Episode 253: The Weld Dr with Daniel Brand

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. Subscribe, listen, and stay connected to the people who keep the world welded together

Daniel Brand joins us from Australia to share his journey from boilermaker to welding inspector, content creator, and entrepreneur. What started as a backyard aluminium boat build quickly grew into a thriving social media presence and new career opportunities. We discuss apprenticeships in Australia, welding inspection, skilled labour shortages, building a business through content creation, and the future of welding technology.

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Transcript

Welcome And Meet Daniel

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Welcome to the CWB Association Welding Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Hua. Let's flip up the lid and spark some conversation. Welcome to the CWB Association Welding Podcast. As always, it's Kevin, your host, and tonight I have a very special guest, Daniel Brand from Australia. How's it going, Daniel? Yeah, very good. Thank you. Very good. You are my first Australian guest, so I'm very happy about that. Well, that's good to hear.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I'm glad it's me.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

So, Daniel, it's kind of weird. Like, I literally have only known you for, I don't know, maybe a month, month and a half on social media. And like you just blew up super quickly on there. So I wanna uh we'll touch on that, but I want to go back to when you were

Discovering Welding As A Kid

SPEAKER_03 0:52

a kid. Like, what were what were you like as a kid? What uh when did you discover welding?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Ooh, that's a good question. For me, I reckon I was about maybe 11 or 12, and my dad bought a like an old transformer Tig machine. And he knew a little bit about welding, and he sort of like got me and my brother into it a bit and yeah, tried it out. And yeah, sort of loved it really. It's straight off the bat, always always really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Is that uh did you want to go into welding right away after you discovered it, or were you kind of headed down a different path?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Well, originally it was sort of looking into doing like agricultural science or something related to agriculture. I had a lot of you know, grew up sort of in a farm country and all my friends were getting into agriculture, and so I wanted to go to university originally and put a lot of effort into, you know, up to the later years of high school to study hard and get some good good grades. And then um once I hit later in high school, I sort of rediscovered welding when Metal Tech was an option for us, and I just remembered how much I liked it as soon as we started that, and yeah, it sort of changed my career path pretty quick, which was which was a good thing for me, I think.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Yeah. Um is like is the welding industry pretty pretty like happening in your place? Like, is it pretty prevalent? Is there a lot of manufacturing or anything?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

It's nothing like North America, but we do have some like pretty massive mining industry over here. It's it's sort of our second biggest export in Australia. So it's it's maintenance and upgrades is a massive part of ever what everyone does if they're in heavy industry. Um so we we have a lot of workshops around the cities that support the rural, like you know, the remote sort of sites, so a lot of mining sites and oil and gas sort of fields, and there's a lot of that sort of industry that people chase.

Apprenticeships And The Uni Pressure

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Yeah. So when you got out of high school, since you didn't go into agriculture, did you go into a welding school or anything?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

It's a bit here, it's either like you go straight into an apprenticeship. So if you're going into a trade, most people will drop out of high school in year 11 to go straight into a trade, and they'll do like a we call it TAFE, as it's a it's a trade school that you go to, you know, two weeks out of every month or something like that. And that goes for four years until you're a qualified tradesperson.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Wow. Well, that's kind of cool, actually. You're you're kind of rewarded for dropping out of high school if you're in a trade.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yeah, yeah, pretty much. It's it's such a massive push here for everyone to go to university out of school, but like we're going through a massive skilled labor shortage at the moment, and it's uh you know, wages going up for the tradespeople, and uh I think less not enough people are capitalizing on it at the moment, to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Mm-hmm. So so when you were in high school, people were pushing towards university. Who are those people?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

So uh all the teachers in high school, they push you towards university. Um, I know everyone's parents they push them towards university. It's it's such a massive thing here that if you don't make it to university, you're not you're not doing well. But I don't know, I think it's the other way around to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 4:09

Yeah, you're looked at as being you know, a lesser human if you can't if you can't achieve university.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

That's right. It's it's how they make you feel when you're in school. But yeah, you know, like most of my friends that went to university, they're you know, they're still trying to pay off their student debts, and you know, that none of I don't know any of them that own a house yet. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

So yeah, so so you did this apprenticeship, um, you know, hard. So is it a four-year apprenticeship in Australia?

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Yeah, yeah, four years. Yep. So it's it's four years and it's sort of mostly in the workplace, but then you know, a couple weeks here and there in a trade school. Um, they have you know, there's not too many of them around, but yeah, you you go spend a week block or two-week block every month or every couple months there to do tick off a few units.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

So after your apprenticeship, did you like right now? Obviously, you know, if if people don't know Daniel, he's building a boat in his in his backyard, he's built a trailer, it's crazy. But once you did your apprenticeship, where did you go from there?

Early Jobs And Subcontractor Culture

SPEAKER_01 5:13

So I started out at a company that done like reverse osmosis water treatment plants, and it was a lot of stainless steel piping. I don't think I even touched carbon steel until I left that place, to be honest. It was it was yeah, it was it was good, really good place to learn. Um, the only problem was it's one of those workshops where everyone was a subcontractor, so no one actually worked for the company. And I think you find there uh a lot of people don't want to teach you if they're working for themselves and they're not working for the cut same company you work for.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

Oh, that makes sense, yeah. Because you're it's kind of dog eat dog. You want you want the most to work, you want your company to be ahead of the other guy, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's it's a weird situation. I thought it was normal because it was the first place I worked, but yeah, it turns out it's not normal to Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

I guess, you know, like how does that work? How do you guarantee that everyone is doing the same quality of work or the same amount of work, really?

