The CWB Association Welding Podcast
The CWB Association Welding Podcast
Episode 204 with Terry Mueller and Max Ceron
The CWB Association brings you a weekly podcast that connects to welding professionals around the world to share their passion and give you the right tips to stay on top of what’s happening in the welding industry.
Discover how the Alberta Welding Optimization Committee (AWOC) is at the forefront of fostering innovation and collaboration within the industry with Terry Mueller, a Welding Expert from Calgary, Alberta. Terry discusses the committee's initiatives, from promoting advanced welding techniques to lobbying for industry improvements, all while underscoring the vital role of education and adaptation in this ever-evolving field. The conversation also touches on the challenges of recognizing welding as an engineering discipline in Canada and the inspiration drawn from the next generation of skilled welders. Alongside personal stories of his love for metalworking and cars, Terry champions welding as a promising and respected career path!
Follow Terry:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terry-mueller-p-l-eng-p-tech-eng-iwt-35ba1927/
The Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asetmembers/posts/?feedView=all
Thank you to our Podcast Advertisers:
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Josef Gases: https://josefgases.com/
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All right, I can check. Check, I'm good. So I'm Max Duran. Max Duran, CWB Association Welding Podcast, pod pod podcast. Today we have a really cool guest welding podcast. The show is about to begin.
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Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to another edition of the CWB Association podcast. My name is Max Duran and as always, I'm out there looking for the best stories I can find across this beautiful country of ours and the world. Today I have a wonderful guest coming to us from Calgary, Alberta, who I've worked with on a couple committees here and I've seen his name for a number of years in the industry and he's a wealth of resource and knowledge and I'm very happy to have him on the show today. We have terry muller, who is the principal welding something sme worldly it's all good, I stick metal together, all that he's the welding welder of welding welders.
Speaker 1:So, terry, welcome to the show. Thank you know, I practiced that intro right before the show started and I blew it. So, yeah, it's all good, it's all good man. So, terry, how's Calgary treating you today? Do you got the snow that we got here in Regina?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but we got no mosquitoes anymore, so it's a blessing having the snow. I hate bugs. They all hibernated, but we have to go out and drive.
Speaker 1:Well, you know the years and you know because you're a prairie guy. You know how this works. In the spring is the big, the big factor. You want it to warm up but then you want it to freeze again because all the bugs will hatch and then you get a frost and it kills them all.
Speaker 2:Then you know you're gonna have a good summer oh for sure, when I was working up in fort murray region. You know it's pretty bad when those geese are so big they pick you up and they take you back to their nest. You know that's how bad that if it freezes, you know, and they all pass away.
Speaker 1:So be it well, and up north by the fort mack region, the fish flies, the black flies, uh, the horse flies. They're the size of my fist. You know like they take a chunk out of you. You know people don't realize the amount of insects up in that area because it's pretty swampy right.
Speaker 2:The environment is muskeg. And muskeg is not fun stuff to step in. And all of a sudden you step in. All of a sudden you step in. All of a sudden you see all those bugs coming up. May look at you and they go oh, fresh meat. And that's when you get attacked so, terry, let's start with.
Speaker 1:You know who you are and you know kind of how you got onto the show, so let's start with uh, you know, are you a native to calgary, alberta, or did you end up there? A native to Calgary, alberta, or did you end up there?
Speaker 2:Actually I'm a native to Calgary. I actually was born here, been here for numerous years. Actually, I had a two-year you know two-year stint up in Edmonton A sabbatical, yeah, it was kind of like that and I moved back to Calgary.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and as a you know, you're in the welding industry today. You're an expert in many things welding. But how did this career start? You know, were you a young lad in Calgary thinking I can't wait to grow up and play with metals?
Speaker 2:I will tell you the story of how I got into the welding engineering. So a neighbor of mine, where I used to live first place I lived actually had a small MIG welder. Well, I have a bad hobby, it's coal cars and, as you know, in Alberta we have rust. So I start welding patches. Well, one of my father's friends says can you fix this airless paint sprayer? For me it was a handle. Well, I said, sure, you know, I'd need a couple of inches of weld. I should be able to weld it. And I welded it and guess what happened? It cracked. I didn't know that you can't weld with. You know, on stainless steel, certain things that you didn't prepare properly.
Speaker 2:Then I was kind of upset why did it crack? I can do nice little beads on a panel. And that's got me into the the thing of welding and technology. I I love the science but I did people say, oh, I can weld, and I was like going, I failed my first. Well, failed. Why did it fail?
Speaker 2:and that's led me my career path to date. So I started. I started practicing welding. I bought myself a welder. Um, I still have that same welder I until I, the day I die, that welder's coming with me. My son will be very upset that's his problem about mine and I just love welding. I just you know people forget how important welding is within the world. Yeah, start. I strongly believe it started the industrial revolution well, the iron.
Speaker 2:It was like the second iron age right yes, and you know, and that got me excited. Uh, then I went to southern alberta institute Technology. I took the welding mechanical as well and I just got more and more enthralled in it. And the thing is, I have to admit, I had fantastic mentors from the beginning, from tradespersons all the way up to PhD engineers. It was like you know, everybody says, ah, welding's easy, you know what To make a great weld. It's a science and and it's a pure engineering. I know some people do not believe it's pure engineering. Well, we can discuss that later but you know what it is welding is an art.
Speaker 2:It's an engineering art.
Speaker 1:Well, I find that it is the intersection of many sciences and you can pick any one of them and be great at an individual one. So you know, there's the physical sciences, where you're in control of your body and how well you lay a weld in, and you know the hand-eye coordination and the muscle memory. That's a science in itself. So for the physical welders that are laying beads, they have grasped a piece of that science. Then there's the metallurgy, then there's the materials, then there's the electricity, then there's the ambient surroundings. There's so many layers that all happen once you start scratching that surface, right?
Speaker 2:I fully agree. We're one of the few countries who do not recognize welding engineering as a scope of practice. You think about it. We deal with chemical, we deal with electrical, we deal with mechanical, we deal with all the scopes. And you know, around the world, welding is, you know, highly regarded. I think, to be honest, canada's kind of a little Mm-hmm. We're a little bit behind the pathway that way we are.
Speaker 1:We are now for yourself. You know, when you started getting into this, you said you took the course at safe, which I think that course doesn't exist anymore, but I think now it's under the welding engineering tech, the wet program which would be, which would be similar. Now, when you went into this, did you go into it because you were interested in working in the industry? Were you looking at this as a way to perhaps work in a lab? You know where? Did you see yourself kind of fitting in this industry?
Speaker 2:So when I first started I did go to the Welding Engineering Technology Program. Okay.
Speaker 2:And when I got into it, I got more fascinated by it. Now, as we all know and alberta is the largest consumer of 6010 electrode in the world, don't know why, don't ask we max we had discussions about this, yes, and it's not going to stop anytime soon. And I, I thought, and I started fooling around with wire and I start fooling around with modified waveforms and I saw the potential in that. Then, when I graduated, I, I like, I did pay my dues. I was on the shop ward, you know, took courses, took examinations, until the position I'm at today and I got more and more enthralled in it. And people say, uh, it's just like just put 60, 10, 70, 18, and all of a sudden I was like showing, and I'm, as you probably know, I'm one I love wire processes I think for us to be competitive in the international marketplace, we need to adapt less of f3, f4, like cellulosics and
Speaker 2:encompass wire, yeah, and I think that's something we have to do more and more prevalently. And when I got into it, I start getting to the engineering portion of it. Then I start, you know, and I start getting higher positions. Then we actually start implementing this. And I have one project where we actually did everything in the facility was with wire process. I had to check my car seat. Nobody cut the brake lines of the welders or put a palm underneath. And I had welders going up to me and they said why are we doing this process? And all of a sudden, at the middle of the project project, I had a welder come up to me and says you know what? I'm buying a suitcase. And I said why? Because you know you're right, terry, I can be more efficient in a longer duration period of time. I he said the environment, everything else made him a better welder. What else do you want to hear as an engineer? Yeah.
Speaker 1:No, and it's amazing, like I mean, this topic could be a show in itself. Right, like I cut my teeth in Saskatchewan, I'm well-versed in 6010. It's considered the field rod. When you look at 6010 under a microscope and look at what it's made of and how it reacts and how it's under cold service and how it cracks and all the issues that a cellulose rod can provide, it's hard to make a case for it, right? When you really look at the science of 6010, everything looks like it shouldn't be used. But when you are a welder and you actually do use it, you think of the hundred ways that it's. It makes your job easier in certain instances. What they don't think about is where something else could replace it. Right, and it's like you know, how does this cover that or how does that cover this?
Speaker 2:you're 100. Correct is just that there's an ideology that's been instilled. Even if you go look at the province alberta, they still have a test where it's 60, 10, 70, 18 for your b pressure test. Yeah, yeah yeah, and they, they instill that in the mindset and they uh, my personal opinion is absa needs to expand on that.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like I know there's a wire welding operator ticket that was kind of put forth by AWOC and stuff like that. But you know what, if you go to other countries and see what their pressure test is, they deal with all the welding processes, not just one particular one. And that's what we have to need to do, and especially right now where Alberta is trying to adopt the European trade kind of partnership program, we need to adopt including the testing as well, not just the curriculum, including the testing.
Speaker 1:So for yourself, coming up in Alberta, the oil and gas center of Canada, a province that has really invested heavily at all levels of government into, you know, kind of pushing the idea that this is the main industry for Alberta and always will be. You know, the schools kind of got geared towards it, the colleges, the training centers, everything from the bottom up, and they all have this idea that. And you know, from outside of Alberta we look at it and it seems a little archaic in some ways and this can be very controversial to people inside and outside of Alberta. Right, you know for yourself, do you feel like there has been significant progress in the oil and gas? You know industry in terms of the welding procedures, or do you?
Speaker 2:feel like it's kind of in a rut or there should be advancement. It's not in a rut and thank God for that. If you go look a lot of the end user specifications. There was such great reluctancy, including some of the organizations I used to work for, about wire processes it's and I always make the assumption that you know. People say, oh yeah, just run 60, 10, 70, 18, you'll be great. We still had a repair rate.
Speaker 2:Absolutely we still had, you know, and cold temperatures. We looked at all those things. Now, if you look at the wire processes, you've got a seamless wire that you can put on a spool and you can leave it outside and you don't have to worry about the hydrogen content unless you dump it in the water and drag it behind your truck and everything else. We had to change our ideology. When we had I like I won't mention the company name when I said I'm gonna still wire processes on facility, I had a couple people tell me I'm crazy, we're gonna have all this huge. I had a couple of people tell me I'm crazy, we're going to have all this huge defect. We had a project just north where I live where we had no repairs on a facility and we were running 48 inch and we had one set of welders. They did is two 48 inch joints seven, eighths in a day without feeling fatigued. Once you get everything set up, done correctly, you will have a better product, better quality, better productivity. It's no brainer, yeah.
Speaker 2:And now companies and within alberta are actually having a two price structure. You want me weld stick? Here's one price. You lend me a welder wire, your prices drop. Wow. So it's. It has changed drastically. Good, but, like I said, I never got a Christmas card, so it's just like for some of the things I used to do. And but now when you look and I went to shops and everything in Alberta I'm still love going to shops. And I went to shops and everything in Alberta, I still love going to shops.
Speaker 2:I always say they're the first line of our defense of making sure we have a great product. You don't see them buying new transformers or tombstone welders, stick welders. They want to buy the latest technology and we do have two excellent manufacturers that you know that do sell this technology. And now they're saying look at, terry, I can weld this. I can weld this six inch pipe in minutes instead of taking hours. You know, because you take what? 60, 10, you don't have to grind.
Speaker 1:you know, before you put the hop, the cleaning and the grinding and the lands and the setups and all that work right, like the technology that has come up, like you mentioned it a few times, in the modified waveforms. I mean, there's machines that are specifically made just for this job. You know what I mean yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'll tell you a cute story. So where I used to work, one time I had an engineer who just came freshly out of school, ran up to me and we're in the shop and he pulled on my sleeve. He was so aminate. He goes Terry, Terry, Terry, and I go, what's wrong? Well, he goes, there's a welder over there throwing dirt on a weld. So I'm going, huh, and I'm going. I know the shop pretty well, so I went over and I went like this went, oh my, oh my. I went like this went oh my, oh my. And he says it's smushed dark, it's not dirt, it's flux, he needs it. So we brought it to our attention that every EIT and every junior engineer, had to take a welding course in Calgary.
Speaker 2:Good good and it was the funniest comment that all of a sudden they come to realization. And when they had, when they welded stick, the profanity that came out of some of those engineers mouth I swore made me blush. Then I stand there and they went to wire and all of a sudden I said, okay, this, this is a machine and this is what you do. You point it, you do this, follow this. That's all you have to do and I guarantee you'll put a nice root in and we're not telling like it's complicated, was nicely set up and these welders were actually doing a nice root that meets code. And they said why are we not adopting this?
Speaker 2:I said, well, there you go this is why we have to push the envelope within our specifications and I I had done a spec for a company. It's still valid after 12 years. I was kind of proud of that. We actually pushed the wire process. So that's the thing, and I just find that and the comment I get from that course, max was one of the nicest things I heard. I will never, ever, be mean to a welder again.
Speaker 2:I cannot understand the environment where they weld and everything else, and us as engineers sometimes we will treat them appropriately. I says I'll never, ever do that again, because this lady, she was a very fantastic engineer but she didn't know how difficult welding was when she actually did it. When I heard those comments perfect.
Speaker 1:Well, I you know one of the best stories or experiences I've had with an engineer, because, as a welder myself, I can be honest and say that not all my experiences with engineers have been positive. There has been some butting of heads over the years because I'm not and I didn't ever want to be just the welder that pulled the trigger. I wanted to be an educated welder and understand my trade and my field, and the more you understand, the more you disagree with some of the things that get handed down. You know, and I went to go work for a company here in Regina, one of the largest companies actually in Canada, and I had a wonderful head engineer, nick Coleman. Love the guy, if you're listening, I love you.
Speaker 1:And Nick Coleman, he was head of the engineering department and he had a program with all his engineers where once a week one engineer would get sent down to the floor, coveralls and up, and be matched up with a fabricator. And you're going to go help the fabricator today, tack everything together, check the parts, prep the parts, see the process and get it ready for welding. And then you're going to go check all the measurements post-welding to see how the products came out. And him doing that changed the whole vibe of the fab floor Number one. The welders got to meet and know all the engineers. They got to see them and joke with them and have coffee with them and the engineers all got to try and see the work and they would see where their print, where the print said, yes, this will work, and when they got on the floor, no, it will not. And that connection between the engineering world and the welding world, or the floor shop floor, I feel is so crucial in today's environment.
Speaker 2:I fully agree on that, and we have to add the technologists as well, right the technologists, they're the middle people, they're the ones that communicate both languages.
