of SES and the group Leader asked how you could cut someone out of a car wreck, I suggested getting me to try to weld them in

Cheers

Doug

When you have a collection of interesting marks on your forearms that causes the local Blood Bank to ask some questions as to your "recreational" activities.
Thankfully one of the nurses' husbands was a boily and I am no longer scrutinised.
And when you have been scrunched in enough positions to rewrite the Kama Sutra.

More scars on your arms, shoulder and chest than a junkie. Leather jackets weren't around when I started welding, don't think gloves were either

• You sit at the traffic lights checking out the welds on the truck lined up in the next lane.
• You never use oven gloves when you take the plates out of the oven for the missus.
• You can pull the lead off a spark plug when the engine is running because the kick is nothing like as bad as the HF from your TIG welder when it decides to go through you rather than the welding bench.

You know exactly why I'm not kidding when I say that rap dancing was invented by welders.

cheers

you get weird sunburn patches on your chest where you forget to do up buttons

and you go to flip your helmet down when you walk out into the sun

The bald spot is caused by spatter

The burn marks down you feet are not from walking on hot coals on some remote island

You know Flash Dance the movie was the welders "I have spatter down my overalls moves"

You can tell a good or bad welder by the familiar sound of the hum, crackle and spater.

Your testicles get sunburnt..

Originally Posted by wheelinround

You know Flash Dance the movie was the welders "I have spatter down my overalls moves"

So it was more like "Arc Flash Dance (What a Feeling!)"???

And:

The smell of burnt hair is normal to you.

You look at every piece of plate aluminium on a bench suspiciously, as if it could be at 400 degrees and just waiting for your fingers.

Your pliers have burn marks and arc spatter.

Your tee shirts have lots of little holes on the front of them.

Things tend to get tied up, not with twist-ties but with scrap MIG wire.

You tend not to wonder "What's that burning smell?", as you already have a pretty good idea what everything around your bench smells like when it's got red hot spatter sitting on it.

You hear popping sounds and the gas goes out

The carberising flame you set is now more like a cutting torch

The flame suddenly changes from blue to orange and just know the hose has broken, the bottle is empty or some mongrel is standing or parked on your hose.

You hear screams of panic turn around to see a hose alight heading towards the bottles and mass evacuation has happened so fast your only one left inside as you run past the bottles you flip the oxy key and acetylene key to off and hope it works. It did.

The smell of diesel burning is a fuel line a spatter just burnt through so now you know your going to have to repair that line.


The sounds of a 140amp home welder compared to a trailer mounted monster.



Listening for that tell tale sound of someone sneaking up to hit the bench, work piece with biggest hammer to see how far you jump.

You're welding pipe, when some mongrel puts oxyacetylene mix in the other end of the pipe, BANG, then its time to change underwear