SPEAKER_01 6:12

It w it was such a weird environment. It's sort of like there was all these different projects on the go, and it'd be, you know, one subcontractor, they're all in the same workshop. One subcontractor would be on one project, another one on a different project, and like each project would be run completely differently, you know, everything was just the way that that contractor wanted to run it pretty much.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

Yeah. So how did you end up there? Like, were you did you have your own company or were you working for somebody?

SPEAKER_01 6:40

So that's where I started my apprenticeship, and it's with like an apprenticeship company. So there's quite a few of them around here where they'll employ you and they'll send you out to different work sites. Um, so you're pretty much a contractor as an apprentice, um, getting sent out to different work sites, and they they'll move you around if you know, if there's a company that's quiet. There's not many good government grants here for apprentices. So companies like that do well where you know a company's quiet so they can get rid of their apprentices and know that they're not going to be out of a job, they'll just get moved on to a different work site. The only problem is a lot of people apprentices bounce around and get used for cheap labor rather than actually learning.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

So is there is there like unions down there, like similar to North America, where there's you know a steam figures union, uh, iron workers, stuff like that. Is there that in Australia?

SPEAKER_01 7:31

There is for construction and for the defense contracts, but besides that, not really. So yeah, it's it's we're a bit of like an odd trade as well. We don't have we're not a licensed trade, so like plumbers and electricians, there's a lot of unions around that. Um, but for boilermakers, everyone that works with metal here is just called a boilermaker. There's no separation.

SPEAKER_03 7:56

That's weird to think about, yeah. So how long how long did you do that for?

SPEAKER_01 8:01

I was there for two years, and then that place went a bit quiet. So I jumped on to one of the contractors that was there, which they were called Pipe World Australia. They were a great company, and I worked directly to them, so I left the apprentice agency I was with and um jumped on with those boys to finish off my apprenticeship in their workshop and on their sites.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

So primarily you were doing stainless steel pipe. Yeah. Yeah. Is that is that similar to sanitary, or were you doing like heavy wall stuff?

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Uh it was a bit of everything. So we do some tube, like some sanitary stuff, but mostly heavy wool. Um, once I moved across to Pipe World, it was a lot of carbon steel as well for like the oil and gas industries and um a lot of mining type stuff. So we had a pipe shop and we'd do a lot of site projects as well.

Tickets And Welding Standards Compared

SPEAKER_03 8:50

So I I read somewhere, like, did you become uh a welding inspector at some point?

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Yeah, yeah. So with that previous company, I I was we were doing you know so much pipe and stuff, and I I I got we had all of our welder quals, we'd they'd be you know kept up to date all the time. I'm not sure how the ticketing system works over there, but here you get like certified as a pipe welder. Um it's not something that they ask for though, like you just do a welder quo. I think as ASMI works the same, doesn't it, where you can just do a welder quo even if you're not ticketed, is that right?

SPEAKER_03 9:25

Yeah, so I'm in Canada, so there is some ASMI work, but um, yeah, like I myself have a pressure ticket, so I'm qualified to weld on pressure equipment. But a lot of the sites that you go on to, your pressure ticket, you know, it it matters, but it doesn't matter because they will give you a weld test when you show up. So if you do good on those weld tests, then you're allowed to weld whatever's on their site because you're covered underneath their quality control manual, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah, that that's that's pretty much all that we run off over here is the weld equal, the weld tests that you do when you start the job. Um, however, we do have the ticketing system that you get if you want to tell people you have a ticket, pretty much.

SPEAKER_03 10:09

So mine's good for two years or six months if I don't touch any pressure equipment within those two years. So, how how how long is a good welder's ticket down there?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

So the welder certification lasts for your whole life, which is pretty nice. All right. Um it's something that you can show people if you want to show off your certification.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

It's like a forklift license, it'll get you into the bar quicker, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. It's it's a lot of it's theory though, so it's sort of they don't ex they they know that you still have to do a welder qual, so there's a lot of theory behind it. Um, and then the actual weld test is to a lot stricter requirements than what the normal welder quals would be. So like, yeah, that and there's a lot of a lot more testing to it as well.

SPEAKER_03 10:57

So what is you know, what does a regular Welders qualification test look like?

SPEAKER_01 11:02

So like a welder quo, we work to 3992, which is just our Australian standard, which is nearly exactly copies of every other standard, and just put our name on it.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

I'd have to I'd have to compare to the Canadian welding standards, but what we'll see. Because I know there's uh there's a bit of headbutting that goes on between Canada and the USA with you know welding standards. So it'd be I'm curious what Australia's like.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Oh, I can imagine. I can imagine how much headbutting goes on. Yeah, we we have so like we have our weld of coils and then our revalidations every six months for you know up our procedures. Our pressure standard's pretty good, however, our structural standard is an absolute nightmare to navigate. There's all of the qualifications, they don't cover you for like the ranges are absolutely terrible. So you do a fillet, you're only qualified for a fillet. You do a single run butt, you're only qualified for a single run butt. You end up having to do like 15 calls to be able to weld a beam out. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 12:05

See, in Canada, like we, you know, you certify yourself for a position under a certain process. So I can do my all position stick welding, my SMAW, and now I am able to go on any site with that ticket, and I've got flat horizontal vertical up overhead with the stick welding process. Now, if I wanted to switch to like a flux core, then I'd have to retest those positions with the flux core. But once I have that all position, like let me loose, I'm good to go. Awesome. Yeah, that's that sounds a lot more like our pressure ticket. That that's yeah, that's good. That's what you want, isn't it? So did you um, you know, welding all this pipe and stuff and and you started entering into inspection, what made you want to switch to inspection?