Speaker 2:I always. I'm right now dealing with a Pega and I'm a first vice president of ASCT, so we're having discussions and I always make this comment it's called the engineering triangle. On one side we have technologists, the other side we have engineers, and the other side we have technologists. The other side we have engineers and the other side we have tradespersons. We need each other triangle. When it's all together assembled, it's one of the strongest geometric shapes. No, and that's where the technology you know the, the welder. They have the gift of the hands. Like I, I can do a good pig weld. I have seen welders who. It's art. I actually start developing a tear down my cheek when I see some of their welding, because I go, wow, and I have engineers.
Speaker 2:I actually had mentors of engineers. You, uh, mentioned one. I had roy bagley. He was a welding engineer and metallurgist. He taught me and when I the thing that impressed me the most, the one time we went for we're making a new weld procedure for a casing bowl, here's a master degree engineer you couldn't tell. He grabbed the grinder. He was grinding with me, it was, and the and the welder goes who's this? I said, well, this is roy bagley. And he went, really, and it was he.
Speaker 2:He mentioned me to be hands-on as a right here and as a technologist, we are the glue that adds all that together. We have to practice. I always call practical engineering. We burn our hands, we go in the shop floor, we go into vessels, we do all that. But we have that other aspect of engineering. You know, weather say I won't affect it, but metallurgically it can. It's invisible. We can't.
Speaker 2:We don't look at brain structure, we can't so. But being a technologist, we can know that. You know what, if you don't preheat that two inch piece of steel, you're going to have issues. Yeah, we have that, and a lot of techn want to aggress progress, especially within their career path, and that triangle is strong in canada is strong. Yeah, I have been to countries where it's not and I still say and hopefully some people listen what the statement? We develop some of the best welders in the world 100 I. I will challenge some of our b pressure welders against any other welders in the world. 100%. I will challenge some of our B-pressure welders against any other welders in the world. We have fantastic programs and everything else. We just make sure that, especially in the high school, that welding is a very respectable career path. I don't call it a trade, it's a career path. And I would love to hear, instead of saying welder, I'd love to hear the word welding technician, because you are a technician, you have skill sets, yeah, and we have to start recognizing that.
Speaker 1:No, you're right, we just placed third in the world at world skills this year. We are in the top 10 every world skills. I've worked in projects all over the world and I always tell people when I work internationally in projects all over the world and I always tell people when I work internationally on projects. You know, I worked at the gold mines in Africa. I worked in a few places and when I'm there, it's always the who's who of the planet for welders, welding technicians, technologists and engineers. I'll see people and it's really interesting because you get to know who the other countries are that are the big hitters. You, you got Australia, you got Germany, you got Sweden, you got sometimes a couple of French guys. You don't see Americans, you don't see South Americans, but there's always a few Canadians. Everywhere I go, there's always a few Canadians because we are very highly regarded and our programs are very, very good. We take it seriously and we're not a country that makes things cheap. We make things expensive, but we make it right. Then that's a difference, right.
Speaker 2:I fully agree and this is something that we have to do within the whole country is we always have to worry about public safety? I'm both apega, asct and all that stuff. We worry about public safety. If something's built in alberta or canada, I can sleep at night. That's right. I know that the quality is there. Some other countries we have, including nd, we have students, so, likede, we have CERNs, so I don't consider it expensive. I think we invest. If you make a product in Canada, you're actually investing more to make sure that it's actually going to meet code requirements, it's going to meet the engineering requirements. So when I hear comments like saying, oh, it's expensive building canada, no, we do extra due diligence and you know it's, it's an investment that's a fee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you're right, you know so, you know I I did misspeak when expensive, because I agree with you. I mean, I'm a car guy just like you. I don't look at, I don't look at cars as expensive or cheap, I look at them as whether complete or incomplete.
Speaker 2:So well, like my I. I love welding, I love building. Um, I'm actually a member of a side of automobile engineers. I love it. That's why I still work. It's terrible, you know it's, but for me cars are an art form, especially metal working. I have got people show me how to panel, beat with the on an old stump.
Speaker 2:There was an old gentleman who used to work. That's art I I was. Am I good at it? Not bad? Maybe I'll work, you know, win first prize for some of my panel beating at cnib. But it's just you know. You know, it's just I, I love metal there's something about it. You know I can heat it, I can. You know I. I can form it, I can stretch it I. You know I I can heat, shrink it if I have to.
Speaker 2:That's right I had a gentleman who was a plater from england. You know we, we accidentally or the quote word accidentally bent a main beam on a skid package. And he comes up and you know he was a soccer fan like I was, and he goes Terry, come here, I'll show you something. He straightened it with oxy-sethylene, he adjusted that torch, he used heating and cooling and patterns. He got that beam where we couldn't even see the difference. That's right, that is beautiful. It is that's tearful patterns. He got that beam where we couldn't even see the difference. That's right, that's, that is beautiful. Like that's tearful.
Speaker 1:That's art yeah, I got taught that, uh, that art form of straightening and heating, in my early 20s working at the steel mill and it has come to be a lifesaver in my life thousands of times. I can't even count the number of times people were about to go get the grinder or get the gouger and take it apart and be like no, no, no, no, no, just get me a torch, I'll straighten her right out, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2:It's beautiful and you know the engineering part of it. You know how you configure the deflection from the heat and the pattern. You know. That's where you know we talk about welders but we have to look at the fitters, we look at everybody in the fabrication process. You know, in Canada we are a very, very skilled country. We are yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's like I mean, one of the things that we talk about at my level with the CWB is how do we maintain that skill? How do we ensure that we have the next generation of skilled labor coming up and have the exiting generations pass that knowledge down right and ensure that, because so much of what I've learned, what you've learned, wasn't in a textbook, it was from our mentors, from the people we worked with, from the people around us. Well, how do we ensure that that gets into the next generation's brains and that they carry that torch? You know how do you feel about that and you know where we're going.
Speaker 2:I will make some comments. One is going to be controversial and the rest I will kind of fill in the blanks. First and foremost and I really think we have to educate high school kids, even junior high school kids being a trades person doesn't undervalue you in society as a person, and that is I have seen oh, you're just the welder. Well, that welder's making more of this engineer. Hey, this welder. Hey look, this welder here is ensuring that you know you got a nice house here, don't you? That welder who welded up that natural gas pipeline is ensuring that you're getting a good constant feed to keep your nice house warm. Having that and that comes from everybody. If you're, say, if your daughter or son wants to become a tradesperson, support them.
Speaker 2:There's nothing wrong with trade school it's everything right yeah, this is where a difference between Europe and here and when I was in my God I'm on some Europe. I'm actually a member of International Institute of Welding on some of the committees and you should see these companies, you know. They say you know, john Smith just graduated from high school. He is going to be an apprentice with our organization and they showed this, showed this huge ad. They were just as proud of him, of being a technician as the engineer who's coming into play or somebody else. They treated the same. They realized they're an integral part of the manufacturing machine. This is something that we have to start doing. There's nothing wrong being a tradesperson. There's nothing wrong with that. We need them. What the other comments I have as well is schools need to stop having it. Computer labs and desk bath, having shop classes. How many shop classes have been shut down? And you're wondering why. It's like my son went to school here.
Speaker 2:He had to drive four miles to take auto class, but they have 300 000 computers, you know. We need to recognize, we need to open up the shop classes again and this is the fault of I I do believe with the boards of education yeah boards of education are going towards more white-collar career paths compared to blue-collar. We got to stop that practice. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's pretty funny where we're immigrating people coming in from other countries because they have the skill. You know how do you say it? The hand-labor skill sets. We should be doing that and turning ourselves.
Speaker 1:No, I agree 100%. And you know, I've seen it. I've seen the destruction of trades programs at high school levels across Canada. They get decimated. I've heard the arguments based off of ROIs, the investment needed. You know the amount of kids they can push through an accounting program versus the amount of kids they can push through a welding program. They can push through a welding program and and to and to your point.
