I'd say over half the welders I've known were high school drop out druggies. Although I guess there's been a good few of that kind posing as machinists too now that I think about it.
Plenty of welders walking around bitching about everything any machinist makes, as if they know everything about machining. Plenty of names ruined that way, for some reason people listen to welders, but not to machinists. For some odd reason welders have often regarded themselves as gods indeed, maybe because on average they make a couple dollars more than machinists.
There's A-holes in every trades and profession, some make managers, but most don't get anywhere and they stick around for years bitching about something or someone.
A decent machinist can make a good welder that will take good care of making sure things are right, and in general we do have a different way to think things thru, even if its just a matter of double checking that everything stayed in place after putting tacks. We can also use decimals
, and machine fixtures for the special welding jobs. I'm glad I became both machinist and welder. (welding came second)
Even the worst of machinist will probably make a decent welder, its all practice and practice. Although some never get it right, its not for everybody.
Machining is more than just practice, but unfortunately it isn't regarded as being much of anything anymore. Welders will always be in some sort of demand although robots are getting quite good at replacing them too, but production machining keeps going down, someday it may only be about repairing stuff.