Inspection Work Pay And Paperwork

SPEAKER_01 12:52

So I was at this that company, the pipe warding company, for eight years, and the whole time I wanted to get my inspection ticket, but we were doing, you know, like we'd spend eight or nine months a year up on the mine sites, you wouldn't get time to do any study. Um, so I I left that and got my ticket straight away because you know, like you're not I didn't want to be working while I was doing it, I just wanted to get it out of the way. Um, and it's not something that I like particularly wanted to do as a job, but over here, if you have it, um, it gives you a lot more options for work and you can yeah, you can sort of use it more than just inspection. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:32

Yeah, well that's good. Um is the pay any different? Does an inspector get paid fairly well?

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Yeah, inspectors over here get paid really well because there's such a shortage of them at the moment. Um so especially if you're a subcontractor, you can bounce around sort of filling in spaces, it which is what I do as a fill-in job sort of thing. You know, I'll do a day here and there, and you can charge, you can pretty much charge whatever you want because it gets you know gets people out of a pickle.

SPEAKER_03 14:00

Awesome. But there's gotta be, you know, like you've you've had to take that course, so there is some liability on you, of course, right? You have to be certified and you have to do your paperwork and all that stuff, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it a lot of a lot of sites up here have just gone absolutely crazy with the QA side of stuff. Um yeah, there is a there is a lot involved in the in the paperwork side of it, which which I think weeds a lot of people out from wanting to wanting to do the job.

SPEAKER_03 14:30

Yeah, it weeds a lot of you know typical tradespeople out. Paperwork, see you later. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

So that's crazy. Like, can you give us an idea, like a a wage range? You don't have to put an exact number, but I'm curious what you know, like let's say an inspector, if they were to work for a year, what would what would they make?

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Um, so at the moment we've got some pretty big projects. I know that there's a job advertised at the moment for about $300 and $330,000 a year, it'd probably work out to be.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

So whoa.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

It's good money. Um that's a lot of it's big rosters, you know, like seven days off, two days, seven days on, two days off sort of thing, and then about 12-hour days. It's it's still good money considering.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

Yeah. So

FIFO Mine Life And Rosters

SPEAKER_03 15:19

you you were saying that there's not too much manufacturing industry and it's all mining and stuff and remote work. Like what's a what's a typical job? Like, what's a typical work schedule for a guy that's got to travel to the mine?

SPEAKER_01 15:33

But what we call it here the like the FIFO lifestyle. I don't know if you've come across that term before. FIFO?

SPEAKER_03 15:40

Yes, fly in, fly out.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

That's it, yeah, that's it. FIFO lifestyle. It's a pretty big thing. Like most of the rosters are looking like a week on, week off, or a week on, uh sorry, two weeks on, one week off, and heaps of people chase it. Like most of the sites are you know at least an hour flight away from any major city minimum. So you go up there, you you you do a week at a time of 12-hour shifts, and then you head home and have a week off. Um, and that's that's what people do to chase money up here. Sort of the workshops, you know, most people will work there if they have a family, but uh all the young people will be heading up heading up to the mines to make some good money.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

So there's there's camp involved, so you're sleeping you know, in the trailers and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Yeah, they have they've got some pretty good camps actually.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

There's there's a few that have some pretty sketchy camps, but it's it's sounding a lot like Canada actually.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Yeah, yeah, well, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

Probably maybe a bit warmer than Canada, but yeah, a little little bit, yeah.

Starting A Company Through Opportunity

SPEAKER_03 16:44

So what so with all this you know leading up to this, so what made you decide to to start up your own company then?

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Uh it pretty much came down to not wanting to work away originally. Um and I kind of would have just wanted to pick up some you know inspection work and QA type work, and then the boat I started building a boat at home and filming it and it blew up. And I thought, you know, what a better time to start my own thing and use that as a as a bit of a leverage.

SPEAKER_03 17:16

That's crazy. So how long have you been on social media?

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Uh as far as posting things, just over a year now, I reckon. Oh wow. Yeah. So I just started filming the boat uh in my backyard just uh for my friends and stuff, and then yeah, a couple videos sort of blew up and yeah, it just went from there.

SPEAKER_03 17:36

That's crazy how that'll that'll happen, hey? Yeah, yeah, it is. So did you start mostly on YouTube or like do you do TikTok and and obviously Instagram? That's where I found I only do Instagram. I got some YouTube videos out there in partnership with some people, but yeah, just do you have to do the whole thing? Are you on all the platforms?

SPEAKER_01 17:57

I am I am now, but I never started out on the other platform. But I had held off downloading TikTok for four months or five months until until someone talked me into it. But yeah, it's I I'm on it, I'm on everything now. So it's yeah, it's I guess you just it's free views once you make the videos, you sort of might as well might as well capitalise on it.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

Yeah. So what what's it like to start a company in Australia? Is it do you have to jump through a lot of hoops?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah, yeah, you do, especially with the QA side of stuff. So um most of the companies over here, they'll if you want to work to them, work with them, you have to get your like ISO 9001 accreditations. Yeah. I don't know if do you guys have to deal with the ISO stuff at all, or is it Yeah, yeah, those standards are in North America as well.

