You shouldn't need to make $150k to get by as a welder. In any sensible society a person who knows how to do something useful like weld should be able to muddle along. Some of my friends from high school in Oklahoma became oil field welders in the 90s. They made good money, bought houses and raised children early in life. It seems like a square deal to me. Of course, that was possible because houses in Oklahoma were plentiful and cheap and the public schools were good and so forth. You know, the way civil society is supposed to work.
There's a piece of specialty equipment I just learned about recently while pulling on a thread regarding one of my hobbies. It's pretty expensive and I'd probably only need it four times in as many years so I was looking around for other options like rentals or tool libraries. Found nothing.
Then I end up in the DIY section, and for about ten seconds I think I hit paydirt. Then I realize that every. single. video. is by some guy who knows his way around an arc welder. And not like "This video is for people who know how to weld," just, "okay cut these pieces and then you weld em together and then you're done." Like everyone or their brother knows how to weld.
Now I bring this up because clearly there is some subset of people who are saving a great deal of money by making specialty tools out of stock or scrap instead of buying it. I know a bunch of amateur carpenters and a few woodworkers, but didn't think I know any amateur welders.
Specialty welding can be complicated, but basic utilitarian welding is not. Head out to your local tool store, pick up a cheap MIG machine and some scrap steel, and plunk yourself down in front of YouTube for a couple of hours, and then spend a few hours practicing.
Now, this won't make you good enough to weld on a bridge or an airplane, but you'll definitely be able to stick metal together for doing one-off stuff at home.
Small time farmers seem to be a lot more likely to know these sorts of skills, because it allows them to save an obscene amount of money on specialty equipment by modifying something inexpensive to do the job.
When the commercial offerings are $100,000+ but you can make something good enough yourself for $20,000 or less, well, yeah, it is well worth it to take the time to learn welding, since you will more than make up for it with just one such project.
Small time farmers are not trying to save money so much as time. When you are in the middle of nowhere with a broken part no amount of money can get you back in the field in 20 minutes (if the welder is sitting by the phone waiting for your call he can just barely get there in that time, but he hasn't looked at the part yet). 1 minute with your own welder and you have a repair that will let you limp to the end of the busy season where you can decide if it is good enough or you need to repair it right.
Small time farmers seem to be a lot more likely to know these sorts of skills, because it allows them to save an obscene amount of money on specialty equipment by modifying something inexpensive to do the job.
That's how/why my grandfather knew how to weld. And all his children. And his grandchildren too. His kids all went to college but also got a big boost from having practical hands-on skills to augment with theory and specialization. One of my uncles got a PhD and then spent most of his career helping grad students fabricate equipment for their field experiments, because hardly any other students or professors knew practical welding/soldering/instrumentation.
It took me 10 minutes to learn how to weld. If you only need it for DIY stuff then it's very easy to learn. But if you need to satisfy safety requirements or tolerances then it gets much harder.
It's the same as in software: All those people who think they know how to do programming because they can whip up some shitty python script. But that's the easy part. Making an application that works superficially is practically trivial. Making something that is proven to work, that scales and will still work in 10 years is where the money is.
I learned how to weld in high-school years ago. It would be sort of nice to be able to weld a thing or two now, but my skills are probably not very good, and safety is very important. Also, the equipment isn't cheap.
A cheap inverter arc welder is a few hundred dollars - not expensive.
Hire one and have a go on any 5mm+ steel job you have and you will likely surprise yourself.
The inverter welders are also way easier to use (and portable) compared to the old school transformer welders (i.e. don't buy a second hand transformer welder unless you are a hipster).
I always feel a bit inadequate when I go to my parents' house and look around in the shop at all the tools and odds and ends related to metal working that I have zero idea how to use. And even that is a small smattering of what my dad actually knew how to use.
I don't know if its a time and place thing where those skills were more relevant to a rural farm boy in the 60s than they are today, or just that such people still have those skills, but I'm just not one of them...
You can pick up a lot of wood and metalworking skills from just watching YouTube and SAFELY experimenting. You’re not going to become a master tradesman or anything but you can pick up a great deal of know-how. Just get a list of things you want to learn and spend some time in dad’s workshop with a laptop showing YouTube.
I currently feel comfortable doing basic home plumbing, electrical, my own auto maintenance, building small pieces of wood furniture, and light metalwork (bending, drilling, riveting, etc). Next up that I’d like to learn is welding and fiberglass. With so many resources out there for free, your only limitation is time and access to basic tools.
