Gas Tungsten Arc Welding Production (GTAW)

Alternative Job Titles for Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers

• Assembly Line Brazer
• Brazer
• Fabrication Welder
• MIG Welder (Metal Inert Gas Welder)
• Maintenance Welder
• Solderer
• TIG Welder (Tungsten Inert Gas Welder)
• Welder
• Welder Fitter
• Wirer

Job Tasks and Activities for Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers

• Adjust equipment controls to regulate gas flow.
• Align and clamp workpieces together, using rules, squares, or hand tools, or position items in fixtures, jigs, or vises.
• Align parts or workpieces to ensure proper assembly.
• Assemble temporary equipment or structures.
• Check grooves, angles, or gap allowances, using micrometers, calipers, and precision measuring instruments.
• Chip or grind off excess weld, slag, or spatter, using hand scrapers or power chippers, portable grinders, or arc-cutting equipment.
• Clean or degrease parts, using wire brushes, portable grinders, or chemical baths.
• Clean production equipment.
• Clean workpieces or finished products.
• Connect and turn regulator valves to activate and adjust gas flow and pressure so that desired flames are obtained.
• Cut industrial materials in preparation for fabrication or processing.
• Design templates or patterns.
• Detect faulty operation of equipment or defective materials and notify supervisors.
• Determine metal or plastic production methods.
• Determine required equipment and welding methods, applying knowledge of metallurgy, geometry, and welding techniques.
• Develop templates and models for welding projects, using mathematical calculations based on blueprint information.
• Disassemble equipment for maintenance or repair.
• Examine workpieces for defects and measure workpieces with straightedges or templates to ensure conformance with specifications.
• Grind, cut, buff, or bend edges of workpieces to be joined to ensure snug fit, using power grinders and hand tools.
• Guide and direct flames or electrodes on or across workpieces to straighten, bend, melt, or build up metal.
• Hammer out bulges or bends in metal workpieces.
• Heat material or workpieces to prepare for or complete production.
• Ignite fuel to activate heating equipment.
• Ignite torches or start power supplies and strike arcs by touching electrodes to metals being welded, completing electrical circuits.
• Maintain safety.
• Mark or tag material with proper job number, piece marks, and other identifying marks as required.
• Mark products, workpieces, or equipment with identifying information.
• Measure dimensions of completed products or workpieces to verify conformance to specifications.
• Melt and apply solder along adjoining edges of workpieces to solder joints, using soldering irons, gas torches, or electric-ultrasonic equipment.
• Melt and apply solder to fill holes, indentations, or seams of fabricated metal products, using soldering equipment.
• Melt metal, plastic, or other materials to prepare for production.
• Monitor equipment operation to ensure that products are not flawed.
• Monitor the fitting, burning, and welding processes to avoid overheating of parts or warping, shrinking, distortion, or expansion of material.
• Mount materials or workpieces onto production equipment.
• Notify others of equipment repair or maintenance needs.
• Operate firefighting equipment.
• Operate grinding equipment.
• Operate metal or plastic forming equipment.
• Operate metal shaping, straightening, and bending machines, such as brakes and shears.
• Operate safety equipment and use safe work habits.
• Operate welding equipment.
• Position and secure workpieces, using hoists, cranes, wire, and banding machines or hand tools.
• Preheat workpieces prior to welding or bending, using torches or heating furnaces.
• Prepare all material surfaces to be welded, ensuring that there is no loose or thick scale, slag, rust, moisture, grease, or other foreign matter.
• 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.
• Repair parts or assemblies.
• Repair products by dismantling, straightening, reshaping, and reassembling parts, using cutting torches, straightening presses, and hand tools.
• Reshape metal workpieces to established specifications.
• Select and install torches, torch tips, filler rods, and flux, according to welding chart specifications or types and thicknesses of metals.
• Select production equipment according to product specifications.
• Set up and use ladders and scaffolding as necessary to complete work.
• Shape metal workpieces with hammers or other small hand tools.
• Solder parts or workpieces.
• Trim excess material from workpieces.
• Use fire suppression methods in industrial emergencies.
• Watch operating equipment to detect malfunctions.
• Weld components in flat, vertical, or overhead positions.
• Weld separately or in combination, using aluminum, stainless steel, cast iron, and other alloys.