SPEAKER_03 18:47

Yeah. There's a lot again, a lot of paperwork.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yeah, yeah, no, no doubt. I'm sure it'd be quite quite similar to over there, but as far as the retail side of stuff, because we sell some tools and stuff on the side, um, it's not too bad. But if if when we're contracting to big companies, and yeah, you need to need to either go through another company to use their accreditations or you can get your own and spend a lot of money sort of setting up the company.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

So besides like, so you got your QA company, do you have now your social media company?

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Uh yeah, so we've just separated them a few weeks ago. Um so yeah, I'll I contract on the side. That at the moment we really want to move towards just the social media stuff because it's turning into like a full-time job plus our me and my partner's other full-time jobs.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

Everyone's gotta have a side hustle, right? But when the side hustle becomes too much, might become the main hustle.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

That's right, it is turning into the main hustle for sure. And I think I think it's great. Like, we love it. I I couldn't ask for anything better to do, sort of, you know, beats doing paperwork on someone else's site.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

All right, so we might as well

The Boat Build That Blew Up Online

SPEAKER_03 20:01

get into it. Let's get into the boat build. You you did you always want to build a boat?

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yeah, oh yeah. That's that's been my dream forever. Like when I was when I was a kid, I wanted to build cars, but that lasted for about a year and then boats, boats came up.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

Yeah. So did someone or something inspire you? You know, like I mean, obviously, Australia, big coastline, but you know, like what inspired you to just just jump in with both feet and do it?

SPEAKER_01 20:29

So ooh, it's sort of been like a very slow progression because obviously you need a lot of space to build a boat. So I had to look for a house to buy a house that had the space to build a shed. Finally bought that.

SPEAKER_03 20:41

Well, COVID hit, so COVID comes up a lot in a lot of a lot of the interviews that I do, and you know, there's usually like a big life shift at that point, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Yeah, oh for sure. Over here, uh it like the house prices went up 30 or 40 percent, I think. And that's and I remember my boss at the time telling me, just wait, the house price is gonna drop.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

So I waited through COVID and then nothing ever went down after that.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Nah, he still owes me a lot of money, that guy, I think.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

Okay, so you so honestly, like the the the building of the boat kind of pushed the rest of your life forward.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Yeah, yeah, it's it sort of did to be honest. Yeah, so we got the yeah, got the shed built, started building the boat, um, and then yeah, started filming it, and the boat progress dropped off super quickly once we started filming everything.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Yeah, gotta set up the tripods, gotta make sure you get multiple angles of the shots. Like, but you know what, it's worth it. I've noticed it on the content that I make. Like, I could make you know an instructional welding video just like straight on and explain the process and stuff, and usually doesn't get a lot of views. But if I get multiple

SPEAKER_01 22:00

angles and like quick cut everything and then just like do a voiceover or put some text on the screen then it's like oh now people are watching now people are interested do you do you think that's the same yeah it's it's honestly like you have to assume everyone has a two second attention span and you can you really gotta yeah it's it's amazing just the tiniest little thing will just throw off your views it yeah it uh it's such a finicky art I definitely haven't mastered it I know I know that for a point I defin I definitely hasn't haven't but you know like are you do you care that much are you super invested I guess now that you have your company and you you're trying to grow it like you you must watch your views and your engagement quite a bit yeah yeah definitely do and I think the more I watch it and the more I worry about it is the less less views I get on the next video it seems it seems to be like a more effort goes in the less views I get so I find yeah yeah can you like talk us through your process like when you when you are watching these things or when you're planning a video what does that look like for you so I've I've found I've I've definitely tried planning videos and I don't think it works for me

Making Videos That Hold Attention

SPEAKER_01 23:14

personally. I guess I'm working by myself so I'm sort of just winging it as I go but it's normally I'll just start building something and I think this would look cool if I filmed it so I start filming it and it sort of progresses into a video and then um yeah quite often I'll edit edit it as I'm going along so I work out you know it's sort of missing something from the video so I'll refilm a part of it. And I find that works for me the best is just just sort of working out as I go along instead of instead of planning something out particularly yeah I agree with you.

SPEAKER_03 23:45

Usually some of my stuff like that inspires me like oh this would I'm I'm in the middle of something just like you like this would look cool. Like people would want to see this people would want to learn from this and yeah it's those usually do better right but why is that why do you think that is I don't know it yeah I guess I guess you just can't picture what something's gonna look like until you film it really like it's such a yeah it just if you if you're looking at it you think it looks cool it it's probably cool to someone else as well I guess sort of yeah I I don't know I haven't worked out the science to it I don't know if there is a science to it but seems to be different every day.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

So since you're growing you know super quickly um have you found like the welding community do you have a lot of support from from basically strangers yeah oh there's so many there's so many awesome people out there that you know like just send you messages or you know a lot of a lot of people ask questions all the time um and yeah I I love I love all that sort of the positive side of the social media I think I think there's a lot of negative out there but you know there's also a lot of a lot of people that are keen to keen to get into it and keen to ask lots of questions.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

Yeah would you say that the positive outweighs the negative it does if you look at it right I think you can definitely get bogged down in reading the negative comments how do how do you react to that I mean obviously the haters bring some engagement brings conversation but how do you react to the to the not so nice comments?

