You are thinking about welding
And every answer you find is somebody selling you a twenty thousand dollar school.
00 A field guide for welders
Nobody hands a welder the map.
So we wrote it. Fifty four pages on getting certified, picking the right job and getting paid what the work is actually worth. Written by a welder, for welders.
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01 Who wrote this
Written by a welder, not a marketer.
Dakota has been welding since 2017. Most days he is in a shop. The rest of the time he is on contract at food plants and manufacturing sites, running conveyor systems and food processing pipe. He runs MIG and TIG, and TIG is the one he is best at.
Ask him why people fail weld tests and the answer is not technique. Most guys walking into a test have never learned how a given material behaves under heat, or what amperage that material actually wants. They can run a bead. They do not know the metal.
That gap is what the Playbook is for. He is not a school, he is not a coach, and he has nothing to sell you after this. Every number in it has a citation next to it.
- Years in the trade
- Welding since 2017
- Processes
- MIG and TIG, strongest on TIG
- Certifications
- MIG, TIG and stick
- Materials
- Stainless, mild steel, aluminum
- Worked in
- Shop, food plants, manufacturing
02 His work
You can judge a welder by the bead.
So here is his. Shot on his phone, on the job, nothing cleaned up for the camera.
Swipe or drag to scroll.
03 Who this is for
If any of this sounds like you, keep reading.
Every one of these came out of a real conversation with a real welder. None of them get answered straight anywhere online.
You are certified and stuck
Same bay, same bench, same rate, and no straight answer about what the next step is or what it is worth.
You do not know which ticket matters
There is a real difference between a certification that opens a door and one that is just a receipt.
You want your own rig one day
And nobody will give you a straight number on what it actually costs to get there.
04 The trade, in numbers
The work is there. The pay is real.
These are published figures, sourced and dated, not something we invented to sell you a book. The whole first part of the Playbook is built on data like this.
$71,593
Average pipeline welder pay in the United States
ZipRecruiter, August 2026
80,000
Welding openings to fill every year through 2029
American Welding Society
$45 to $65
Hourly range for 6G pipe work in 2026
Trade Career Path, 2026
9.4%
Share of the welding workforce under twenty five
American Welding SocietyWages vary by region, employer, certification and hours worked. Nothing on this page is a promise of what you will earn.
05 What is inside
Seven parts. No filler.
This is a reference you keep in the truck, not a motivational book you read once and shelve. Every part answers a question a working welder actually asks.
54 pages · 7 parts · 8 appendices · PDF
What welders actually earn, broken out by industry, region, process and setting, and the honest ladder from an entry wage up.
- Pay by industry, from job shop to pipeline to aerospace
- What the median hides, and where the top quartile actually works
- The four things that move your rate more than anything else
- Why two welders holding the same ticket end up thirty thousand apart
- Overtime, per diem and travel pay, worked out with real math
Trade school, union apprenticeship, or hire on and learn. What each one really costs, how long it really takes, and how to get hired with nothing on paper.
- The real cost comparison: tuition, tools, housing and lost wages
- How a union apprenticeship works and how people actually get in
- Getting hired with zero experience and no certificate
- What happens at a weld test, step by step, so it is not your first time
- The one page resume that shops actually read
The processes, the positions and the defects. Written to be used at the bench, not memorised for an exam.
- Stick, MIG, flux core and TIG: what each is for and who pays for it
- Positions 1G through 6G, and why 6G is the gate
- Reading weld symbols, and enough blueprint to not look lost
- The common defects, what causes each one, and how to fix it
- Practice drills that actually move you, and the ones that waste rod
Which ticket opens which door, what it costs, where to test, and how to prepare so you pass the first time.
- AWS D1.1, ASME Section IX, API 1104 and CWB, and what each covers
- Real costs: $150 to $350 per procedure, $300 to $700 all in for D1.1
- The inspector route and the $985 CWI exam
- How certifications lapse, and the continuity paperwork nobody explains
- Where to test, and how to pick a test that actually transfers
Shop, field, pipeline, structural, fab, aerospace, offshore. What the work is really like, what it pays, and what it costs you.