Interests for Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers

• Realistic
  Designing, building, or repairing equipment, materials, or structures, engaging in physical activity, or working outdoors.
• Conventional
  Following procedures and regulations to organize information or data, typically in a business setting.

Skills for Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers

In order of importance

• Quality Control Analysis
  Testing how well a product or service works.
  Importance: 53/100
• Monitoring
  Keeping track of how well people and/or groups are doing in order to make improvements.
  Importance: 50/100
• Critical Thinking
  Thinking about the pros and cons of different ways to solve a problem.
  Importance: 47/100
• Judgment and Decision Making
  Thinking about the pros and cons of different options and picking the best one.
  Importance: 47/100
• Operations Monitoring
  Watching gauges, dials, or display screens to make sure a machine is working.
  Importance: 44/100
• Time Management
  Managing your time and the time of other people.
  Importance: 44/100
• Speaking
  Talking to others.
  Importance: 41/100
• Active Listening
  Listening to others, not interrupting, and asking good questions.
  Importance: 41/100
• Operation and Control
  Using equipment or systems.
  Importance: 41/100
• Complex Problem Solving
  Noticing a problem and figuring out the best way to solve it.
  Importance: 38/100
• Reading Comprehension
  Reading work-related information.
  Importance: 38/100
• Troubleshooting
  Figuring out what is causing equipment, machines, wiring, or computer programs to not work.
  Importance: 38/100
• Coordination
  Changing what is done based on other people's actions.
  Importance: 35/100
• Equipment Selection
  Deciding what kind of tools and equipment are needed to do a job.
  Importance: 31/100
• Systems Analysis
  Figuring out how a system should work and how changes in the future will affect it.
  Importance: 31/100
• Active Learning
  Figuring out how to use new ideas or things.
  Importance: 31/100
• Social Perceptiveness
  Understanding people's reactions.
  Importance: 31/100
• Mathematics
  Using math to solve problems.
  Importance: 28/100
• Systems Evaluation
  Measuring how well a system is working and how to improve it.
  Importance: 28/100
• Service Orientation
  Looking for ways to help people.
  Importance: 28/100
• Learning Strategies
  Using the best training or teaching strategies for learning new things.
  Importance: 25/100
• Instructing
  Teaching people how to do something.
  Importance: 25/100
• Negotiation
  Bringing people together to solve differences.
  Importance: 22/100
• Repairing
  Repairing machines or systems using the right tools.
  Importance: 22/100
• Persuasion
  Talking people into changing their minds or their behavior.
  Importance: 22/100
• Management of Personnel Resources
  Selecting and managing the best workers for a job.
  Importance: 22/100
• Writing
  Writing things for co-workers or customers.
  Importance: 19/100
• Operations Analysis
  Figuring out what a product or service needs to be able to do.
  Importance: 19/100
• Management of Material Resources
  Managing equipment and materials.
  Importance: 16/100
• Equipment Maintenance
  Planning and doing the basic maintenance on equipment.
  Importance: 16/100
• Management of Financial Resources
  Making spending decisions and keeping track of what is spent.
  Importance: 16/100
• Science
  Using scientific rules and strategies to solve problems.
  Importance: 16/100
• Technology Design
  Making equipment and technology useful for customers.
  Importance: 13/100
• Installation
  Installing equipment, machines, wiring, or computer programs.
  Importance: 13/100

Knowledge for Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers

In order of importance

• Production and Processing
  Knowledge of raw materials, production processes, quality control, costs, and other techniques for maximizing the effective manufacture and distribution of goods.
  Importance: 62/100
• Mechanical
  Knowledge of machines and tools, including their designs, uses, repair, and maintenance.
  Importance: 53/100
• Mathematics
  Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
  Importance: 49/100
• English Language
  Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
  Importance: 47/100
• Design
  Knowledge of design techniques, tools, and principles involved in production of precision technical plans, blueprints, drawings, and models.
  Importance: 46/100
• Engineering and Technology
  Knowledge of the practical application of engineering science and technology. This includes applying principles, techniques, procedures, and equipment to the design and production of various goods and services.
  Importance: 40/100
• Public Safety and Security
  Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
  Importance: 38/100
• Education and Training
  Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
  Importance: 38/100
• Customer and Personal Service
  Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
  Importance: 37/100
• Administration and Management
  Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
  Importance: 36/100
• Building and Construction
  Knowledge of materials, methods, and the tools involved in the construction or repair of houses, buildings, or other structures such as highways and roads.
  Importance: 35/100
• Physics
  Knowledge and prediction of physical principles, laws, their interrelationships, and applications to understanding fluid, material, and atmospheric dynamics, and mechanical, electrical, atomic and sub-atomic structures and processes.
  Importance: 29/100
• Administrative
  Knowledge of administrative and office procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and workplace terminology.
  Importance: 25/100
• Personnel and Human Resources
  Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
  Importance: 25/100
• Computers and Electronics
  Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
  Importance: 24/100
• Chemistry
  Knowledge of the chemical composition, structure, and properties of substances and of the chemical processes and transformations that they undergo. This includes uses of chemicals and their interactions, danger signs, production techniques, and disposal methods.
  Importance: 24/100
• Psychology
  Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
  Importance: 21/100
• Law and Government
  Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
  Importance: 18/100
• Transportation
  Knowledge of principles and methods for moving people or goods by air, rail, sea, or road, including the relative costs and benefits.
  Importance: 18/100
• Sales and Marketing
  Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems.
  Importance: 13/100
• Communications and Media
  Knowledge of media production, communication, and dissemination techniques and methods. This includes alternative ways to inform and entertain via written, oral, and visual media.
  Importance: 13/100
• Economics and Accounting
  Knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, the financial markets, banking, and the analysis and reporting of financial data.
  Importance: 11/100
• Foreign Language
  Knowledge of the structure and content of a foreign (non-English) language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition and grammar, and pronunciation.
  Importance: 9/100
• Sociology and Anthropology
  Knowledge of group behavior and dynamics, societal trends and influences, human migrations, ethnicity, cultures, and their history and origins.
  Importance: 8/100
• Medicine and Dentistry
  Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
  Importance: 8/100
• Telecommunications
  Knowledge of transmission, broadcasting, switching, control, and operation of telecommunications systems.
  Importance: 5/100
• Food Production
  Knowledge of techniques and equipment for planting, growing, and harvesting food products (both plant and animal) for consumption, including storage/handling techniques.
  Importance: 4/100
• Biology
  Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
  Importance: 4/100
• Philosophy and Theology
  Knowledge of different philosophical systems and religions. This includes their basic principles, values, ethics, ways of thinking, customs, practices, and their impact on human culture.
  Importance: 4/100
• Therapy and Counseling
  Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.
  Importance: 3/100
• Geography
  Knowledge of principles and methods for describing the features of land, sea, and air masses, including their physical characteristics, locations, interrelationships, and distribution of plant, animal, and human life.
  Importance: 2/100
• Fine Arts
  Knowledge of the theory and techniques required to compose, produce, and perform works of music, dance, visual arts, drama, and sculpture.
  Importance: 2/100
• History and Archeology
  Knowledge of historical events and their causes, indicators, and effects on civilizations and cultures.
  Importance: 2/100

Physical Abilities for Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers

In order of importance

• Arm-Hand Steadiness
  Keeping your arm or hand steady.
  Importance: 66/100
• Near Vision
  Seeing details up close.
  Importance: 60/100
• Problem Sensitivity
  Noticing when problems happen.
  Importance: 56/100
• Finger Dexterity
  Putting together small parts with your fingers.
  Importance: 56/100
• Manual Dexterity
  Holding or moving items with your hands.
  Importance: 53/100
• Control Precision
  Quickly changing the controls of a machine, car, truck or boat.
  Importance: 53/100
• Selective Attention
  Paying attention to something without being distracted.
  Importance: 50/100
• Oral Comprehension
  Listening and understanding what people say.
  Importance: 50/100
• Deductive Reasoning
  Using rules to solve problems.
  Importance: 50/100
• Category Flexibility
  Grouping things in different ways.
  Importance: 47/100
• Far Vision
  Seeing details that are far away.
  Importance: 47/100
• Inductive Reasoning
  Making general rules or coming up with answers from lots of detailed information.
  Importance: 47/100
• Trunk Strength
  Using your lower back and stomach.
  Importance: 47/100
• Visualization
  Imagining how something will look after it is moved around or changed.
  Importance: 47/100
• Flexibility of Closure
  Seeing hidden patterns.
  Importance: 47/100
• Information Ordering
  Ordering or arranging things.
  Importance: 47/100
• Depth Perception
  Deciding which thing is closer or farther away from you, or deciding how far away it is from you.
  Importance: 44/100
• Perceptual Speed
  Quickly comparing groups of letters, numbers, pictures, or other things.
  Importance: 44/100
• Oral Expression
  Communicating by speaking.
  Importance: 44/100
• Speech Recognition
  Recognizing spoken words.
  Importance: 41/100
• Auditory Attention
  Paying attention to one sound while there are other distracting sounds.
  Importance: 41/100
• Rate Control
  Changing when and how fast you move based on how something else is moving.
  Importance: 41/100
• Reaction Time
  Quickly moving your hand, finger, or foot based on a sound, light, picture or other command.
  Importance: 41/100
• Visual Color Discrimination
  Noticing the difference between colors, including shades and brightness.
  Importance: 41/100
• Multilimb Coordination
  Using your arms and/or legs together while sitting, standing, or lying down.
  Importance: 41/100
• Static Strength
  Lifting, pushing, pulling, or carrying.
  Importance: 41/100
• Response Orientation
  Quickly deciding if you should move your hand, foot, or other body part.
  Importance: 38/100
• Extent Flexibility
  Bending, stretching, twisting, or reaching with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  Importance: 38/100
• Speech Clarity
  Speaking clearly.
  Importance: 38/100
• Time Sharing
  Doing two or more things at the same time.
  Importance: 35/100
• Written Comprehension
  Reading and understanding what is written.
  Importance: 35/100
• Fluency of Ideas
  Coming up with lots of ideas.
  Importance: 35/100
• Stamina
  Exercising for a long time without getting out of breath.
  Importance: 31/100
• Speed of Closure
  Quickly knowing what you are looking at.
  Importance: 31/100
• Glare Sensitivity
  Seeing something even if there is a glare or very bright light.
  Importance: 31/100
• Hearing Sensitivity
  Telling the difference between sounds.
  Importance: 31/100
• Originality
  Creating new and original ideas.
  Importance: 28/100
• Dynamic Strength
  Exercising for a long time without your muscles getting tired.
  Importance: 28/100
• Gross Body Equilibrium
  Keeping your balance or staying upright.
  Importance: 28/100
• Explosive Strength
  Jumping, sprinting, or throwing something.
  Importance: 28/100
• Mathematical Reasoning
  Choosing the right type of math to solve a problem.
  Importance: 28/100
• Spatial Orientation
  Knowing where things are around you.
  Importance: 25/100
• Wrist-Finger Speed
  Making fast, simple, repeated movements of your fingers, hands, and wrists.
  Importance: 25/100
• Number Facility
  Adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing.
  Importance: 25/100
• Gross Body Coordination
  Moving your arms, legs, and mid-section together while your whole body is moving.
  Importance: 25/100
• Sound Localization
  Noticing the direction that a sound came from.
  Importance: 22/100
• Peripheral Vision
  Seeing something to your side when your are looking ahead.
  Importance: 22/100
• Memorization
  Remembering words, numbers, pictures, or steps.
  Importance: 22/100
• Night Vision
  Seeing at night or under low light.
  Importance: 19/100
• Written Expression
  Communicating by writing.
  Importance: 19/100
• Dynamic Flexibility
  Quickly and repeatedly bending, stretching, twisting, or reaching out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  Importance: 16/100
• Speed of Limb Movement
  Quickly moving your arms and legs.
  Importance: 6/100

Tools and Technology used by Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers

• Adjustable widemouth pliers
• Adjustable wrenches
• Alternating current AC arc welder
• Anvils
• Bench vises
• Blow torch
• Calipers
• Cutting die
• Deburring tool
• Desktop computers
• Direct current DC arc welder
• Drill press or radial drill
• Electrode holder
• Flame cutting machine
• Flow sensors
• Forklifts
• Frequency converters
• Gas welding or brazing or cutting apparatus
• Goggles
• Hacksaw
• Hammers
• Hand clamps
• Hoists
• Hydraulic press brake
• Hydraulic press frames
• Impact wrenches
• Induction heaters
• Jacks
• Ladders
• Laser printers
• Laser welding machine
• Levels
• Light trucks or sport utility vehicles
• Manlift or personnel lift
• Manual press brake
• Metal band sawing machine
• Metal inert gas welding machine
• Metal slitting saw
• Metal stamps
• Microcontrollers
• Micrometers
• Mill saw file
• Milling machines
• Nibblers
• Notebook computers
• Personal computers
• Pipe or tube cutter
• Plasma arc welding machine
• Pneumatic drill
• Pneumatic hammer
• Pneumatic sanding machines
• Positioning jig
• Potentiometers
• Power buffers
• Power chippers
• Power drills
• Power grinders
• Power saws
• Pressure or steam cleaners
• Protective gloves
• Protractors
• Pry bars
• Pullers
• Punches or nail sets or drifts
• Pyrometers
• Ratchets
• Respiration air supplying self contained breathing apparatus or accessories
• Respirators
• Rulers
• Safety glasses
• Scaffolding
• Screwdrivers
• Scribers
• Shears
• Shielded metal arc welding or stick welding machine
• Socket sets
• Soldering iron
• Speed sensors
• Spot welding machine
• Squares
• Straight edges
• Tape measures
• Taps
• Temperature gauge
• Templates
• Thickness measuring devices
• Threading machine
• Threading taps
• Tinners snips
• Tongs
• Tracer or duplicating or contouring lathe
• Track cranes
• Tube bending machine
• Tungsten inert gas welding machine
• Two way radios
• Ultrasonic welding machine
• Utility knives
• Voltage or current meters
• Welder torch
• Welding electrode
• Welding generator
• Welding masks
• Welding or cutting tip
• Welding robots
• Welding wire
• Wetsuits
• Winches
• Wire brushes
• Wire cutters
• Workshop cranes
• Analytical or scientific software
  • Fred's Tip Cartridge Picker
  • Scientific Software Group Filter Drain FD
  • Value Analysis
• Calendar and scheduling software
  • OmniFleet Equipment Maintenance Management
• Computer aided design CAD software
  • EZ Pipe
• Data base user interface and query software
  • Oracle Database
  • Recordkeeping software
• Electronic mail software
  • IBM Notes
  • Microsoft Outlook
• Enterprise resource planning ERP software
  • Enterprise resource planning ERP software
• Office suite software
  • Microsoft Office software
• Operating system software
  • Microsoft Windows
• Spreadsheet software
  • Microsoft Excel

Employment Industries for Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers

• Fabricated metal product manufacturing (3323,4)
  69,400 employed
• Machinery manufacturing (3331,2,4,9)
  61,300 employed
• Fabricated metal product manufacturing (3321,2,5,6,9)
  25,400 employed
• Motor vehicle body and trailer manufacturing
  25,400 employed
• Commercial and industrial machinery and equipment (except automotive and electronic) repair and maintenance
  15,700 employed
• Motor vehicle parts manufacturing
  15,800 employed
• Machine shops
  14,800 employed
• Ship and boat building
  14,900 employed
• Temporary help services
  13,600 employed
• Nonresidential building construction
  9,100 employed