Welders, Cutters, and Welder Fitters Onet SOC Code 51-4121.06 Career Description: Use hand-welding or flame-cutting equipment to weld or join metal components or to fill holes, indentations, or seams of fabricated metal products. Related Clusters: Architecture and Construction Manufacturing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Programs of Study Welders, Cutters, and Welder Fitters

Career Summary:

• Experience- Some previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience may be helpful in these occupations, but usually is not needed. For example, a teller might benefit from experience working directly with the public, but an inexperienced person could still learn to be a teller with little difficulty.
• Education- These occupations usually require a high school diploma and may require some vocational training or job-related course work. In some cases, an associate's or bachelor's degree could be needed.
• Job Training- Employees in these occupations need anywhere from a few months to one year of working with experienced employees.
• Examples- These occupations often involve using your knowledge and skills to help others. Examples include sheet metal workers, forest fire fighters, customer service representatives, pharmacy technicians, salespersons (retail), and tellers.

• Operate safety equipment, and use safe work habits.
• Weld components in flat, vertical, or overhead positions.
• Ignite torches or start power supplies and strike arcs by touching electrodes to metals being welded, completing electrical circuits.
• Clamp, hold, tack-weld, heat-bend, grind and/or bolt component parts to obtain required configurations and positions for welding.
• Detect faulty operation of equipment and/or defective materials, and notify supervisors.
• Operate manual or semi-automatic welding equipment to fuse metal segments, using processes such as gas tungsten arc, gas metal arc, flux-cored arc, plasma arc, shielded metal arc, resistance welding, and submerged arc welding.
• Monitor the fitting, burning, and welding processes to avoid overheating of parts or warping, shrinking, distortion, or expansion of material.
• Examine workpieces for defects, and measure workpieces with straightedges or templates to ensure conformance with specifications.
• Recognize, set up, and operate hand and power tools common to the welding trade, such as shielded metal arc and gas metal arc welding equipment.
• Lay out, position, align, and secure parts and assemblies prior to assembly, using straightedges, combination squares, calipers, and rulers.
• Chip or grind off excess weld, slag, or spatter, using hand scrapers or power chippers, portable grinders, or arc-cutting equipment.
• Analyze engineering drawings, blueprints, specifications, sketches, work orders, and material safety data sheets to plan layout, assembly, and welding operations.
• Connect and turn regulator valves to activate and adjust gas flow and pressure so that desired flames are obtained.
• Weld separately or in combination, using aluminum, stainless steel, cast iron, and other alloys.
• Determine required equipment and welding methods, applying knowledge of metallurgy, geometry, and welding techniques.
• Mark and/or tag material with proper job number, piece marks, and other identifying marks as required.
• Prepare all material surfaces to be welded, ensuring that there is no loose or thick scale, slag, rust, moisture, grease, or other foreign matter.
• Select and install torches, torch tips, filler rods, and flux, according to welding chart specifications, or types and thicknesses of metals.
• Remove rough spots from workpieces, using portable grinders, hand files, or scrapers.
• Position and secure workpieces, using hoists, cranes, wire, and banding machines or hand tools.
• Clean or degrease parts, using wire brushes, portable grinders, or chemical baths.
• Repair products by dismantling, straightening, reshaping, and reassembling parts, using cutting torches, straightening presses, and hand tools.
• Fill holes, and increase the size of metal parts.
• Dismantle metal assemblies or cut scrap metal, using thermal-cutting equipment such as flame-cutting torches or plasma-arc equipment.
• Check grooves, angles, or gap allowances, using micrometers, calipers, and precision measuring instruments.
• Signal crane operators to move large workpieces.
• Gouge metals using the air-arc gouging process.
• Guide and direct flames or electrodes on or across workpieces to straighten, bend, melt, or build up metal.
• Estimate materials needed for production and manufacturing; maintain required stocks of materials.
• Develop templates and models for welding projects, using mathematical calculations based on blueprint information.
• Cut metal plates and structural shapes to dimensions, and contour and bevel as specified by blueprints, layouts, work orders, and templates, using powered saws, hand shears, or chipping knives.
• Preheat workpieces prior to welding or bending, using torches or heating furnaces.
• Use fire suppression methods in industrial emergencies.
• Melt lead bars, wire, or scrap to add lead to joints or to extrude melted scrap into reusable form.
• Set up and use ladders and scaffolding as necessary to complete work.
• Join parts such as beams and steel reinforcing rods in buildings, bridges, and highways, bolting and riveting as necessary.
• Hammer out bulges or bends in metal workpieces.
• Mix and apply protective coatings to products.
• Operate metal shaping, straightening, and bending machines such as brakes and shears.
• Operate brazing and soldering equipment.