- A straight comparison of the main paths, pay against lifestyle
- Travel and per diem math, so you know what an offer is really worth
- How to read a job posting and spot what is missing from it
- The red flags of a bad shop, learned the expensive way
- Union against non union, without the politics
Negotiating, going traveller, running your own rig, and the routes out of the hood for when your body has had enough.
- How to ask for a raise in a trade where nobody talks about pay
- Going traveller: what it pays, and what it takes out of you
- Running a rig: truck, machine, insurance and real startup numbers
- Bidding work without underpricing yourself into a hole
- Inspection, teaching and supervision as the long game
The part that keeps you working for thirty years instead of ten.
- Fume, hexavalent chromium, and what a respirator is actually for
- The PPE worth paying for and the PPE that is a waste of money
- Eyes, hearing, knees and back, and what wrecks each one
- A tool list by budget, from first week to first rig
- Working hurt, and why it costs more than it pays
06 Look inside
Real pages. Not a sales page in a PDF.
Rate tables, certification costs, checklists and diagrams you can actually use on a job. Swipe to see what you are buying.
Sample pages shown at reduced size. Swipe or drag to scroll.
The trade rewards the people who know how it works.
Fifty four pages of exactly that, for less than a box of rods.
07 Where this fits
This does not replace school. It stops you paying for the wrong one.
Trade school teaches you to weld. Almost nobody teaches you the career built around it. Here is the honest comparison.
| The Playbook | Welding school | Free videos | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | $20 | $5,000 to $35,800 | Free |
| Time to get through it | One evening | 12 to 30 weeks | Endless |
| Teaches you to weld | No | Yes | Sometimes |
| Which certification to chase | Yes | Rarely | Scattered |
| What the job actually pays | Yes, sourced | No | Guesswork |
| How to get hired | Yes | Career services | No |
| Running your own rig | Yes, with numbers | No | Rarely |
| Sourced and dated | Yes | Not applicable | Almost never |
Tuition range taken from published 2026 pipe welding program costs. Put another way: if you are about to spend twenty thousand dollars on school, spend twenty first and make sure it is the right school.
08 Get it
Twenty dollars. Read it tonight.
Instant download, no account to create, no subscription. Yours to keep and print.
Thirty days. No hoops.
Read the whole thing. If it does not tell you something you did not already know, reply to the receipt inside thirty days and we refund you in full. You keep the file. We would rather have the feedback than the money.
09 The guides
Every guide, in motion.
Tap one to open it.
Swipe to browse.
10 The rest of the shelf
Four more, for when you want the craft rather than the career.
The Playbook is about the trade. These are about the work. Each one stands on its own, and they were all written the same way.
- 01 TIG Field Guide Heat, arc length, angle, gas and cleanliness.
- 02 MIG Field Guide Settings, the four things your hands control, and how to see inside your own weld.
- 03 Blueprint Reading for Welders Three complete shop drawings, decoded line by line.
- 04 The Fabricator Layout, tolerance, brake math, distortion and inspection.
- 05 All four, as a set The whole shelf. Sixty dollars bought singly.
11 Straight answers
Questions we get asked.
No, and anyone selling you that in a PDF is lying to you. You learn to weld with the hood down and a lot of rod. This is everything around that: which certification to chase, what the work pays, how to get hired, and how to not lose three years in the wrong shop.
Parts four through six are written for you. Certification strategy, reading an offer properly, per diem math, going traveller, and real numbers on running your own rig. Part one tends to change how people look at the rate they are currently accepting.
A PDF. It downloads the second you pay, it reads fine on your phone, and it prints clean if you want a copy for the truck.
Published sources, cited on the page they appear on. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American Welding Society, published union scales, wage aggregators and program tuition pages. Where something is an opinion rather than a figure, it says so.
It is a PDF. There is one optional add on at checkout for weld test prep, and that is the end of it. No membership, no coaching call, no webinar, no phone number to book.
Email us inside thirty days and we refund you in full. You keep the file. We are not going to argue with you about it.
The wage data, certifications and job paths are United States focused, and the certification part covers CWB for Canada. The skill, safety and career sections apply anywhere, but go in knowing the rate tables are US figures.
Dakota, a working welder. His photo, his certifications and what he actually welds are further down this page, and there is more at About Dakota.