Speaker 1:One of the saddest things that I would experience as an instructor when I was teaching at the college was when my students would graduate from the interprovincial program, the red seal and they would pass and they'd get their red seal and there was a graduation and most of them I would say 90% of my students never went to their graduation for welding because they considered it just welding. And I said you know, you just spent the last three years of your life dedicated to this, to get this Red Seal, to get this interprovincial ticket, which is now recognized around the world, and you still still think of it as just welding. I proudly display my red seals. You know I. You know I went to university too, but my red seals that I got from my work in the industry are as important, if not more than any diploma from university because of the blood, sweat and tears I had to put behind it, and I think everyone should look at those certificate programs, those diploma programs equal or above a university diploma.
Speaker 2:I fully agree. We need is like when I first started 30 years ago. But when I started, a trades person was considered a second class citizen in this country. Your son's what? No, my son's this and that and everything else.
Speaker 2:Um, I I have done trades since I was the age of 12. My father was a qualified towel setter by trade. I was free labor. I went with him. I went in an era where a lot of journeyman people were in the trades and I remember specifically where you said oh yes, sir, you're a welder and I'm going up. That's why I want to have a big, huge push, and AWOC's a big supporter of this as well. What's wrong with calling them technicians?
Speaker 2:no I with the technology we have now and what the welders need to learn, including waveform chopper technology, all these other. You know we have cold metal transfer from everything. This is technology. This is is you think about the computers you know we have and people say, oh, welding machines have computers. I go, oh Lord.
Speaker 2:And they say yeah, look, I can change the waveform and they go what are you changing the waveform for they? Actually, these are young engineers. They ask I say great questions. I say look what I could do. All of a sudden he goes why does it sound different? I said I changed the pulse rate, I did this, I did that. They go wow, these machines have got a lot of tech.
Speaker 2:I can actually hear. Watch this. I pushed two buttons and I said this is my heat input, energy that I'm putting towards that. Well, and the guys are going. Really I said go, wow. And then all of a sudden I said we always have to look at technology and the way welders are. And you go, look at some of the nice trucks they drive and some of the machines that have gone back there. They're technicians, yeah, like they have that technology. How do you say mindset? Because some of these I've seen the one gentlemane and he had a truck, beautiful truck. Everything's the latest technology yeah, I knew exactly that machine was.
Speaker 2:So for me saying a welder I, I always say you'll always hear me say welder technician and I think it's always been that way, but it was undersold.
Speaker 1:you know a lot of the older fellas in the industry and older gals that I work with I'll hear this attitude every now and then, where it's like, ah, just give me my old machine, it does just as good a job as today's machines. And I always have to stop and think and think well, yes and no, right. Like there's a, it's, it's both. Like you are right, 40 years ago I could grab a DC machine and flip it to TIG and run in a nice route and do the job and it would pass code and it would do the things. But today's machines can do so much more to make my job easier and in terms of the problem solving and the understanding required in today's welding world, I think it's elevated.
Speaker 1:We expect more out of our welders. That's something that we hear from industry all the time. I mean even simple things that you don't even think about, Like, for example, we. Most of industry expects a welder to know how to use a computer to send emails, do reports and make an Excel sheet. Well, when do you learn that? You don't learn that in welding school, you know so some of these gaps of what we expect versus what is reality is getting pretty wide.
Speaker 2:I agree, and the thing is too is just dealing with some of the manufacturers of welding equipment. What's wrong with the welder putting on a laptop and actually recording his weld and all of a sudden he sends that information to a central repository with that data? That's awesome, yeah, that that is now technology that's actually viable these days. So, in other words, that welder has to learn how to put a weld in sexual. You know, read a welding procedure, which is an engineer document.
Speaker 2:I don't care what anybody says it is a recipe for success of a weld within an intended service. Go from there, the welder, you know. Then we have quality control and insurance to make, you know, ensure that engineering, make sure that that weld is not under stress, all that stuff. It's a team effort and you know, we got to realize that when the welders stand there they said, oh, the welders with the computers and stuff like that. Most of them have iPads and iPhones and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:I'm still old school, please. Pen and paper never actually crashed on me yet. So I always draft stuff up and I write things down. But I still have a computer as another form of tool, still have a computer as another form of tool. And seeing the welders with chopper I've seen a couple of them with new technology from our, you know, domestic commander, patches, welding equipment. I'm like going show me this, like I'm. I've been at it for a while and I asked them you show me this. And they know the machine better and some of the reps that sell the stuff yeah, I.
Speaker 2:And then to me it's like welders are saying you know what? We have to adapt new technology because the end users requiring it, codes requiring it now is being more prevalent. We got to realize too, oil we always talk about oil gas, but we have carbon dioxide. Pipelines are being manufactured as we speak. Hydrogen think about it in al Alberta. We're thinking about ASME, section 3, which is the nuclear code. We get a look at technology as a good thing. One of the interesting stats is the American Nuclear Commission actually allows GMAW modified waveform routes in their welding process.
Speaker 1:Well, absolutely, they would love it, because even the nuclear code that's existed for decades doesn't allow cellulose roots like I mean. They've been running them 7018 and for anybody out there that wants to run a 7018 open route, it sucks, it's hard but is this now?
Speaker 2:they recognize technology where you know what it can make a sound. Well, in nuclear applications yeah why is there such reluctancy within some of the end users in province albert to allow that technology? It's coming a lot better. But I still see a couple specs saying you know you were, you're allowed stick or tick. You know, but I said, what about gmaw you? Know I have you know especially, I'm a big fan of my favorite max. I still love it. I love metal core. Metal core would modify waveform or group passes.
Speaker 1:It is beautiful yeah, you know, I absolutely it's, it's just phenomenal and it sounds so nice, it sounds I know going in just this is right in there so it's just like I said uh over again.
Speaker 2:It's just that we have to adapt technology and that's having the technician, technos and the engineer working together as an engineering triangle so before we go on the break there's just one more thing I want to ask you.
Speaker 1:Before we get to kind of like the, the work you're working on now and the number of groups you're a part in um, I want to kind of circle back to that initial um discovery for you of the science behind welding and trying to understand why that handle didn't stay on the, on the painter, and getting into that tech, the, you know the metallurgy and the science behind it, One of the things that I've always told my students, because they're reluctant to learn the metallurgy section of the course.
Speaker 1:Always they're always like oh, this is the boring stuff. And I always say to them if there's one thing metallurgy will do for you, it's problem solve. You can weld good and great all day long and you're not going to think metallurgy at all. You're going to do all these jobs and if they go 100%, you're not going to think about metallurgy at all. But the second something goes sideways. You're going to need it and the problem solving cycle gets much smaller the more you know about what's happening in the science For you. How important is it that all the levels get it, from the welders, the fabricators, the technologists and the engineers to speak that metallurgy kind of as a common language.
Speaker 2:You know, when I did failure analysis and we had a couple interesting situations that one company I worked at we had cracking and the cracking looked like a checkerboard and everybody went and we were looking at it and there's everybody.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's the welder's fault, oh, it's the manufacturer's fault. We found out the actual casting material had more aluminum than it than it's supposed to be. Oh sorry, I had more aluminum in there than it's supposed to be. So there's aluminum nitrate cracking. I had to go on the internet and I'm I'm persistent, I'm a stubborn old guy and I went and there was a presentation on it and the exact cracking pattern profile was that aluminum. So it was metallurgy. Everybody was blaming the welder or blaming somebody, but they didn't realize it was metallurgy that failed. Another thing as well is if you're worried about it. As you probably heard, in the United States they built a whole bunch of ships where the metallurgist falsified the mtrs and are wondering why they're getting cold cracking of some of their wells yeah, this is you, this is this is like a hundred million dollar mistake going on right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, and in its metallurgy.
Speaker 2:You, you look at it. How many failures happen because of metallurgy, like hydrogen induced cracking, you know, pool cracking delamination mtr reports everything yeah, everything you know everything.
Speaker 2:If you don't have good, if we don't have good ingredients, are we supposed to make a good product at the end? It's like making a cake right, if you have terrible flour, you're not going to have a great cake. If you have sugar or anything else, we need to know the ingredients are a big quality. Then we can get a good end product. And that's where metallurgy comes into play, because reviewing and I'll be honest, when you review an mtr, people go huh, it meets code no, yes, yes, yes, good enough yeah.
Speaker 2:But code gives you such a wide girth of. A range, yeah, yeah. All of a sudden chromium price has gone up, so you got less chromium and you have a higher nickel and all this stuff. It makes the rods run differently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was in a situation where the 6010, you know, we were running 6010 roots in this application and all of a sudden went to a new batch and it ran horribly. Oh yeah, and everybody was up and I said, okay, I want, I want the MTRs, I want the actuals. So we did the actuals and from the 6010 that we got that was like in a box, four or five years old, ran beautifully.
Speaker 2:All of a sudden new stuff? Didn't, but we'd looked at the MTRs. The formulations change. Does it meet code? Yes, it does, but does it meet? What did you say? The operation fact? You know. Operability fact and all this stuff.
Speaker 2:That's where we, that's where metallurgy came into play. And guess who told me about the welders saying, yeah, watch this. I had watch this I I showed you and he was showing me that some bit was fingernailing all this stuff. Yeah, it's it. The metallurgy part comes into play for everything, and especially when you have like one project that was on the welder, the welding engineer actually picked uh, was it uh?
Speaker 2:316l electrode for a pipeline that was carbon steel and he was just wondering why. You know the well was written. I said well, you got dilution from the metal and all this stuff on the 316. Why did you pick stainless? He didn't know. He was a mechanical engineer. He didn't know the art of metallurgy. Right. It's smart. Right.
Speaker 1:He might have gotten away with a 309, maybe, but not a 316. He might've gotten away with a 309, maybe, but not a 316.
Speaker 2:No, and that's what he picked. That was just we did a replacement pipeline to make that not functioning. It was only lasted for about I think it was three years, yeah, and that was it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, those are the lessons learned.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, All right, well, thanks, terry, let's um, let's take our break now for our commercials. All right, well, thanks, terry, let's take our break now for our commercials. We'll be back here in two seconds from our advertisers, and don't go anywhere. We'll be back here for the second half of the show with Terry Mueller from Calgary, here on the show on the CWB Association podcast. Don't go anywhere.
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Speaker 1:And we are back here to cwb association podcast. My name is max ron. Thanks so much for staying with us today with my discussions with terry here. Terry, you know, one of the things that we were talking about at the onset of the show was kind of the groups that you're a part of and you know kind of how I got to get to know you and hear your voice and see what you do. And you know you said that you'd want to talk about a few things. So first of all, let's talk about the AWOC committee, right? This is a committee that comes out of Alberta. It's the Alberta Welding Optimization Committee. You know, explain a little bit about what this committee does. Maybe there's people in Alberta who've never heard about it and are interested, and I know that there's you guys do a lot of great things.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the Alberta Welding Optimization Committee and my bat to Yarmitch, who's the president told me how many years I've been in it, so I really feel these days.
Speaker 2:It was a group of individuals who are in the welding industry trying to promote better welding and in the welding industry trying to promote better welding and when we mean by better welding is, as we talked previously before the use of 6010 in Alberta was just rampant and looking at new technology and everything else. So a group of like-hearted individuals thought to start a committee and that's where the Welding Optimization Committee started to play. It is trying to make betterment of both the trade of welding, the technology of welding and the engineering of welding. That's our goal trying to increase efficiency within this product. We have developed a couple of things that were successful and one that's not that successful, but it was just that we're trying to promote and recognize that well-being is an integral part of the growth of Alberta and the QB, and that's where we get involved into committee work and code work and APSA, which is a jurisdictional agency within the province of Alberta, having a relationship with them. We're trying to be a cohesive unit to make things better.
Speaker 1:And that's one of the things. Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and one of the things we try to always do, and anything that I do is we try to protect public safety at all times. How can we make things better?
Speaker 1:Well, one of the things I noticed since joining the group is that it's very diverse represented fields. There's people from colleges, training centers, there's people from that are engineers, technicians from the supplier industry. There's kind of a very good mix of a cross section, I would say, of what is a welding industry in Alberta, and I think that's very important for a committee to be successful.
Speaker 2:I wholeheartedly agree. We need. I think as an individual I can't do it all. Anybody who says you can do it all is not telling the truth. Yeah, and we need suppliers, and I have suppliers that I have dealt with for many, many years. They have been a godsend to me.
Speaker 2:We have engineers, we have welders, we have colleges colleges I love trying to support best I can possible, because I would like to teach technologists that there's more to life than just thinking of yeah, let's burn a rod. No, let's think outside the box. Hybrid laser beam welding, for example, friction stir welding, all this stuff, and they go. What's hybrid laser beam? Oh, that's my next favorite thing. Yeah cool. It's like you know, metal core is one thing, but doing hybrid, hybrid laser beam and certain applications, it's going to be uh, hit out of the ballpark yeah and that's where we start developing that.
Speaker 2:You know what this is a tight industry and especially in alberta, we know each other pretty good, so you know what. I have phone calls from people I used to work with and they phone me up. I phone them up and I my suppliers. I I always ask you know, I don't if I'm have a reason of doubt in myself. I'd rather go to supplier and say what do you guys think? And they'll send it to their specialists within there and at least you have a cohesive answer to a solution that you have to resolve. And that's where everybody comes into play and everybody in the industry and I have to. Honestly, I think welding is a very tight family it is you know I stand there.
Speaker 2:I have still people who you know I have worked with for many years. They tap me on the shoulder and I'm like, oh, I'm going to get hit, no. But I said, hey, I worked on you on this project in here and I have guys who phone me up and say what do you think about this? And I phone up people and I see people on the street, we stop, we talk to each other.
Speaker 2:It's a family and I think it's one of the few trades that we're so close together and that's why, with AWOC, having the supplier to the technologist, to the engineer, to the specialist, and we're all working together, we're trying to make welding better within Alberta. It's a worthwhile cause.
Speaker 1:Well, and I'll you know in the meetings that I've been with it's been a couple of years, now it's I've noticed that you also have the government's ear. You do seem to get quite high up with some of your asks. You are trying to get in and not just discuss amongst yourselves but actively pursue and lobby governments and agencies for change.
Speaker 2:Oh for sure, and especially in the position I'm in right now as first vice president of the Alberta Association of Engineering Technologists and Technicians. I get in front of the MLAs and the ministers and it's funny where they have a different attitude, where they say, oh, it's just a tradesman. And they look at my hands Sorry, they're all beat up, burns and everything else, but they will and I say, well, this is what I've told them. I work with, I deal with AWOC.