• Mechanical - Knowledge of machines and tools, including their designs, uses, repair, and maintenance.
• Mechanical - Knowledge of machines and tools, including their designs, uses, repair, and maintenance.

• Welding courses are taught at many high schools, community colleges, and technology centers in Tennessee. The curriculum usually consists of courses in welding technology, machine shop, technical mathematics, drafting, physics, chemistry, and related engineering. Welders must be certified for jobs in which the failure of welds could be considered dangerous. To be certified, welders must pass qualification tests given by some employers, trade associations, and government agencies. For related information and recommended courses to prepare for this occupation, Tennessee high school students may visit the Trade and Industrial Education Standards, Competency Profiles, and Resource Links online.

  Military job training consists of 4 to 15 weeks of classroom instruction. Training length varies depending on specialty. Course content typically includes sheet metal layout and duct work; procedures for cutting, brazing, and heat treating; and operation and care of welding, soldering, and brazing equipment. Further training occurs on the job and through advanced courses. The Army, Navy, and Marine Corps offer certified apprenticeship programs for some specialties in this occupation.

• Visualization - The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
• Arm-Hand Steadiness - The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.

• Handling and Moving Objects - Using hands and arms in handling, installing, positioning, and moving materials, and manipulating things.
• Controlling Machines and Processes - Using either control mechanisms or direct physical activity to operate machines or processes (not including computers or vehicles).
• Performing General Physical Activities - Performing physical activities that require considerable use of your arms and legs and moving your whole body, such as climbing, lifting, balancing, walking, stooping, and handling of materials.

• Realistic - Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.
• Second Interest High-Point - Secondary-Cutoff/Rank Descriptiveness

• Attention to Detail - Job requires being careful about detail and thorough in completing work tasks.
• Dependability - Job requires being reliable, responsible, and dependable, and fulfilling obligations.
• Self Control - Job requires maintaining composure, keeping emotions in check, controlling anger, and avoiding aggressive behavior, even in very difficult situations.
• Independence - Job requires developing one's own ways of doing things, guiding oneself with little or no supervision, and depending on oneself to get things done.
• Stress Tolerance - Job requires accepting criticism and dealing calmly and effectively with high stress situations.
• Achievement/Effort - Job requires establishing and maintaining personally challenging achievement goals and exerting effort toward mastering tasks.
• Persistence - Job requires persistence in the face of obstacles.
• Cooperation - Job requires being pleasant with others on the job and displaying a good-natured, cooperative attitude.

• Moral Values - Workers on this job are never pressured to do things that go against their sense of right and wrong.
• Activity - Workers on this job are busy all the time.
• Company Policies and Practices - Workers on this job are treated fairly by the company.
• Support-Mean Extent - Occupations that satisfy this work value offer supportive management that stands behind employees. Corresponding needs are Company Policies, Supervision: Human Relations and Supervision: Technical.
• Independence - Workers on this job do their work alone.
• Supervision, Human Relations - Workers on this job have supervisors who back up their workers with management.
• Security - Workers on this job have steady employment.

Wage and salary data provided by:

• Bureau of Labor Statistics, Tennessee Department of Labor website
• TN Department of Labor & Workforce Development website
• Bureau of Economic Analysis website