Teaching SMAW Where to Start

A little bit of context on this blog before I get too far down the rabbit hole with Alice. When I took the job as welding instructor I had never taught high school welding before I had spent years off and on traing welder sin the work place, both in construction and in manufacturing. 

I went into my job thinking -"How difficult can this be?" I know how to weld students want to learn how to weld - we will all go into the shop strike an arc cut some metal, sing kumbaya around the proverbial campfire and all will be good.

Except that the job I stepped into was a total rebuild from ground zero. I stepped in the door with nothing. I didn't get PowerPoints, no curriculum, no pacing guides, no lesson plans, nothing but a stack of text books, a shop that was FUBAR - (Fouled up beyond All Recognition) and a copy of 19 TAC Chapter 130. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Career and Technical Education - Section 130.363 Welding I (Two Credits). 

That was it - The other instructor John Paulk had been in the system for two years in a holding pattern waiting for the rebuild. So we were basically tasked with building a high school welding program from ground zero. Which is why I am writing this blog - to maybe give some guidance hints and general information to someone who might be in a similar situation as far as coming out of industry and into the public education system and you are wandering through the wilderness trying to figure out what direction is up.

My general philosophy on teaching welding is to teach "Stick/SMAW" and then build from there. Go heavy on the SMAW and light on FCAW/GMAW, my theory is if I can teach you to "stick" weld you will figure out wire feed welding in about half an hour, both Flux Core and Mig Welding. (Gas Metal Arc Welding.)

There is some debate on where to start to teach students to weld. In this rant I am going to be talking about teaching students to "Stick Weld" SMAW - Shielded Metal Arc Welding and my general path in getting students a solid proficiency with SMAW/Stick welding.

First a little bit of background - I am a welding engineer and inspector that can weld. Not a nuclear level 6G pipe welding type but I can weld. That being said I learned to weld from a former boilermaker Paul O'leary who rand the welding program at Montana Tech. I was pursuing a welding engineering degree at Montana Tech - a 4 year engineering school in Butte Montana and thus clocked in a lot of time in the welding labs at Montana Tech. 

The welding process we started with was Oxy Fuel welding, which forced us to learn how to run a puddle and understand what the metal was going to do, how it was going to flow while it was in a liquid state. After we spent a semester with Oxy Acetylene welding we moved on to SMAW/"Stick" welding.

After the Oxy Fuel welding we started welding with E6010 in the flat position doing pads of beads. I know that none of this is rocket surgery and nearly all welding schools in the USA use this sequence of welding processes while teaching welding, but I am just going to hash through it again because I think it is such a tried and true method of teaching welding.

My first couple of years we used E6010 right out of the gate. We just threw the students to the proverbial wolves, sink or swim with the cellulose covered E6010. Usually the first two weeks were brutal because the skill that students need to learn is how to strike and arc with the electrode and not get the electrode stuck to the metal. Also important is teaching the students not to panic and how to get the electrode unstuck and starting over.

So after three years of starting the students out with E6010 we decided that this was not working so we decided to try starting the students out with E6013 which is a sheet metal welding electrode that is not nearly as difficult or as "angry" an electrode as E6010 is. ( I know that angry is not a technical term for describing a welding rod but anyone who has welded with E6010 knows that it is an angry welding rod.) E6013 is a smooth starting electrode that the students can used to master the skill of striking an arc and carrying an arc without the fear of getting the electrode stuck to the metal every time they strike an arc. 

So me and the other welding instructor switched over to E6013 for the first few days of the Welding I course. The students don't do any pad of beads with the E6013 electrodes, the only thing that the students do is run a weld bead and gain proficiency at striking an arc. Some students may spend a day with E6013 others may spend three or four. 

I generally tend to only give the students three days with E6013 before I switch them over to E6010 and the whip and pause motion that is required with that electrode. Any more time than three or four days with the E6013 is counter productive and a waste of time.

 As far as the base metal that we have the students weld on, first two years we used flat 3/8" plate and would have the students weld on these plates. In theory it worked well but the students would fill up half the plate and then want another clean plate to start welding on. The instructors had to hide the new test plates because the students would want to run one layer of weld beads on each side and then trash that plate, being a public school this was problematic from a waste and budget point of view.

We did some research and talked to some other instructors, and started to use L 2x2x1/4". We currently cut the 2x2 angle iron into 6 inch pieces and weld them back to back making an "X" of the angle iron pieces. 

With the X Blocks we just tell the students to weld and turn the pieces into a brick. When that block is a brick they can get a new X Block and start the process over. Another advantage of the X blocks for welding is it simulates a very deep "V-Groove" weld which teaches the welding students about bead placement and how to properly overlap weld beads.

And when the students "booger" the X-block up to a point where they are having difficulty running a bead, I will usually go into the test booth crank up the amperage on the welding machine and run a few really really hot passes with E6010. These really really hot passes will smooth out the surface of the deposited weld metal and give the students a clean canvas from which to work. As anyone who has welded for a while knows that if you are welding over and uneven and messy surface you are going to find it difficult to get weld metal deposited in an acceptable manner. Using the super hot E6010 weld passes also keeps the grinding time down and the waste of base materials.

The students do 1G 2G and 3G vertical up with E6010 before they graduate to E7018 where they repeat the process going from 1G to 2G and finally the 3G vertical up.

From there we go to some test plate qualifications and perfection of the E7018 cover passes and getting rid of undercut.

That is pretty much a summary of the philosophy that we follow for teaching students to "Stick" Weld or SMAW. Couldn't figure out a better way to wrap up this blog post so this will have to do.