Speaker 2:I explain to them what's going on. And now they're going. Oh, that's very interesting. I want to do and this is kind of my, you know, I'm at the later stages of my career I want to do is see any, any project that's going to be done in Alberta. Stay in Alberta, I'm. And we can do that by creating greater efficiencies. I am sick and tired of seeing Magna projects being shipped out overseas to be manufactured outside this country. Yeah, I, this is something where AWOC's trying to do as well. We're trying to keep work within Alberta. We're trying to improve efficiencies. The wire welding operator ticket People are, you know, oh geez, you're diluting things. No, if we can have somebody who specializes in the wire process, he doesn't want to do the tag and stick. There's an option there. It's like how many you know you go overseas and you go to some of these other countries. They don't have a deep pressure ticket, they just do a bend test and you know so be it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great we are. We have regulations, we have things to protect our country, right, and I want to do, do and especially with awalk, as well as keep that work in here. And this is where, where I had bathed your match, there was a couple other individuals were much younger and I had no gray hair. Back then we talked about, talked about it and you know, starting this committee. It was passionate about welding professionals and we got together and we used to. I remember some of our meetings were fantastic. I have a problem.
Speaker 2:And we kind of everybody just said hey. I had this, yeah, you know it wasn't like hey, you know I dealt with it. I'm going to keep it to myself. You go fix it yourself. No, no, I was. We were. We were there to help each other. That's why we're trying to continue with this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now you also mentioned another group that you're with, which is ASET, right, so you know what is it that you do with that organization and what's their scope and what are they trying to do.
Speaker 2:So the Association of Engineering Technologists in Alprogna, alberta, so we are a regulator of registering technologists and engineering technologists and technicians.
Speaker 2:And this is where I want to mention at this time I'm welding has gone, advancements have gone off this charts, like if you look at the new machines and everything else, they're technicians and what we do now is if you are a qualified tradesperson there's numerous other fields but I I love my welding. So if they, if somebody comes in from welding, I make sure that that skill, make sure we have this person, and they can become a certified technician. And the next step from certified technician and I'm talking to the IIW, the International Institute of Welding If you're a certified technician you should be on the income international welding technician. Technician yeah.
Speaker 2:So that is like the red seal for technology. Yeah. So that's something we're doing with ASET. We're dealing with Bill 23, which is the Professional Governance Act. That is to allow certified engineering technologists to have a scope of practice. So at least you know that the person who took the education, experience and everything else is capable of handling that work. Yeah. So that's kind of what.
Speaker 1:ASET is and what kind of people are on the ASET board? Are you? Is there trades people? Is there? Is there engineers only? And you know, for the people that are listening, how do they find out about these programs and what they're doing?
Speaker 2:So there's on the website wwwasctabca. Not bad for a guy who hasn't had coffee this morning.
Speaker 1:You haven't had coffee. I'm on my third one man I don't know.
Speaker 2:And go on the website and see what programs that are applicable to you.
Speaker 2:So, the thing is is we do not have engineers on the main committee because it is ASCT. On the board, you have to be a member of a certified engineering technologist. You have to have so many years experience to get on. The only time that we get involved with the Pega is with the professional technologists, Because it's under the EGA act that we have to have representation for both a PAGA and ASCT to make selections for P-TECH. But it's strictly engineering technologists and I highly recommend if you're a technician to apply as well. Become a board member, because we need trades people, because the thing is coming out of school. I'll be honest, you come out of school. I'll be honest. You come out of school, you just graduate from kindergarten. You're just starting. You're just starting. You're just starting. Having a technician who had so many years experience and everything else, they see things in a different light.
Speaker 2:They dealt with the technologies. They'd have done with the engineers. We, we. I would love to see a technician, because our election is happening very soon, and if you're a certified technician within the problem solver, please apply as a board. It's an organization where I think we're now 12,000 strong.
Speaker 1:That's a good size for just one province.
Speaker 2:It's a good size. We would like to see more people come technologists, technicians. It's one thing it does. It guarantees public safety.
Speaker 2:We have certified you that you have the capability of handling engineering decisions within your scope, and that makes a huge difference. The problem is with technologists in the province of Alberta is technologists is not what we call a recognized right to title. Engineers is one thing. I can graduate from beauty school and call myself a technologist and unless you're in a certain group which the government has, you can call yourself that. I think it dilutes it. Solve that. I think it dilutes it. Coming a member of ASCT, we're going to fight to make sure that you graduated from post-secondary education. You have done this, you have done the due diligence to be granted that CET title and hopefully eventually the P-TECH pile of professional technologists.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's something nationally. That's been a struggle. It's not an Alberta problem, this is something across Canada. Like you said said. We have some of the finest um, I would say, welding adjacent programs to not call them welding programs in the world, yet we don't have welding engineering as a as a title, which is mind-blowing considering that we, we are probably the number one for mining, right up there for oil and gas, right, you know, right up there for manufacturing, but somehow we don't.
Speaker 2:We don't have this title Like so the problem is and I've been dealing with this for a while and Engineer Canada does not send me a Christmas card Welding is, I still consider, a true engineering discipline. I deal with chemical, I deal with electrical, I deal with all the five main ones except for environment.
Speaker 1:Even environmental we get into yeah, there's a big esg component to it, absolutely yeah so we look at everything.
Speaker 2:We don't kind of concentrate on one, but we're wide and the thing is is like how can 63 of countries around the world recognize welding as a true engineering discipline, but we can't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't. I actually don't know the background of that and I don't understand why there would be an issue with that happening.
Speaker 2:Well, I always make. When you stand there in a meeting and I always do this and they say, ah, welding's welding. I said, okay, I want everybody to go look around the building, I want to look at your chair and everything else how many guys are sitting on a weld.
Speaker 2:Would you want that weld to fail? How about the building, those beams? You know? Are they wood? No, no, no, they're metal. Do you want to make sure that those welds are good? And I said engineering, welding. Engineering is a very disciplined art that should be recognized in Canada. No. Why can CWB recognize international welding engineer, but Engineer Canada cannot?
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. It seems to be a crossroads there. Yes, can and cannot, that's right. That's right. It seems to be a crossroads there where, at CWB, we've had to. I mean, we are codes and we are our regulator for this country. But there's times when you take your hat off and look at the rest of the world and say, okay, we got to keep up as well. I mean, we can make our own rules and that's dandy for our house. But if we're not playing nice in the neighborhood, we're also going to handcuff ourselves, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're 100% correct on that and I'm an international welding technologist. I had to do the examination because I was number.
Speaker 2:I think I was number five in Canada and they said, oh, you're in a two-year program, but here it's three-year. Okay, I'll take the exams. Then, after I took my exams, and they said, oh yeah, two years is good enough. Now I go thanks, you know, I took all that studying for nothing, but it's just like when I took it and it's amazing where I have that designation that CWB gifted me and they said, oh, you're IWT and I work in Trinidad they recognized it. The BP recognizes it, shell International recognizes it because it's part of ISO 3834 requirements.
Speaker 2:And if you're in the welding industry, please read that ISO, because I think that's going to be coming in the future, because that's kind of like a guarantee for people making sure that the welding process, from the process from beginning to the end, is going to flow correctly and at the end we're going to have a product that's going to meet or exceed the parent engineering requirements. Right, it's just. I don't know why it's just welding in Canada. It's just, and I'm glad that the problem solver is doing something to get like you will drive highway to join the trades. I don't see anything saying about join technology, do this, yeah, saying join the trades because they realized was the average age of a welder in Alberta. Now it's like 61 years old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's in the 50s. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so think about what's going to happen in five years time down the road. Yeah, that's, I think about what's going to happen in five years time down the road yeah.
Speaker 1:I think about myself. You know I'm coming up on 50. I got maybe another, you know, maybe 10 years left in me and I feel like I'm not even close to being done what I wanted to do, or or to give back what I need to give back, um, and and it's, it's, it's, it's disheartening sometimes, but you know, until I see a kid, until I run into that 20 year old girl who's starting her welding journey and inspires me all over again and gives me that and gives me that hope that you know what, maybe I'm just doom and gloom a little bit too much on my side. Maybe maybe these kids are all right, you know.
Speaker 2:I had, I never forget, when I worked with one company there was this female engineer and she hadn't job shadowed for a while. She went to back to school, became a welding engineer. She said you know why this is cool? Yeah, she knew the terminology. We won't talk about terminology, this is a podcast. Yeah, but she had certain words. I'm like looking at her going and even if the welders were dropping their jaw, I just look inside the pipe. There was a certain thing and a defect. Yeah, and he went up and she sounds like she came, went back to school as a welding engineer.
Speaker 2:I had a couple of young ladies to live around here and they see me tid welding. I have my door open, music cranked and they asked me the question and saracen, you guys are better dig welders than I am. Maybe when you meet and I says, you know, I have seen the best dig welder I ever seen in my life was this female dig welder. It was beautiful, like she had to take more patience than I did and everything else. And she said, yeah, you know, there's a lot of females now going into the trades, and rightfully so. It has actually made a huge improvement, in my opinion. I agree.
Speaker 1:I agree, it elevates the industry.
Speaker 2:I don't have to go to college, she said. You can get an apprenticeship. The government asks you to give me money to go and attend this. So they're not going to give you money to attend university, but if you want to become the trades person, you actually come. And they went up and came by and they are actually going getting their apprenticeship. We need to promote the industry more.
Speaker 1:No, it's true, it's true. Well, Terry, we're getting close to the end of the interview here. It's uh, it's getting close, but there's a couple of things I wanted to ask you, just Just in terms of Alberta specific. You know, sometimes Alberta is a little bit of a discussion across Canada, you know they. Sometimes Alberta can be very strong in its opinion. Let's say that we talked about oil and gas, which is what everyone thinks about when we talk about Alberta, but I actually don't know if that's necessarily the future right, Because when I look at the prairies me being in Saskatchewan and what we have out here, in the.
Speaker 1:West. I look at the amount of space we have. I look at the amount of energy we have and the ability, the resources we have, the mining, all that, all the other industries that we kind of haven't put the investment into that we perhaps should have when we were all just gung-ho on the oil and gas. So for yourself, especially in the wire-fed process world that you love to promote, where's manufacturing in Alberta? Where's the state of manufacturing? That's been a discussion I've heard asked across Canada. You know where's Alberta in manufacturing, because I feel like they're maybe a little bit behind in trying to catch up. But that's from the outside. I'd love to hear your opinion.
Speaker 2:So my opinion and this is I'm shutting the doors, dogs are playing crazy on something right now. My opinion is the manufacturing in promise alberta needs to step up. I hear this is the and I always state this in alberta we call costs. What is it going to cost this new welding machine? Why can't we say invest? If I can make a welder pay this machine off in six months time and actually increase my productivity, are we investing instead of costing? That is kind of the mindset we have in Alberta. Has it improved Tremendously? You know they're looking at cobots, they're looking at wire feeders. Like they're done with stick welding, like their shops are actually like perfect, they're transitioning, they're moving over. I have one.
Speaker 2:I looked, shops are actually like they're transitioning, they're moving over. I looked and there's where's your stick machine.
Speaker 2:It's outside, in the back, because the hill, and that's where everything's wired out yeah the problem was and it was not and this is a comment that specifically I will state we were at fault as end users, as epcs and everything else we put restrictions on, because what happened previously 25, 30 years ago they still instill it like flux core was a perfect example 30 years ago, flux core as well did it. Like you know. There's a sheet of material and they folded it and sometimes they had a hopper, they had hollow spots and everything else now and all of a sudden you get porosity and some other issues. That was 30 years ago. Think about your computer. You're on right now. Imagine that computer. When I paid back you know I still have my receipt when I got my 386 with a wonderful 16 color monitor and the thing crashed all the time.
Speaker 2:But we still accept computers yeah, yeah now companies realize you know what that was back then. This is now if you go look at one of the largest oil and gas companies I heard through grapevine. Their new welding spec is specifically for production and quality, which is more towards welding. Stick is an exception not the rule.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. I've seen lots of like. I've been looking at some of the new procedures around the world for oil and gas nuclear and it's all mig, root, flux, core fill and cap, like almost all of the ones I see now and I'm, like my favorite, still metal core.
Speaker 2:So I did a project where it was metal core root, fill and cap nice, nice and we still it was not flawless execution, because the thing with metal core is because of the process itself. Sometimes you get little silicates and sometimes you have the nd technician who actually will scan it and say, oh, that's a lack of fusion. And I said you know, no, no, no, it's actually silicate inclusion here. Let's cut out the sample. We polished it, we took a white, ultraviolet, white light. You get the fluorescent color. And they said, oh, I still think it's a lot of confusion. No, no, please, it's, it's code mentions it. And now everybody is starting to learn how to work with it and that is a huge thing.
Speaker 2:Now I remember a story that I did approximately about 15 years ago out in ontario where a company was doing these injection quills.
Speaker 2:They were having welding problems with the olets and everything else and I went out there and it's just like looked at these guys and they said, oh, we got problems, we got distortion, we got this. So I went out there for five days, you know, and I said, okay, I'm here to help you out. And I went there and grabbed my lid. I said can we get up? Why are you guys welding this with a stick? Why don't you grab suitcase? Oh, I can't do it, can't do it. And I said, oh, here, let me go, let me here, let's go to us. So I have a contact at this one company and they said, hey, I need this, I need your sales rep out here too. So we just got this machine, brought it in there, just the machine. We ran a grand modified waveform roots with the root fuel and cap with the flux core and all of a sudden the guy says I paid off six welding machines in seven months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he goes up as sarah and he says I'll buy you lunch next time I saw you see, ya, I was found there, I said it, and that's where the thing was like the guys were saying, oh you can't well, no, let with uh, with the wire, you know yeah, and then just, it's just this mindset and we're still in Alberta and Saskatchewan's improving, because I'm actually a member of Pegas in Saskatchewan.
Speaker 2:Deal with some of it Is they are more how would you say? They don't think inside the box. They're allowed to think outside the box a bit and I've seen where can we use wire or duplex stainless steel? Can we use this?
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm like like going sure, you can absolutely and they go really said yeah, I'm all for it. But I still see some end users still have restrictions of that and but when you're seeing when the specification has been written, it's like 20 years ago Times have changed your computers changed. Your cars have changed, like I always make you know, as we are gearheads is you know imagine, in 1985, a 350 Chevy put out 160 throbbing horsepower.
Speaker 2:I have a 2022 Honda Civic Si that puts out 220 horsepower and I get 52 miles per gallon and half the cylinders and half the cylinders. So you know what Technology is okay. We just need to adapt it more within our industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, I hope it comes in the West. We're a little bit stubborn out West in terms of how we advance, but I feel like we also like to make money. Right, the west has been pretty good at always being able to make money and we keep. Maybe that's enough, maybe just the incentive of hey, you're not going to be able to make enough money unless you advance with the technology because, trust me, our competitors are our competitors.
Speaker 1:I was at a meeting in the States a couple months ago and someone made the comment about well, you know, out in Asia, they just pay people five cents a day and that's why they make it so cheap. And one of the companies that was there, who has a huge facility in Asia, said that's not true. That's not true. What Asia did is that they invested into robotics and lean and 5S and systems. So it's not that they pay people five cents an hour. Is that that they can make a thousand of them in the time it takes us to make one? And there's, that's the difference. It's not the pay, it's the speed. Right now, if we're not going to be able to do the speed which I don't know if we want to compete on that level. But we can. We can compete on the quality level. We can. We can compete on the innovation and design, the development level.