SPEAKER_01 25:18

I think you just have to ignore them. I think you shouldn't even read them to be honest it's sort of you could do I I found that I'll do something one way and someone will hate it so I'll do it the other way in the next video and more people will hate that.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

So it's sort of to each their own I guess hey oh yeah yeah for sure I think people just look for a reason to dislike something sometimes so yeah that's that's very true maybe they don't have you know something going on in their lives and they got to focus on that. When I was I've been on social media well on Instagram you know for eight or nine years now right and I definitely maybe I should build a boat because I don't have the the the following that you do but like I when I was when I was first you know learning first starting out and I found the welding community online like you know I I would go ask those people for help. That was how I learned to weld and then I would share that and same thing I would get ripped on and like people would just be like that's not how I learned well okay this that's how I learned and I got to the same ending that you did. So like where does your hate come from that's you know and I I spent a lot of time replying to comments and I spent time you know in the DMs talking to people and usually like in the end it's all good and like you get a follower from it but yeah it takes a lot of your life away yeah that's a that's a good way of putting it I think yeah I think a lot of people just speak from their own experiences yeah yeah and you know not everyone's right you know not everyone is wrong it's you find a gray area and like we spoke about standards not everyone has the same standards to adhere to right yeah yeah that's that's a very good point actually I get that I get that commented a lot from um especially people in well I think I think just the United States about the Coast Guard requirements of the boat.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

So all the time I get someone saying you know that that doesn't meet um yeah whatever North America's Coast Guard requirements but like you know it's sort of we have different requirements over here.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

Yeah did do they do it do they say specifically what you're doing wrong?

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Um I think for example one of them was the fuel lines putting the fuel lines in um I used like a single clamp for clamping the hose lines the the fuel lines to the barbs and I think it was a requirement over there for to double clamp everything it sounds so trivial. Oh yeah it's always something trivial I wouldn't I wouldn't film something bad if I knew it wasn't right.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

Yeah well you know what it's in some way that single clamp got you some views no that's it yeah yeah so you know going through this boat like you you welded carbon you welded stainless in your earlier you know career where did you learn aluminum?

Learning Aluminium And Choosing Gear

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Uh I did a little bit when I worked at a sheet metal place for a few months um that was just a fill-in job but that was like basic so I didn't know much and then I sort of just bought the gear and sort of worked it out to be honest. We we've I don't know over the years we've done all sorts of different materials and I think you just need to practice on like it's just a matter of working it out yourself. Once you once you've learned a few you start picking the the next ones up pretty quick I think.

SPEAKER_03 28:36

Yeah so what kind of what kind of equipment were uh were you learning on what do you have now um I just bought like a secondhand Kempi pulse machine um a European machine I'll we we did we get a lot of European machines over here um and then yes we we forget the the a couple of the red and the blue ones as well um maybe a few of the Chinese ones oh yeah lots of the Chinese ones slight slightly rebranded you know yeah oh yeah yeah we we uh Unimig over here is massive which is a which is one of the Chinese importers um I think they're one of the best selling machines over here now so they're taking over the market would you say like you know compared to your Kempi machine you know what's what's the Uniweld one you know cost wise or or feature wise is it is it comparable or would you say you're saving money?

SPEAKER_01 29:31

It's they're they're great you can't knock them like $2,000 and you're getting a pulse aluminium welder that has I think more features than my old Kempi. The new ones you know the new ones are a bit um so you're looking yeah you're looking $11000 for a new Kempi or $2,000 for a Uni Mig um and it has all the same features why why wouldn't you sort of give it a shot if you're doing something from home.

SPEAKER_03 29:54

Yeah I uh I feel the same way here you know like I couldn't afford you know the red or blue you know when I was starting out in my home shop so you know I went for the Everlast you know and it's it's been really good to me it still runs it does everything I needed to and most recently I've been doing some welder reviews and you know I got an art captain machine sent to me and same thing like for for $300 or $400 Canadian it it'll do and keep up to most you know two or three thousand dollar machines which those machines keep up to the $10 to $12,000 machines.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Yeah that's that's true yeah 100 100% like uh same thing I had a I had a um everlast for maybe nine years before I bought my my new Tig machine and yeah it's it's been working in dairies of stick welded fences up with it and still you know putting down good aluminium welds yeah you can't can't really complain yeah so going back though so you got this machine and you started messing around at home like how if I if no one had shown me how to do you know aluminum MIG or TIG really I I don't know if I'd be able to pick it up I don't know if I'd know what the knobs do look.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

So how what was your process like?

