Welding productivity is one of the most misunderstood topics in the industry—and it's costing shops serious money.
In this episode, Jason Becker sits down with Nate Bowman to break down the reality behind arc-on time, operator factor, deposition rate, and weld volume. Together, they explain why welders aren't "only welding 11 minutes an hour," how over-welding quietly drains profitability, and how small operational changes—like proper weld sizing or adding an extra grinder—can save thousands of dollars over time.
This conversation isn't about blame. It's about data, efficiency, and building high-performance welding operations that benefit both welders and business owners.
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Jason Becker (00:01.759)
Nate, welcome back to the York Jokies podcast, man. How you been?
Nate Bowman (00:04.908)
Good dude, it's been a while. I can't remember the last time I've been on, but I've been on a lot.
Jason Becker (00:08.504)
It's yeah, that's it's been a minute. You've been on several times. I think the last time we actually got to chat, which was like super brief and we talked about getting you back on the podcast was it at Fabtech.
Nate Bowman (00:18.402)
Yeah, that's right. I think I handed you a Wild Science shirt or something like that. I'm like, or yeah, you got one of the new ones,
Jason Becker (00:22.035)
Yeah. Weld science shirt, couple of stickers, and then we were just chatting back and forth about this, that and everything. I think we were both headed out for the day and our exes just kind of like crossed in the middle of the shop floor or the show floor. And then we kind of parted ways once we hit the exit, because we both had different things going on that evening.
Nate Bowman (00:28.035)
Gone.
Nate Bowman (00:38.838)
Yeah, yeah, it was a crazy experience. FAPTX has been a lot of fun, you know? Yeah, it's just great to see how well-supported you have been, the show has become. You know, it's kind of like a staple now, so that's awesome.
Jason Becker (00:52.499)
It's been a blast, coming up, what, April will be six years since I've taken it over. I can't believe, it's just flown by.
Nate Bowman (00:58.028)
man, I know. I know. I know. Yeah, I feel the same. It's like, every time you turn around, it's been like five years or six years, you know, which is good.
Jason Becker (01:07.551)
Yeah. The older you get, it seems like the faster time flies. I think I've got a couple of years on you, but I'm 43 now and it's like, your days seem like hours. just like, I don't know. I think it's because when you're a kid, you're really not tied to a schedule. So you really don't value time. And it just seems like everything takes forever.
Nate Bowman (01:11.681)
I
Nate Bowman (01:18.882)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (01:23.032)
Yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:27.342)
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like as a kid, you're always like waiting on something like, we there yet? And it's like, yeah, I feel like now we're like, oh, we're already there or that already happened or this is already done and gone. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be, God, I'm gonna be 39 this year, I think. I think I'll be 39 this year. I'm at that age where it doesn't like, you don't remember what your age is, so.
Jason Becker (01:45.653)
Okay.
Yeah, I started having like, I 42 or am I 43? I gotta do the math real quick in my head. And I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm still tracking.
Nate Bowman (01:52.086)
Yeah. Yeah. But the good stuff, you know, the good thing about this is like we're getting older, so maybe people will start listening to what we have to say since we're not like the new guy anymore. I doubt it, but but we're going to try. We're going to try so.
Jason Becker (02:03.827)
Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Well, we're going to be the old guys in the the shop pretty soon being like, well, we've done it this way for 20 years, but it'll be like the correct way that you're supposed to actually do shit because we stay up to date with the trends and, you know, the technology.
Nate Bowman (02:13.645)
god.
Right. Right, right.
Yeah, yeah, we're trying. Yeah, you were talking about using chat GPT to help you out with stuff like I did the same thing preparing for the show. Like I printed out 11 pages of notes that have my thoughts somewhat organized in here. And yeah, that's right. Yeah, I'm coming after all you clowns in the comments that say that we don't know what we're talking about. I brought the receipts here for you. So not really. But yeah.
Jason Becker (02:36.361)
Nick came to hold court.
Jason Becker (02:45.739)
There we go, we're going to do an audit.
Nate Bowman (02:50.722)
But yeah, that's really one of the biggest things. One of the reasons why we wanted to jump on a podcast again is you and I have been in the comments on a lot of stuff about welding productivity. And it really dawned on me when I see so many of the same types of comments that folks just don't understand. They just don't understand how these things are being measured. And that's really what this is about.
You know, I'm I'm a welder by trade like I'm still a welder. I still love welding and I want to defend welders at every turn. Like when I consult for companies and I'm meeting the business owners like I'm there defending the welders and what they're doing because they're the they're ultimately the folks that put the product out the door. So I'm always there to advocate for them. And I can understand how folks see me on a podcast sitting on the stage with a microphone in my hand that.
I may not know what I'm talking about or I'm on the side of the business or something like that, which I'm on the side of business as being profitable. And that means making welders jobs as easy as possible. And if a company is more profitable, the mindset, you know, the hope is that that trickles down and the welders get.
you know, better tools, better pay better, you know, vacations, more opportunities to grow, like all of those things is really what this is all about and why I, you know, choose to live in the rabbit hole that is this welding productivity space. So
Jason Becker (04:24.383)
Yeah, I do something very similar like as an inspector when I go into, you know, test or certify welders or any of that stuff. And I talked to the company, like, what are your end goals? What do you need? Well, we got a high rejection rate. Okay. You know, like let's start at the beginning. You're like, how skilled up are your welders? Okay. Maybe we need to add some training. Maybe we need to change, you know, use different, better filler metals. Maybe we need to update some of our equipment. Maybe we need to start, you know, streamlining some different processes, cleaning base materials. We got less rejects. I mean, there's a lot of that going on.
Nate Bowman (04:39.703)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Becker (04:54.385)
And like, but they, the welder, the funny thing is the welders can say this stuff all day long to a lot of business owners or shop foremen. And it just, it falls on deaf ears. But when somebody, when they hire somebody like a consultant to come in and tell them the same stuff, the welders have been telling them for the past, you know, five, six years are like, yeah, you raised a very interesting point. I never heard of that. And the welders are like, what the fuck? Yeah. I've been screaming this since I started here.
Nate Bowman (04:54.497)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (05:15.073)
Yeah, I've been saying it for, yeah, exactly. And I think that that's, and that's totally like, this brings us like right into this guy, Jack Barkoff, who's the guy behind total welding management and the certified welding supervisor credential, which I promote all the time and talk about the orange book, which is the, what is it called? it's over here. It's like on the thing. It's quality and productivity management. I don't know.
It is. I have one on my shelf. I have one on my shelf right here. No, I have one right here.
Jason Becker (05:45.963)
trying to look for mine. think I left it in my shop. Yeah, I think I left mine at the shop office.
Nate Bowman (05:51.404)
Okay, here we go. This orange book. if anybody needs to find it, here we go. And this is mine all tabbed up nice. And yeah. So yeah, Jack Barkoff, right there. So nobody knows Jack about welding. They don't know they don't. Jack knows so a little history on this guy, Jack Barkoff, he worked in sales.
Jason Becker (05:54.175)
There we go.
Jason Becker (06:12.448)
Jack knows.
Nate Bowman (06:18.509)
started to realize that like people were just wasting a ton of money in the welding industry. So he created this concept of total welding management. And there's a, you know, it's, it's been kind of like gifted to the American welding society. It's maybe not one of the hottest credentials, you know, because like everybody wants to get like their CWI or whatever. And oftentimes, like I find myself explaining what the CWS is and what the orange book even is and
what's in the orange book and all that stuff. you know, it's really just like, it's kind of been forgotten almost. But the stuff that's in this orange book, you know, you've read it. We talk about it all the time. This is probably the most valuable information in the welding industry as a shop owner, as a business owner, as a welder that wants to, you know, be able to put some numbers to the things that you complain about all the time.
When you're like, my God, why are we doing it? This? Why does this take this long or why doesn't management understand? And it's because nobody really understands or talks about this stuff. And I think I realized why, because it's really difficult because we made that. We saw that post where the guy on the podcast says that while there's a welding, 11 minutes, an hour and people lost their minds, absolutely lost their mind. And it's like,
I don't think that it's that because it feels like they're being called out like that. You're just like, you know, in the back. Yeah.
Jason Becker (07:51.435)
It's like they're being called, you're calling them lazy because, yeah, you pay me 40 hours a week or you know, like that's part time for most welders, but like, what do mean I'm only welding 11 %?
Nate Bowman (07:57.766)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 11 minutes an hour, 11%. You know, I think he says both. the, you know, and when I say, that number is accurate. I've personally been involved in several operator factor studies, like when I worked for air gas as their as part of their advanced fab team. They have a national database because there's a bunch of the welding process specialists around the country.
That they do these studies and then we get together and we share this information so you can make sure that we like kind of understand like a where where do these numbers come from. And I have no doubt that three does the same sort of thing lean manufacturing any sort of lean stuff. They're definitely monitoring operator factor and that sort of thing.
Jason Becker (08:40.839)
yeah. If it wasn't such a big issue, like most of your OEMs wouldn't be putting that data on the welding systems. Like now you can tap into the back and find out what the arc on time is because people are finding value in that information.
Nate Bowman (08:54.955)
your welding helmets, a lot of welding helmets will record that arc on time as well. But that's the thing, like I don't think that folks really understand that the number is pretty small because there's so many other things that are going on in the shop. we'll dig into my notes a little bit. I'll chew through these and then we'll jump in the rabbit hole. But I've brought, I got some examples and stuff that we can use.
Jason Becker (09:00.575)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (09:20.181)
We talk, I typically try to keep things. Charlie Cross talks about he keeps things in threes. I'm adding a fourth one here just because I want to add a fourth one. But typically I say there's three levers that you have to control your welding productivity. That'd be deposition rate, weld volume and operator factor. And then the fourth one would be cheating. So that's new technology. That's 3D printing. That's additive manufacturing. That's using chat GPT. That's
All of those things that would be that an old timer would be like, well, that's cheating. It's not cheating. Like your job as the welder is to make welds. Who cares how the welds are being made, whether they're made with a laser, with a TIG torch, MIG welding machine from the fifties or one that's not even out yet. The weld doesn't care or know what it's holding together or how it was made or how it was controlled going across the joint. All that stuff is absolutely irrelevant.
Jason Becker (09:55.529)
No, there's no.
Jason Becker (10:18.187)
Yeah, the weld doesn't care. Yeah. And I tell students, especially when I'm teaching and stuff, I said, okay, this is a cheat code. And then I'll kind of correct myself and say, there's no cheating in welding because if you're not cheating, you're not trying. You're trying to make everything better, faster, more efficient. there's no cheating in welding. I think that's more of like an ego thing is people are like, oh, you're not doing it the hard way. You're doing it a bit more, you know, a convenient method. And it's like, yeah, I also...
Nate Bowman (10:18.336)
How strong do your welds need to be? know, and that's, go ahead.
Nate Bowman (10:28.641)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Becker (10:45.855)
don't oxy-fuel weld shit together anymore because there's like many other new processes. it's not, know, people that did oxy-fuel welding, probably called MIG welders cheaters back in the day. No, but like...
Nate Bowman (10:46.092)
Of course.
Nate Bowman (10:55.496)
100%. People are still teaching oxyfuel welding in schools, by the way. And if you're listening to this podcast, this is your PSA from us. Get rid of it. Hasn't been relevant for a century. You should definitely stop teaching that and do something else, literally anything else. You could have them coloring would be more effective than that. yeah. Yeah, oxyfuel cutting. Yeah, oxyfuel cutting.
Jason Becker (11:03.509)
to stop.
Jason Becker (11:15.403)
spend more time on the cutting torch than doing oxy acetylene welding. Brazing's kinda neat.
Nate Bowman (11:22.986)
doing some brazing and stuff, but like if you're trying to prepare students to get into the workforce, you only have a very small amount of time. So spending that time having them oxy-fuel weld, which is a skill that they're not going to use in the industry, certainly not in 2026 now. You know, I think that, yeah, I'm on advisory boards all across the country and this is something that comes up all the time. So yeah, this is another PSA.
Jason Becker (11:40.395)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Becker (11:48.201)
We can put that one to bed.
Nate Bowman (11:50.113)
get rid of oxy-fuel welding or replace it with oxy-fuel cutting, brazing, or buy yourself a laser or some other advanced piece of equipment and take its place. okay, let's see here. So we got four levers of high-performance welding. We talked about those. So we're gonna start with weld volume. And my buddy, Rex Alexander, you've had him on the podcast. He owns the Handheld Laser Welding Institute. One of the things that he likes to say is, how strong does your weld?
Jason Becker (11:59.167)
There you go.
Nate Bowman (12:19.55)
need to be. That's a big thing because everybody's argument about laser welding is like, well, they just put little tiny welds in and it's like, well, how strong does the weld need to be? Why are you putting these giant welds in there? Because you think that they need to be whatever, like what's the what what's the joint require? And if you don't know that, how are you making the decisions to add more welds and make welds bigger? And, know, like, you know, if you
You didn't go to engineering school, which I didn't. I don't know. So how is it up to me to be like, this well needs to be this size or that size? The moron theory. Charlie Cross, again, put more weld on, more on. If anybody doesn't know the moron theory, I'll give you the quick version of this. Basically, the engineer that designs this weld joint specs out a specific weld size. Let's call it an eighth of an inch.
Jason Becker (12:54.187)
That's the Moron Theory.
Yep. Yeah, Charlie.
Nate Bowman (13:15.156)
the, you know, gets to the shop and the shop foreman sees it and he's like, man, my welders can't nail that eighth inch weld size. Let's make it three sixteenths of an inch or something like that. And then the welder sees it he's like, well, man, I definitely don't want to undersize this weld. So I'm to put a quarter inch weld in. Well, now you've gone up three weld sizes or, you know, two weld sizes beyond where it needs to be or whatever. And now you've just way overwelded this part. You've added way more metal than you need, way more heat input into this part.
And now you're managing distortion because you just were not confident in the way that the weld was called out on the drawing. And I think this is also part of a bigger problem where engineering and welding needs to maybe be more symbiotic and the engineers maybe need to come and talk to the welders and the welders need to talk to the engineers because both people have great ideas. But yes, Bill is he an engineer?
Jason Becker (14:09.003)
Had that conversation with Bill Newell. Yeah. Yeah, he's a welding engineer, but he goes out on the shop floor and like he talks to the welders. Like a lot of the engineers that I chat with nowadays, like that's their, I think that's their, probably their biggest advantage is they're not afraid to walk out to the shop floor and talk to the welders one-on-one and say, here's what I'm doing. Here's why we need to do it this way. And the welders are like, oh, okay, that makes sense. know, so now.
Nate Bowman (14:17.974)
This is so important.
Nate Bowman (14:24.758)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Becker (14:33.471)
The welders aren't resisting. have a better understanding of what they're doing. Cause at the end of the day, like as a welder, I want to know what I'm building. What does this part do? You know, what does it go to? What's it going to be used in? You know, because then I can start, you know, factoring in my own things because a lot of times prints are incomplete. You know, I get so many prints that weld sizes are under, you know, they're undersized or they're not even, there's no weld symbols on the drawing. It just, you know, you, you're like, okay, I know I need to put a fillet weld there. And the foreman's like, we don't have time to do an RFI or whatever, you know, just
Nate Bowman (14:49.387)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Becker (15:03.123)
match the thickness of the base material, yeah, or a sixteenth less than the thickness, but you end up putting something on there. So when the engineers and the welders, when they can actually talk to one another and start understanding that, it educates the welder, but then it also educates the engineers because a lot of times they're putting welds where they can't go with the process that they're calling out or what you're getting into. you're like, hey, we can't rotate this. This process you want to use, we can't use that out of position. Can we switch to this process here?
Nate Bowman (15:04.724)
Match the thickness, yeah.
Nate Bowman (15:22.513)
yeah. Yeah.
Jason Becker (15:32.725)
So a lot of times like welders, know, they understand a little bit more, but they understand how to do it. The engineers understand how to design it. So like, let's figure out how we can actually make this work. So you got to have that, you got to have that coalescence. You got to have that synergy between the engineers and the welders.
Nate Bowman (15:47.36)
Yeah. And I think that, you know, there's no better example of this than, my partner and I, Demi, we, we got a chance to teach, some welding down at SpaceX, at, at Astra over the summer, last summer. And we, we did a tour of the, star base, a factory and stuff. And the, the thing that was probably one of the most shocking things, aside from it being insane that they're building spaceships there was the welding engineers that were there.
were like, man, these little kids are getting a chance to weld. I didn't get a chance to weld. Then I'm like, whoa, wait, wait, you're the guy welding the spaceships and you have not welded. And they're like, well, we took like a little semester or two of welding in my like weld engineering school. And, you know, I got to weld a little bit, but not as much as I wanted to. And I'm just like, holy shit, you know, like you guys are the best of the best and you are excited that these little kids are getting a chance to run a MIG welder.
And it's something that you would want to do. So, you know, if, that's the case, I feel like, man, like welders give like engineers such a bad rap, but I, I encourage you to try to reach across the aisle, you know, or go in the shop or in the office and drag them out onto the shop and get them under the hood so that they have a chance to experience welding and what you have to do. And, yeah.
Jason Becker (17:11.221)
Build a rapport.
Nate Bowman (17:13.215)
I mean, there's so many schools. was at the School of Mines in Colorado, and I was talking to some of their professors and stuff that they had there. And that's a big engineering school. And I was like, hey, is there a local trade school around here that does welding that could maybe help you guys with some of these projects that you work on? And they were like, well, yeah, we don't really talk to those people over there and whatever. And they were keeping him at arm's length. And I'm like, you guys need to do Freaky Friday.
You guys got to switch, send your engineers over to there and send the welders up here. Well, there's need to learn a little engineering. Engineers need to spend some time grinding a little bit, you know, and under the hood. So this is like an industry issue. And this is one of the big things that I'm trying to promote by coming out and doing podcasts like this or putting out videos is I want more of these smart folks to really kind of open their eyes to the blue collar side of it and the under under the hood part of it.
Jason Becker (17:50.027)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (18:10.791)
as well as welders to open their eyes to the technology, the continuing education, picking up a book and doing some reading or doing some math every once in a while. You know, all of these things are beneficial to like both parties, engineers and welders. But you brought up a point and this is actually a perfect transition into the weld volume thing. You said earlier, you said.
I don't know what size it is. So let's just match the weld size to the material thickness. That is an extremely common thing we see. And it just so happens that I use that as an example. my favorite example is like, let's say you're welding out a quarter inch material, you got quarter inch to quarter inch T joints everywhere. And you got to weld this whatever the hell it is out. So you stick with this.
Jason Becker (18:46.155)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (19:07.499)
Hey, I'm to I don't know. There's no call out on this. We want to put a quarter inch weld in. Well, really, you only need a three sixteenths weld according to AWS is it's what's I forget the name of it. It's like the weld size, like maximum full strength fillet weld size like it's like a chart or something like that. I should probably have that information. But there's an actual chart that says, you know, for three sixteenths and under, like an eighth inch or smaller.
Jason Becker (19:23.011)
yeah, yeah.
Nate Bowman (19:36.403)
And then for quarter inch, it's three sixteens for five sixteens, it's quarter. And for three eights, it's five sixteens and five sixteens is the maximum single pass fillet. Well, like which, which we know. So, the difference. So let's say you well, this thing out, you know, let's say you got a thousand linear feet of, of weld metal to weld out and you make that weld in a quarter inch weld.
that's 670 pounds of weld metal in a thousand linear feet. So if you want to do your math on this and like figure out what it is per foot, and then you can translate this into your own part, just use Chatchie PT and plug these numbers in. But basically a quarter inch fillet weld for a thousand feet, a thousand linear feet, a quarter inch fillet weld is about 670 pounds. If you made that same weld, but made it three sixteenths of an inch, it's 77 % less. That's 380 pounds total.
So think about if you're the guy that owns the shop, if it's just you, you're burning up all of these spools. How many extra spools have you put on this part that doesn't need to even be there? You're just welding. It's 290 pounds of metal. It's 77%. It doesn't even need to be there. So understanding what your weld size is and nailing your weld size is a huge one. And the
Jason Becker (20:49.909)
that doesn't need to be there.
Nate Bowman (21:00.619)
biggest one that I see in the industry is definitely on these smaller parts that quarter inch to quarter inch material. People making quarter inch fillet welds on that are literally wasting 77 % more time. So don't go ahead.
Jason Becker (21:12.907)
And like cross-reference that, what did you say it was? 290 pounds more?
Nate Bowman (21:17.547)
290 pounds more. it's
Jason Becker (21:19.519)
Okay, so what's that at like 250 per pound when you're buying filler metal? Grab the handy dandy calculator.
Nate Bowman (21:24.107)
Right, hang on. Let's do, I'll grab my calculator here. So what is it? How much is it per pound? $2.50 times 290, oh sorry, two, let's not do dividing, 250 times, it's $2.50, 250 times, I can do math, I promise. $725.
Jason Becker (21:31.019)
I'd say, yeah, roughly 250. Yeah.
Jason Becker (21:48.363)
290.
Jason Becker (21:52.587)
Let's say you got five welders in the shop doing that. exponentially, I mean, can compound that across the board.
Nate Bowman (21:53.909)
Got it.
Nate Bowman (21:57.395)
You could see how big.
This is one job, one week, one welder in one shop. So you got shops that have 50 welders in them, welding 50 weeks out of the year, whatever, right? Yeah, these numbers get really big. And this is, think, exactly why folks do not wanna hear this stuff. This is a extremely difficult conversation to have. it's not that, that's the thing. Like, shops are spending this money.
My goal is to take that money and put it in the welder's pocket and in the business owner's pocket rather than give it to, I mean, and I hate to say this, their gas supplier, which I work for. I'm, and my gas supplier, central welding that I work for pays me to go help our customers learn this stuff, which saves them money. And the thought, yeah, the thought process is if we can save them money and make them more profitable.
Jason Becker (22:50.293)
Yeah, that's a value.
Nate Bowman (22:58.078)
they will expand their operation. I would rather open up the opportunity for you to weld longer and weld more than just sell you more parts that you're just gonna burn up that don't even need to be, like, let's put this to work. So that's the first, yeah, ahead.
Jason Becker (23:13.173)
Yeah, not only that, I mean, you're building a relationship with your clients and stuff like that, and they're going to keep coming back because they're getting that added value that they may not be getting somewhere else.
Nate Bowman (23:22.76)
Yeah, and that's it. There's a lot of I'm not the only company that does this. Like I said, Airgas has the advanced fab team. If you're an Airgas customer, reach out to your local, you know, advanced fab team member, you know, they will make you sign a contract and stuff like that and whatever typically. But that's that's the way that they do it. But there's a lot of companies I know that Praxair has a team I think Lindy has a team of people
There are smart people that work at welding distributors that know and do this stuff. And, you know, if you're a customer of a welding supply place, which if you're listening to this podcast, chances are you probably are. This is something that you could maybe potentially lean on your supplier to help you kind of sort out some of this stuff. Maybe an uncomfortable conversation for them to save you a bunch of money. But hey, you should definitely be asking and do your due diligence. OK, so I think we're done with that's weld volume.
That's an easy one. Let's talk about.
Jason Becker (24:22.639)
When you talk about volume, just so people understand, you're talking about the triangle shape of the fillet weld. And that's why exponentially, every 16th inch you go up, you've got that massive increase because your hypotenuse is expanding exponentially. When you raise the vertical leg, the horizontal leg, it's what's in between those two legs. That's where the volume is actually going. That's all the filler metal that's being converted into mass and weight. So mean, not only are you like...
Nate Bowman (24:38.27)
Yes.
Jason Becker (24:51.723)
wasting a lot of filler metal, you're wasting time, you're also, depending on the size of the part, you're adding a lot more weight to it, a lot more stress, a lot more internal stress because you're putting an oversized weld in there. What does heat do to metal? It moves it. Where does it move it? The direction where it's applied. So that's the same reason why we have limitations on weld reinforcement. So mean, you also have that factor built into that as well.
Nate Bowman (25:14.538)
And then the other thing too is like to put a larger size weld in your travel speed needs to be slower at a given deposition rate. Right? So what I mean is like, if you have your wire feed speed set at 300 inches a minute or whatever, and you're making this well that, you know, with 300 inches a minute of O three, five 70s six coming out and you're supposed to be making a three sixteenths weld. And now you need to make a quarter inch weld. You're traveling 77 % slower.
Jason Becker (25:21.408)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (25:39.912)
So you're putting more heat into that part. You're on that part for a lot longer. So what are some of the downstream effects of adding this weld? Well, it could be maybe you have to grind some of these welds flat or grind some of these welds out. And now you have to take even more metal out that you didn't even need to put in in the first place. Or now you're flame straightening stuff or trying to put it in a press break to get it.
bent back straight again, and you're spending all this extra time reworking it because you put all this extra heat into it. So the deposition or the weld volume thing could be a huge issue for a lot of people. And it's just something that can be solved with a fillet weld gauge and some training. having a gauge and just making sure that you can nail those weld sizes and you're nailing the sizes on the drawing or having a better relationship with
the folks that are doing your drawing and being a being like, Hey, what size do you need in here? Does it need to be quarter inch? Do we need to weld this whole thing? Can we stitch weld it? Asking these questions and being more involved in that process as the welder is definitely super beneficial and can save you a freaking fortune in, you know, wasted time and material.
Jason Becker (26:52.009)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Becker (26:55.445)
Especially year over year. And at that point, once you address that issue, you're training your workforce to train everybody else that's coming in. Hey, that's not how we do it here. Let me show you how we do it correctly. So you essentially have to train one iteration and then just make sure everybody's up to date with that. And then everybody else kind of falls in line. You break a lot of those bad habits of, well, we always just do it, you know, the thickness of the base material. You know, you got that mentality, you know, because we've been doing it like that for 20 years.
Nate Bowman (27:05.288)
Yeah, yeah, this is.
Nate Bowman (27:21.352)
Yep. then nobody's, you know, and that's the thing, like people may question this, but nobody really has the math or the numbers to be able to kind of put to this. And that's kind of the whole point of why I wanted to do this podcast and to kind of do it in this way. Because I think this forum is a great way for people to, you know, absorb some of this. And I really tried to come up with some examples that are digestible that you guys can plug in your own numbers and do your own math again, like.
You watched me fumble through my phone trying to just do simple math, but we can do it as welders And if you can't do it get chat GPT to do it for you But double check chat GPT's math because it does screw it up a lot Spreadsheets are yes. Yes, stretch spreadsheets are always good. So here's another one. I'm gonna we'll do one more on on this this over welding thing so the difference between that 3 16th and quarter weld
Jason Becker (28:01.097)
Yeah, I like spreadsheets. I can always go back and check the cell.
Nate Bowman (28:17.417)
a quarter inch weld at eight pounds an hour deposition rate. Like if we just use eight pounds an hour and we're going to use $75 an hour as our burden rate, right? So that's what, what, you know, you could be a welder in a shop and make 42 50 an hour or whatever. Well, the, to the people that are cutting the check, you have all your insurance and benefits and all the other stuff that they need to carry on you. So $75 an hour labor rate is pretty average for a lot of shops.
Jason Becker (28:45.227)
Pretty cheap.
Nate Bowman (28:46.761)
And yeah, but again, full transparency here. You can make your own labor rate, whatever you want. Just put your numbers in there. So three sixteenths weld 47 and a half hours, quarter inch weld, 83.75 hours. Yeah. Almost 84 hours. So it's 36, 36 extra hours that it took you to weld the exact same part out, which at 75 bucks an hour is 2,700 bucks. So think about.
Jason Becker (29:01.845)
cheese.
Nate Bowman (29:16.145)
Right. Like you're welding a job. Let's I kind of try to think of this like as just me as just like a job that I took on as a weld science. Right. Hey, Nate, we got all these widgets to weld out. It's a thousand linear feet of weld. And I say, all right, it's going to cost you five thousand bucks. Right. Or whatever it is for me to weld all these out for you. Well, you got twenty seven hundred dollars right here in just nailing your weld size. Twenty seven hundred bucks.
That's an enormous part of your profitability right there. Exactly. And we're just talking about well, volume. We haven't even talked about the other three levers. So like you could see how big these numbers get when you start combining, pulling multiple levers at one time. So, let's just see here. All right. Extra metal, blah, blah, extra welding.
Jason Becker (29:49.419)
It's over half what you're gonna make on the job.
Nate Bowman (30:11.21)
so a smaller example would be like a hundred linear feet of weld. The extra weld metal from oversizing would be 29 pounds. again, at this eight pounds an hour deposition rate, you're looking at an extra 3.6 hours of welding. So like nearly half of your shift is just extra welding. So just, just again, take your own numbers, plug them in here. If you have questions, shoot me a DM. I'll help you guys with the math. This is very easy stuff, but I want
I want folks to be able to grasp this. How are you doing on this? You good? You like you like I know all this stuff. But
Jason Becker (30:42.601)
I'm doing good.
Well, it's like good to have a refresher and then some of the stuff is like still relatively new. Like I remember it was, couldn't remember what the percentage was, you know, based off of three sixteenths and a quarter inch weld. But yeah, 77 % sounds pretty, that sounds about what I remember. I was trying to think of, I didn't think it was that much, but yeah, there's the triangle. Yeah.
Nate Bowman (31:05.671)
Here it is right here. it's not just me, not just me saying it. Here it is right here. Here's the difference in your size. And I think it's of course, it's reversed on the screen for some reason. I don't know why.
Jason Becker (31:06.517)
cheese
Jason Becker (31:15.401)
No, it's right on my end.
Nate Bowman (31:17.385)
Oh, it's backwards on mine, but okay. All right. Well, whatever.
Jason Becker (31:19.499)
I think I got the mirror settings set up on my end.
Nate Bowman (31:23.661)
Okay, all right. Well, either way it whatever Okay, so let's talk about operator factor. This is the one that people went absolutely crazy about so How much of the time but operator factor for those of you that don't? Excuse me don't understand what this is or how it's measured so typically when I if I got hired to come into a shop and Determine an operator factor the best way to do it would be to apply
Arc data monitoring equipment to your existing equipment, or if you have equipment that's capable of doing Arc data monitoring, and we would like to do this study for a minimum of six months. It's better over a year. The longer the study, the more data points you have, and the more we can kind of hone in on exactly what's happening. And this is not about calling people out for spending time on their phone or in the bathroom or doing other things. This is just about, Hey, did you know
This is what your operator factor is and what are those things that welders are doing other than welding as a welder. And I said this before, I want to spend time under the hood with my headphones in welding. If I could weld eight hours a day, nonstop, that would be great. If I didn't have to lift my hood up and go do all this other stuff or grind or go find parts or whatever, and you could just put your headphones in or blast your stereo and just jam like.
You're cruising. That's the life, I think. Yeah.
Jason Becker (32:52.533)
That's what everybody signs up for. That's what everybody that goes to welding school thinks they're going to be doing when they graduate. They're going be like, I'm going be out there on the job site, hood down 40 hours a week. No, you're not.
Nate Bowman (33:00.839)
Yep, yep, not necessarily the case.
Jason Becker (33:05.963)
That'd be cool, but very few shops are gonna have you in there just hood down all day every day.
Nate Bowman (33:06.269)
but it would be cool.
Nate Bowman (33:11.305)
Unless, you know, as somebody so many people have pointed out in the comments, well, that's what fitters are for. Like, are the fitters free? Do you do you pay the fitters like, you know, like it's all still part of the still part of the cost there. So one of the shops that I first worked at, Industrial Fab in Syracuse, they built parts for GA Braun. And one of the things that we did is we would they would say you take the part all the way. So from fitting all the pieces up, right, they'd have a pallet of
Jason Becker (33:18.794)
Yeah, right.
Nate Bowman (33:40.947)
fabricated parts and you'd fit every single piece up and you'd weld everything out beginning to end. And as a new welder, I am a new welder to welding these specific parts. It was really challenging for me to one, understand the drawings, understand the nuance of the fit up and how to get things set exactly the way that they needed to be to be welded out the best way. mean, even down to where to put the tacks.
to make sure that things stayed where you wanted them and you were landing in them and so on. And one of the things that I realized like really early on is how much more productive I was when I had a fitter, especially somebody that had been doing it for a really long time. And that was actually what I shifted to before I ended up leaving that place. The guy that had been there for 30 something years, he was like, man, I'm tired of welding. You wanna weld all day? Go for it, kid.
I'll fit everything up for you and we killed it. The parts that I put out were so much better because I had an amazing fitter that did all the prep and kind of handled all that. And I could just focus on being in the zone and, and, know, like you get in the groove when you're welding and you know, you just be in the zone and you could just spit out parts. So that is a great way, I think, for folks to look at operator factor as
It's optimizing the time that you can spend welding by making everything else as easy as possible. It doesn't have to be, it's not about calling people out. It's not about telling anybody's lazy. It's just a, you know these are what the numbers are.
Jason Becker (35:18.015)
Well, I mean, it's also a reality of many shops. I mean, you're like the fitter. like that's me before I put my welding hood on, right? I had the same thing. It was like, I would take the parts. Sometimes they were pre-cut, but sometimes it's like, hey man, here's the print. Like go build this. And so like, I'm going to find the material on the rack, pulling it off the rack, taking over the saw, cutting it up, you know, cleaning, deburring, you know, taking the mill scale off, fitting everything up, tacking it, squaring it. Then I get to weld, right? Cause it's like...
Nate Bowman (35:32.092)
Right. Right.
Nate Bowman (35:45.598)
Yeah.
Jason Becker (35:46.781)
And what I tell my students like that's 20 % of what you're going to be doing. It's the most technical portion. But the other, rest of the time you'll be cutting, fitting, fabricating, tracking down tools, tracking down materials, trying to figure out where you left your damn tape measure that you had in your hand 10 seconds ago. There's a lot of like misspent time, right?
Nate Bowman (36:02.025)
still a real thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that it's OK to call this stuff out and say that, hey, I think that we need to look at this. And this kind of brings me back to my point about this is high performance welding. This is the way that we need to look at it. If you want to start moving towards being a high performance welder where your output is high, you're putting out quality products quickly,
That is money to any employer or if you are a business owner and you're putting out quality parts quickly, you can make more parts in less time and you can make more money or you can make more parts in less time and go hang out with your family or go on vacation or whatever. You don't have to work the weekend to finish your thing that you could have finished on Tuesday because you don't pay attention to any of these things.
or try to optimize any of these things. Like I understand these are difficult. That's why I want to bring them up so we can talk about them. So I have a great example about operator factor. And it's based on the grinder. And we talked a little bit about this earlier as well. So how many people have been in a shop and you have one angle grinder, you have like a cutoff wheel, a flap wheel, and a hard disk, you know, like a just regular grinding wheel. And, you know,
You have to change that wheel out multiple times a day to do whatever it is that you're doing. Like you need the hard wheel for this. You need a flat wheel. You need to cut off wheel. So you go to your supervisor, you go to the owner of the company. You're like, Hey man, can I get another grinder? You know, and they're like, you just have, we have one. Like, why do you need another grinder? Grinders are expensive. They're like 150 bucks. Like, why would he buy another? You know, we can't afford for it. You know, whatever. Right? Like think of all the excuses they're going to come up with. So if we use that same.
$75 an hour burden rate. And we assume that it takes you a minute and a half to change the wheel out. I think that's pretty fair. Minute and a half to, you know. But yeah, I'm just saying, you know, like, even if we.
Jason Becker (38:10.709)
Yes, that's on the slow side, but yeah.
But mean that's unplugging the cord because you're going to do it safely, Yeah.
Nate Bowman (38:19.474)
correct, you know, and maybe you're, you know, like, how many times have you got a wheel that you can't freaking get off, and then you got to find your, you know, nut wrench and, you know, all that's it, how many times that happened. So if we just call it
Jason Becker (38:33.579)
Pro tip, zip tie your nut wrench to the end of your cable so when you unplug it, your nut wrench is right there. Or if, so a lot of the new grinders are coming out with Allen keys, I take electrical tape and tape that up. I just tape the Allen key right to the electrical cord, close to the plug-in. You know, so that way you have to unplug it to use the tool.
Nate Bowman (38:38.94)
That's a great idea.
Nate Bowman (38:46.461)
Right on the chord.
Nate Bowman (38:50.546)
That's a great-
That's a freaking smart idea. That's a really good idea. Put it on the, I'm going to do that actually now. Yeah. Cause like I keep them.
Jason Becker (38:55.551)
Yeah. Put that in your toolkit. Yeah, all the ones I got at the house, if they got like the two prong, I put the zip tie on there. But yeah, it's like roughly 90 seconds, not to throw you off track. Roughly a minute and a half to swap out because a lot of times you're like, well, I got to swap it out. But also, shit, this flap deal or this flap disk is smoked. Now I need to go get another one. Off to the tool crib.
Nate Bowman (39:06.172)
That's... But that's a-
Nate Bowman (39:17.062)
Yeah, so I, yeah, an hour and now it's not a minute and a half. Now it's whatever. But if we just say, five changes a day at a minute and a half per change on average, right? If you have, if you only have one grinder and you're, and you're out there fabricating, you're running a cutoff wheel, running a flap wheel, running a hard disk, prepping, fitting parts, doing all the things that welders do. and again, if you don't like the numbers, add your own numbers, you know, we could change this out. So,
Five times seven and five times a day that's seven and a half minutes. Seven and a half minutes at a day. Basically dollar impact is nine dollars and thirty eight cents per day. So Ian, what is this here? Let's see. Let's see how long for this grinder here. I had it written down here. I think it's like 18 days or something like that. I had it written down.
Jason Becker (40:00.372)
welder.
Nate Bowman (40:13.981)
So it's 40, yeah, 40. if you go $9 and 38 cents per day, 46 88 per week. And then, yeah, you know, I don't know where the hell my other notes are.
Jason Becker (40:25.835)
50 bucks a week, that's 200 bucks a month.
Nate Bowman (40:28.776)
Yeah. What did I do with my papers here? I like two fives on this. Sorry. I knew that I should have gone through these. All right. So like a completely losing track of what's going on here. So all right. Just so you guys know, I do screw up the math sometimes, but and I also am not perfect. But if I can like work my way through this, anybody else can. So, um, yeah, that's it.
Jason Becker (40:55.147)
Well, like you said, once you have your own numbers, you factor those in. Like I said, I'm a big fan of Microsoft Excel, but like you can put all these numbers into chat GPT. You can pull the formulas out of the welding management book from Jack Barkov. You can put your own values in there because every shop is going to be a little bit different. And I think that's why you got a lot of pushback and flack from the comment section.
And the people that weren't like chirping in the comment section or like writing you nasty grams on the DMs and stuff like that. Those are the guys that are like, yeah, 11%. You know, that sounds about right. You know, it's all the ones that are like, no, I'm doing six hours a day, but I've got two days of prep before I put my hood on. But yeah, I'm just...
Nate Bowman (41:29.778)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nate Bowman (41:37.176)
Yeah, yeah. But what about averages? Yeah, I fit up for a week and then I weld for a week and I'm like, all right, that would be 50%. If you know, okay, but still not 100%. Like some people think that they will, you know. And I know people aren't fitting for a week and welding for me they are but you know, like, I found my other sheet, by the way. Okay, so
Jason Becker (41:41.171)
Yeah, what about averages? You don't understand how an average works?
Jason Becker (41:48.139)
50 %? Yeah, that sounds about right.
Nate Bowman (42:03.912)
you you're you're losing about 31 hours a year, which would be equivalent to about 2300 bucks a year. So the cost of the solution, your second angle grinder is 150 bucks, right? That would be a nice angle grinder, decent one. It would would only be paid off in 16 days. And that's only one welder. Only, you know, one one welder, one grinder, one shop like you could see how big these numbers get.
And when they're like, I can't afford $150 grinder. It's like, but you can pay the person to change the wheel out though. Like you are, you are paying the person to change the wheel out every, you know, let's just call it, even if these numbers are absolutely insane, 16 working days to get $150 grinder. Let's just call it a month. Every month you could buy him a new grinder. You're paying them that yeah. And still save money. Exactly.
Jason Becker (43:00.159)
and still save money. Your never, your brushes are never gonna wear out.
Nate Bowman (43:04.379)
yeah, you could buy a brand new grinder every month and still save money. And that's, I think that this is also part of the way that I look at my business and the way that I purchase tools. And I've always purchased tools for my business is I look at these numbers and I'm like, man, like how much time do I spend wasting doing all these other things? What I just buy another tool or buy the tool that does the job. Like it all comes back down to, I always ask myself, what's your time worth? And
You ask yourself that question and then you just add it in your dollar impact per year. Here's how many hours times how much I feel I'm worth. If you think that you're worth 150 bucks an hour or that's what your time is worth, then add 150 in there. If you're like, that's only 50 bucks an hour or whatever, then add 50 in there. So you do your own math and, you can figure out what it is. But yeah, buying a grinder is not an inconvenience as
a lot of people kind of seen that it is, but this is a great example of a way to, you know, where operator factor really affects like what you're doing as a welder and how easy it is something as simple as adding one grinder can change your productivity significantly. You're picking up all this extra time that you can then spend welding or doing whatever it is that you want to do.
Jason Becker (44:29.035)
Yeah, that's I'm a big fan of cordless grinders just for this I don't use them at my shop, but I've got three of the the Bosch x-lock grinders and I didn't yeah, they're freaking they're they're fantastic the cool thing to x-lock you got like a little paddle on the back You just trip that little lever the wheel literally jumps off the grinder and you press the new one back on everything locks into place I'm not saying everybody needs to go out and buy those
Nate Bowman (44:37.223)
God, those are great. I have one of those, yeah.
Jason Becker (44:54.165)
But I've got three of them. So like when I'm doing fab work, one's got a cutoff wheel, one's got a hard rock, one's got a wire wheel or whatever combination that I'm using. If I'm not using cutoff wheels, boom, flap disc goes on there. But like I can pick up the tool that I need and I prefer cordless even in a shop where I've got overhead pull downs and all that. I don't want the tripping hazards. I don't like things getting twisted up. Everything's always in the way. The cable's getting burnt. Be efficient with what you're doing, but also invest in tools. And if that means having a couple of multiple...
Nate Bowman (45:10.725)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Becker (45:22.985)
multiple grinders laying around, I mean, start off with two. I mean, you know, if you're going back and forth between grinding and wire wheeling, like just start off with two grinders. And most, most of your, I don't know how it is up there. Like you said, 150 bucks, that's a nice grinder. You can get the standard DeWalt four and a half inch angle grinder for like a hundred bucks almost any day of the week at your local welding supply store. They're always running specials on that one. Those things are damn near bulletproof. I've got the same one in my garage that, you know, I've had per
Nate Bowman (45:36.443)
Yeah, yeah.
Jason Becker (45:51.455)
the past fricking 10 years. It's probably time to upgrade, but I still haven't wore it out. But you make that investment and like you've got it. So having that up there and you know, I'm saving 90 seconds. don't have that. My business isn't set up to focus on that minutiae, but as a welder and fabricator, I find that convenient that I can knock out all these jobs a lot faster, especially if you're getting paid by the piece. mean, look at that versus your hourly rate. You know, if I can save money, if I'm doing
Nate Bowman (45:56.219)
Yeah, yeah, and if.
Nate Bowman (46:15.751)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Becker (46:19.647)
piecework, if I can crank that stuff out a lot faster, I'm getting more money in, right? Because my value per hour is going up a lot faster. How many parts I can pull through in hours. That's my time versus how many pieces I can crank out the door. can make more money that way.
Nate Bowman (46:33.275)
Yeah, and I think that like, you if you look at yourself as a welder or as a welding operation, it's like comes back to that. What's your time worth? Right. You you use the number any way that you want. You can calculate it down to the minute if you want. And hey, I'm only saving three minutes a day. Well, how long do you plan on welding for? Like, do you plan on this being like a lifelong career? Well, how many days do you think you're going to weld in your lifetime? And if it's
Jason Becker (46:42.539)
Hmm?
Nate Bowman (47:02.149)
whatever, let's call it, even if it's like, you $3, you know, in a, in a, in a day that you're saving over this long period of time, this is like tens of thousands of dollars that you could be putting back in your, in your pocket or using that money to invest in whatever it is that you want, like more tools, more capability, continuing education.
that truck that you want, wheels for your car, whatever, right? Like all of these things, like what I've realized that it's like death by a thousand cuts. Like welding shops and welders are just hemorrhaging money all of these different like little ways. And if you don't pay attention to, you know, what's happening, it's like, you know, you're drilling a like a bunch of little holes in your boat. And it's just.
You know, you got a bilge pump and it's pumping it all out and you're still moving along. But like if you plugged all these holes up, you know, you could you could be. Yeah, exactly. And then you're exactly, exactly. And then you're freaking cruising. And that's exactly I mean, I feel like I'm living proof of this as as somebody who like 10 years ago started in a 1994 dually prime black
Jason Becker (48:01.387)
You'd be able to get that boat on a plane.
and then you're cruisin'.
Nate Bowman (48:22.918)
painted freaking welding truck with a bed that didn't fit. And to where I'm at now, paying attention to these little details and these things and applying this stuff to my business over 10 years, like I said, has a lot of opportunities and financial savings that I'm not just throwing money out for these things that I can then reinvest in my business. And now I have more tools. it just, like you said, before you know it, this stuff layers up.
you're on plane and now you're cruising. And it becomes part of the culture, it becomes part of your mindset all the time. And you know, that's super helpful though, for just the way that you look at jobs, you know.
Jason Becker (49:06.559)
Yeah. