00 The Root Pass Playbook
Fifty four pages the trade never wrote down.
Certifications, job paths, pay and the road to your own rig. Sourced, dated and written by a welder.
- Instant download
- Secure checkout
- 30 day guarantee
- Yours to keep
01 Get it
Pick your version.
Both download the second you pay. No account, no subscription, no follow up sales call.
06 From people who bought it
02 Contents
Seven parts. No filler.
A reference you keep in the truck. 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
03 Look inside
Real pages. Not a sales page in a PDF.
Rate tables, certification costs, checklists and diagrams you can use on a job.
Sample pages shown at reduced size. Swipe or drag to scroll.
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.
04 The rest of the shelf
There are four more on the shelf.
The Playbook covers the trade. If it is the work itself you want, these do that, and they do not repeat what is in here.
- 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.
04 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.