Speaker 2:There's so many things where we could be leaders I'll drop a very good point, as they're willing to invest. Yeah, we call it cost. They're willing to invest. One of the things I want to kind of mention right now. I'm a member of aws on b2 committee dealing with welding procedures. I'm on the chairman for arc energy and sharing industry in the united states adopting waveform control welding and all the modern stuff kind of needs to step up yeah yeah, and that is something it's like they're saying.
Speaker 2:It's like you, a tig, is still I. This is my opinion one of the most difficult welds to make and it's a skill set and it's slow, very slow. I can run a wire process and make just as good well as a take and I could do it for nearly you know, 25% of the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And a fraction of the cost a fraction of the gas. Like everything, yeah.
Speaker 2:So that is something that we've looked at, because when we stand there and they adopt it, we're adopting. While we're doing arc energy, we're actually doing calibration of weight burn patrol welding machines and we are adopting, we're doing actually a recommended product. Aws recognizes it that we have to do this, I think something that we have to look at from CSA and other things that we have to start looking Like. Don't worry about the stick. Stick's already well established, 50 years in code, all that stuff we need to start looking how to adopt modern technology.
Speaker 2:One of the things I would love to see in csa code, since we're talking about welding, is actually having the welding software program part of your wps oh, wow, yeah, that's. Changes have been made numerous times with other manufacturers have that as an essential variable. They are fine-tuning our machines all the time. We can get software programs, we can go online, grab it. It should be written on the WPS.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember working on an Inconel job and we had a brand-new Lincoln STT. I reached out to my rep and I was like I got a weird ink canal here. I just got my lab report back. It's got some weird alloys that are a little bit on the edges of the scope of what I'm used to. He emailed me the procedure he emailed me. I put it on a USB, I plugged it into my machine, done.
Speaker 2:I was on a project up in Port McMurray and what we did is on the inside. They did stick. Don't ask me why.
Speaker 2:I said, okay, fine, had downhand BD rod down and on the outside we did as we ran, modified short circuit routes. And all of a sudden I went up and I never forget it where we were starting to have a little difficulty dealing with this type of wire, this application, and I phoned him up and said hey, I don't know what's going on in here. I checked the gas, everything else, and the guy goes yeah, sleep on it tonight, we'll send you another program. And that's what you said. They sent me a program, put on USB stick, went through all the machines, took me not even five minutes each machine. All of a sudden got fixed Done, yeah, done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's wild and and I and it's good for the future. I think it's good for bringing the interest in, like letting the kids know too, like you're going to play with some really cool toys, like you're going to like the future is really neat, like there's, it's going to be endless. Every welder in the next 20 years is going to know how to run a cobot CNC cutting machines processes.
Speaker 2:These things are all wild. We I worked when I was working with one organization, the BP came out and we went to this one facility in Calgary who graciously lends us their lab, and we had the twin wire lincoln machine, the hyperfill, yeah, hyperfill. Then all of a sudden he goes up and I. He looked at me.
Speaker 2:I said I don't care in this place, here, you're gonna try it it's cool yeah, he tried it and I said here's a joint, I want you to fill it angles. We filled it goes. Why are we not changing our spec to encapsulate this technology? And I'm going, that's the question that we need to ask. That's right. But when he saw Hyperfill and one of the things I had when I was down in Lincoln as well is when they was with MCAW, quinn Wire, mcaw I had a wonderful tan because I was stupid, because my shirt was not up to my neck. After I did about 15 minutes of welding, great tan in that one.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of jewels there, boy.
Speaker 2:I was down there and I said, okay, I had my thing. And all of a sudden I didn't see my button get a button nose welding away. Because I'm one of those guys when I'm welding everything, you could take a gun beside me and shoot it off. I was still on the porch and I welded it and it was like, wow, we need to help industry fabricators, anybody who wants to adapt this technology. We should be there for support, not hindrance. And that was a huge thing. And I seen shops where you come up and like I max you know me, I like going on shop floor and all of a sudden got guys, here's a spool, I got dental spool, let's try it on and they're going. This is cool.
Speaker 2:They just say it's a little hot, but you know it is hot but you know, when I saw and one of the shops I dealt with and it's a great shop I did is actually they had cooling vests which now you could buy for cheap. Yeah, air cooled, yeah, and they had a cooling vest and, all of a sudden, that that helped the wilders be more consistent. Well, there's cooling helmets now.
Speaker 1:There's cool helmets that blow cold air and fresh air and like I mean, it's a different world. It's a different world. It is and, uh, and I'm glad it is because, you know, although I fondly remember many of the crazy, dirty, nasty things I did in my job, they weren't good for me. They weren't good for me.
Speaker 2:It's pretty bad when you, when we used to, when we used to well, you used to blow your nose and it was black. It would be black for days, like I mean my uh. One time I was down there was doing a bunch of tig welding and bring goes. Why are you on your I have an inclined bench. Why do you go on the opposite way to get the art going on my lungs? Because after a while, when you take well, you feel it build up yeah, you do now these days.
Speaker 2:You know what we're making sure the welders are doing it safely.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That you know what they can extend their career path. You know there's a lot clinging to the manufacturers, oh&s. You know codes and regulations, everything else you know. It's not the dirty industry job it used to be. No, it is now technician level best way to put it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome. Well, thanks so much, terry. Is there anything you'd like to say, last words or a shout out to anybody.
Speaker 2:Get involved. Yeah, when you're silent, you'll never be heard. That's why I'm on different committees. People say why are you on so many committees and stuff like that Is? You need your voice to be heard. And, for example, I'm on AWS, I'm on ASME, section 9, I'm on SAE some other codes Don't be sipped to welding. Sae is now adopting different welding practices as well within their industry because of my involvement. So get involved. Cwb volunteer, ask them. Csa committees get involved. There's nothing wrong with it. 10 committee meetings You'll be amazed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the people you meet through the committee meetings are amazing. Because I love. I'm on a number of committees. I always have been since I was young, and all I do is learn. I just learn and learn and you meet amazing people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's been a fantastic career amazing people. It's been a fantastic career. It's been a really hot subject in my life. It's had a spark in my interest Just kidding A lot of puns.
Speaker 1:I'm shocked.
Speaker 2:It's a great industry to be in Awesome Well, everyone.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much on behalf of everyone that's going to listen. Terry, please reach out to the AWOC committees. The committees in Alberta get involved. Like you said, it's always very not only fruitful for your own career but for the industry to have people be more involved.
Speaker 2:For sure. Well, thank you very much for your opportunity to have this discussion with you. I think it was fantastic and, like I said, my main job for my career path is I want to get work back in Alberta, and we can do that by increasing the efficiency of it Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks a lot, terry, and for all the listeners that are following along with the podcast. Thank you so much for making it such a success. We are trudging forward. We're into our fifth season over 200 episodes, over 50,000 downloads and we're growing like crazy. And it's all because of our listeners and, of course, our wonderful guests and their stories. We very much appreciate it and I'm not going to leave a walk alone. I think I'm going to pull a couple more people out of there for interviews, because it's a really fun group I think matthew.
Speaker 2:Just I'll send matthew that we elected him to do the next podcast. How's that? Yeah, we can we can do a presentation next week. We can recircute the favor.
Speaker 1:Perfect, awesome. Thanks a lot, terry and everyone. Take care, I'll see you at the next episode, so don't go anywhere. Thanks so much. We hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 3:You've been listening to the CWB Association Welding Podcast with Max Zerlin. If you enjoyed what you heard today, rate our podcast and visit us at cwbassociationorg to learn more. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions on what you'd like to learn about in the future. Produced by the CWB Group and presented by Max Horn, this podcast serves to educate and connect the welding community. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.