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Uh so I did a lot of research into it I read I read the manuals for the machines I don't know if anyone else ever reads the manuals for the machines but I must have had too much time in my hand. Like usually you start a backyard fire with those things I didn't know they were for reading and you get some yeah go ahead yeah you get some hints from those yeah and then um also I've got a boat builder down the road from me who I just called out of the blue like he he builds Alley Minion boats as well and um he was like straight away keen to come over check it out give me a hand and like I thought that was awesome. He he's he's actually been such a good help I sort of you know give him a call whenever I'm not sure on something I've yeah I've done gone down there and done a few days welding for him as well which has been good so it's sort of it worked out great just a random cold cold call out of the out of the blue one day. That's amazing actually like how how crazy is that that there's somebody down the street and they're willing to help yeah exactly right like I I know a lot of people would see it as competition if someone else wanted to you know build a boat but yeah no he was he was super helpful and he's still been super helpful like you know a year later yeah so how long have you welded aluminum then like what what's your what's your experience level like so I'd say from the start it would have been I would have had maybe six months of experience when I started mainly with the TIG um but then yeah you know the MIG it took took me a good six months before I think I became like properly proficient at it. Yeah so uh there's a lot more variables to the pulse MIG than just you know your standard carbon steel MIG obviously um and I think it takes a long time to really understand how to use them to make your welds welds come out good.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

So starting out on the boat would you say you weren't quite professional yet have you made some pretty bad mistakes I've definitely had to remove a few welds at the start yeah yeah definitely was not a professional aluminium motor when we started so I guess what like how where did you get this plan or how did you even begin to to put this thing together?

Boat Kits And Building At Home

SPEAKER_01 33:32

It's a pretty massive industry down here so there's a lot of companies that design boats um and you can buy the kit from them so it'll be it'll come all CNC router cut already uh with the drawings uh I I bought it from a company who sort of more target the the home builder so they give you more detailed drawings and a bit more information for someone who hasn't built a boat before. Well that sounds pretty good yeah yeah so at least you're you you're not jumping in just completely blind yeah yeah that it's actually a really good project I think I think more people should be doing it to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 34:08

Sort of yeah well I've been doing a lot of like shipping container stuff you know lately you know building cabins and pools and you know random you know we built a a little clubhouse with a rooftop patio for a country uh festival here like it's it's kind of crazy right it's it's the oddball stuff that's fun yeah oh yeah for sure it's such like I th that's that's sort of like the way that we want to shape our online business is to target people or you know get people building stuff at home.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

That's you know that's what got me into welding is my dad bought a welder and the like the way that machines are going they're so cheap now and I don't think there's any reason that people shouldn't be giving it a crack. It's sort of I I don't know I think I think it's a pretty pretty good opportunity for a lot of people out there that want to build stuff at home.

SPEAKER_03 34:58

Yeah and welding is an amazing trade and you're absolutely right with the cost of machines like it you're you're you know you're silly not to try it if you have an interest in it just buy the machine and start plugging around yeah yeah definitely there's yeah there's there's lots of resources out there and I hope that we can add more resources to that soon. It's sort of yeah so yeah talk to me about your business a little more so are you currently selling products or or what's your main focus?

Selling Tools Exporting And Courses

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Yeah so we we're selling a lot of products that people ask about I think that luckily we do have that that um interaction with the people that watch our videos so we know what they're asking about we know what products they're interested in and we pretty much just started selling the products that we get asked about the most and a lot of products that is available in Australia but not available to other countries so we started exporting products to other countries mainly North America at the moment and looking to expand over to Europe as well but the products are sort of just like a a starting point. We mainly want to make instructional courses and like entry level courses for people to get into welding. We yeah we we don't want to charge a lot of money for them we you know there's there's another company that's sort of charging a subscription and we don't we don't want to ever you know charge someone a monthly fee of $50 a month or something to to learn we just you know we just want to do it at cost sort of thing and use that to promote our products rather than to try and make money off the courses.

SPEAKER_03 36:34

That's yeah that's uh that's a really good idea because yeah a lot of people they'll find they'll find something you know a YouTube video or whatever and you're not even sure if you're getting the right information or good information.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

You're just getting whatever they're telling you right so is your course you know is it will it be certified or do you touch on you know certification in your courses we we at the moment we're mainly just looking at the DRY type stuff but everything that we talk about in the courses is all straight out of the standards and it links back to you know actual proven information um not not just you know it's not just another DIY type someone telling someone else how to do it. We we actually want to make the the information relevant um even though we are just talking to like the more backyard type welder at this stage.

SPEAKER_03 37:27

Yeah sort of yeah which is fine because you never know what what that'll maybe do for that person.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Maybe they will want to go to the next level yeah we we hope so I know I know from personal experience how how short we are on welders in Australia and yeah I think like I said before it's definitely something that more people should be getting into and there's a lot of missed opportunities out there.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

Now I I just gotta ask because I have this weird idea of moving my whole family to Australia and and welding in Australia just now but like how high how high demand is it and if if you know like what's what's the wages look like there for a welder so talking about now it's like it's a pretty small community I think if you're a reasonable welder you could call any shop.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

I've I've never written a resume resume I don't know anyone that really has to be honest. You can just call up and if they're looking for welders and your name's out there and people know you then yeah you have no problem finding a job um and especially in the mining industry there's so much work up there like there's always expansions going on you know you can get get work no problem at all and then as far as wages go you an entry level job's probably around $100,000 a year at the moment and um if you're willing to work away a lot you know it can go up to $35000 a year if you if you find a good job in oil and gas or offshore.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

Wow okay I'm gonna need a reference uh immigration let's call them up that sounds really good yeah I I mean I can see where you're headed too like you're you're wanting to help people and you're wanting to promote welding and and basically help not just yourself but your community so it's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Yeah I like I don't know I'll I really enjoy it sort of I I don't know if everyone else would enjoy would enjoy it so much but I finally got myself at a point where I can make good money doing inspection and I've chosen the least paying option out of anything which is but it's something that like me and my partner really enjoy so I think yeah I think we're yeah we're pretty happy that it sort of worked out this way or seems to be working out this way. Yeah so is is the boat done I haven't caught up with your content in a little bit what point is the boat at right now it's the just registering the trailer it's still a lot of work to do I've still got to get the motor on it and you know do the all the interior and that sort of work. But yeah still maybe a few months away from getting it on the water before yeah and then it'll be pretty well finished as far as the fabrication goes that's all that's all pretty well finished.

Trailer Build Sponsors And Local Partners

SPEAKER_03 40:06

Cool and then yeah let's talk about the trailer which I just caught yesterday you were doing an acid bath on it like what's what's the whole trailer all about let's go down that route the trailer was a a part of the kit as well with the boat which is which I thought was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

They send you all the parts and you can weld that together yourself as well. Yeah like it's it's good it's a pretty heavy pretty heavy aluminium trailer a lot of a lot of work goes into that I didn't appreciate how much work goes into building one of those trailers until I started on it.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

Yeah your typical yeah your typical boat trailer is usually built super light and kind of cheesy but yeah that thing is a unit. It's good to hear hopefully hopefully it holds up yeah it'd be kind of silly if they sold you a a a boat kit and you know you built it in your garage and you could not get it to the water yeah that's right yeah yeah it's it's um yeah it's it's pretty expensive to buy trailers as well over here like I'm sort of glad I went down the building yourself route for that.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Yeah yeah so speaking of prices of things like do you have do you have any sponsors do you have any partnerships that you you have gained from being on social media yeah so we've got a few it's still like it's still super new to me so I'm still trying to learn the best way to go about it but we're trying to just keep it to local sponsors you know people in Australia already uh we've had a lot of offers for um you know like uh a lot of Chinese companies and stuff like that which which you know no problem if you want to go that way but I'd like to just work with people that are local um people that I can talk to on the phone nearby and we've got we've got like a a phone EVA foam decking company that's jumped on board and sponsoring the build and then a tooling company that's jumped on board and sent us a out us a heap of gear um and lots lots of little little things that like you know uh small manufacturers are happy to give us a little part that they've made for boats previously and yeah lots of lots of cool little things like that I think it's it's great when we get a message someone saying that they seen us put this plastic part in and they've manufactured like a sheet metal version of it that they'll send out for us to to try out.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

That's really cool. And that's a that's a very a smart way and a respectable way to go at it is you know supporting local supporting the industry around you. Yeah yeah yeah that's I I think it's a good way I'm I'm glad we went down that route I mean yeah good so once the bolt is done and the trailer is done what what's next well that's that's a that's a hard question because I don't want to delete my my Instagram account I've got to keep it going somehow yeah you know that's where my mind went right you like you the bolt is what really catapulted you to where you are and and kind of started a lot of of things

What Comes After The Boat

SPEAKER_03 43:03

for you.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

So yeah what comes what's next what comes next we're we're talking about building another one and building like a full build course for it. So ah yeah because I know like a lot of people I get so many messages from other people building boats as well um like I went out to a a school a few weeks ago and checked out a little boat that they're building down there and a lot of people everyone said that they don't have enough resources online for building a boat if they're not experienced with fabrication. So yeah I think that'd be a really fun way to move the channel is to do like a full build course where you can um it it'd have to be a paid thing to access because it costs us so much money to do it. But um yeah it'd be I think it'd be an awesome way to go is have a full build course online where they can follow a step by step video type thing.

SPEAKER_03 43:52

That is an amazing idea. Absolutely good to hear see what wakes up yeah can you imagine It's like, no, that's a terrible idea. No, you're done. Like no, that's really cool. It's it's it kind of keeps coming up in this conversation that we need reliable resources for people to go and and get the information that they need.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

Yeah, yeah. I think I think 100%. I've I don't know what it's like over there, but I know all of the training videos that we got shown when we were in trade school were from the 1940s, and it's no one tells you what a pulse machine does when you're learning learning how to weld.

SPEAKER_03 44:33

Yeah, you're not wrong. Actually, yeah, they you know, when I went through, which was you know 20 years ago, um, it was still those videos, yeah, and still learning from the old stuff. And the the welding technology in the last 10 years has like exploded. Yeah I can't like I I'm having trouble keeping up, right? And I have to make a a conscious decision to you know go in and and research this stuff if I want to know about it, or you know, go to events or or whatever demos to go learn this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

Yeah, that's awesome. I think that's such a such a part of moving the industry forward is yeah, keeping keeping everyone up to date with the with the machines. And it's it's I know over here for at least it's not something that companies really do that well with is you know staying up to date with all the technology coming out. Yeah. That's good.

SPEAKER_03 45:26

Yeah, I think yeah, it's not just over there, it's you know, a lot of companies in North America as well. And you know, there's there's always a saying that a welding shop will always make money, right? It's but now it's like, well, if you're still welding with equipment from the you know 70s and 80s, you the guys that are doing it with the new equipment and maybe automation or robotics, well, they're they're able to do it faster than you and more efficient than you. So they're gonna be pricing you out of jobs, right?

SPEAKER_01 45:57

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Uh it's it's the way that like it's how you get out of labor shortages, it's how you get out of lots of things, is if you know, if you can't find skilled labor, you can you can make do with one tradesman as a or one tradesperson over three or four in a lot of shops here. Um, it's not that it's doing people out of a job, it's just we don't have anyone to do the job here. So companies have to adapt to to make do. And I think, yeah, as far as I'm concerned, I think technology is the way to move forward with a lot of that, those problems.

SPEAKER_03 46:26

Yeah, what is uh what's your favorite uh piece of welding technology that you've seen or that you own?

Robots AI And Laser Welding

SPEAKER_01 46:34

The coolest thing that I've seen was is a company or a guy that I worked with when I was doing my um my inspection courses, he bought a AI assisted robot. I don't know the details. He showed me some videos of it. It'll like scan the beam, work out where the welds are, and then you tell what size you tell the machine what size the welds are, and it just welds it like it sort of blew my mind a bit. I didn't fully understand it, but yeah, I think that's pretty awesome. That's that's a whole level above the cobalt or yeah, anything like that, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 47:08

Yeah, I was gonna say, like, I've I've been able to to try out a few cobots and partnered up with a company here in Canada to make a couple videos, and like I I'm amazed how easy it is to program these things, and now with AI it's even easier.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Yeah, absolutely. Like imagine 10 years ago trying to program a robot, sort of now it's just a show where to go and press the button, sort of thing. It's it's awesome, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 47:38

Oh, and I've crashed it again and the heads broke off. Okay, now it's fixed. We're two months later and I crashed it again. Heads broke off. Yeah, well, yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, that's insane. So primarily you're doing TIG, you're doing MIG. Have you seen laser welders? And is that something that interests you?

SPEAKER_01 48:00

Yeah, definitely. I'll I haven't personally used one, but I've been doing a lot of research into getting getting one just mainly to play with. I think it's an awesome technology that seems like not many people are picking up over here. Um, I went to a uh like a inspection company and they were playing around with one a few weeks ago trying to run some procedures for a company that wants to run one, but yeah, it's sort of that's the first I've even seen one in real life, to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 48:27

Yeah, I used to be the guy that you know hated on them, like they're they're super expensive. You can only weld this and you know, this size, and blah blah blah. And then I got to see one, I got to play with one, and then now the prices are coming down, and you know, I can see now, you know, you just mentioned inspection companies creating procedures for them. I can see industry kind of starting to back these things, it's not just welding handrails anymore or little parts, right? It's it's becoming a thing.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

Yeah, yeah, I think it's pretty exciting to be honest, especially if they're gonna be more available, like um, yeah, and bring the cost down again. That's another another awesome benefit that I think yeah, not many people over here are taking advantage of yet.

SPEAKER_03 49:13

So I guess, you know, we're as we wrap this thing up

Advice On CAD And Trade Pathways

SPEAKER_03 49:17

here. If you weren't doing what you're doing now, what else would you be doing for a career? What's your other passion, your other hobby?

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Ooh, that's a good question. I I could see myself just working in the mind still, to be honest, or doing work, we've got a big tunnel project down here, and um, yeah, I think I'd be on that sort of working seven days a week at the moment, which doesn't excite me very much, to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 49:44

Well, that's good, that's good. And if you could share a piece of knowledge or a story to the younger generation out there, um, what what would that be? Or if you were to speak to yourself as a kid, what would you say?

SPEAKER_01 50:01

I reckon learn CAD software as young as you can and as early as you can in your career. And I think it'll help you in the long run, especially the way that technology is going at the moment. If you can understand basic CAD software, I think it's gonna help you a lot with um with any sort of robotics that are coming out. Um, and a lot of a lot of profile cutting now, it's all available in your workshop. If you can be the person that can jump on the machine and understand how to program it, I think it helps you a lot in the lot in the long run and you know in the short term as well.

SPEAKER_03 50:32

And for someone trying to get into the trades, I know it's you know a little strange in Australia how how you do it, but for someone getting into the trades and not knowing how to go about it, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_01 50:44

I'd say do some work experience, do free work experience. Um I know, I know for me, I didn't know that piping or structural was the way to go. I was originally looking at building trays for the back of Utes, and I thought that was the best option there was. So um speak to the people in the trades, uh, do the work experience, and you work out pretty quick what which one's gonna be the best option for you. Um it's pretty hard to move from one to the other. You can always you can always go from piping down to basic fabrication or general fabrication, but you can't go from general fabrication up to piping. So just make sure you understand the difference between the might be called the same trade, but it's gonna be a very different industry.

SPEAKER_03 51:27

Well, that's a great piece of advice, Daniel. Thank you very much for being my guest tonight.

Social Tags And Closing Notes

SPEAKER_03 51:32

It was awesome chatting with you. If you want to shout out your social tags on here, that'd be amazing. Get more people coming here. You don't need any more people, but we'll get more people.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

Yeah, always happy to shout my tags out. So on Instagram, we're dr double underscore Daniel. And on TikTok, we're weld.dr double underscore Daniel. So yeah, check us out. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 51:57

Perfect, Daniel.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

Thanks again. Thank you very much, appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 52:01

All right, well, thank you for tuning in to another episode of the CWB Association Welding Podcast. Make sure you like and subscribe and share with everyone you love. Thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

You've been listening to the CWB Association Welding Podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, rate our podcast and visit us at CWBassociation.org to learn more. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions of what you'd like to learn about in the future. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.