NOTE: The following description is a GENERAL Overview of this career and not a description of a particular job posting.
• The Welder operates safety equipment and uses safe work habits while performing his job function.
• The Welder welds components in flat, vertical, or overhead positions.
• The Welder ignites torches or starts power supplies and strikes arcs by touching electrodes to metals being welded, completing electrical circuits.
• The Welder detects faulty operation of equipment or defective materials and notifies supervisors.
• The Welder clamps, holds, tack-weld, heat-bend, grind or bolts component parts to obtain required configurations and positions for welding.
• The Welder operates manual or semi-automatic welding equipment to fuse metal segments, using processes such as gas tungsten arc, gas metal arc, and flux-cored arc, plasma arc, and shielded metal arc, resistance welding, and submerged arc welding.
• The Welder monitors the fitting, burning, and welding processes to avoid overheating of parts of warping, shrinking, distortion, or expansion of materials.
• The Welder examines work pieces for defects and measures work pieces with straightedges or templates to ensure conformance with specifications.
• The Welder recognizes, set up, and operates hand and power tools common to the welding trade, such as shielded metal arc and gas metal arc welding equipment.
• The Welder will lay out, position, align, and secure parts and assemblies prior to assembly, using straightedges, combination squares, calipers, and rulers.
The Welder needs knowledge of machines and tools, including their designs, uses, repair, and maintenance. The Welder needs knowledge of design techniques, tools, and principles involved in production of precision technical plans, blueprints, drawings, and models. The Welder must give full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times. The Welder knows that he must be able to use mathematics to solve problems pertaining to welding functions. The Welder must determine the kind of tools and equipment needed to do a job. The Welder is responsible to manage how much time he uses on a project and the time of others that might be in his crew. The Welder needs to use logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems. The Welder needs to be able to understand written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.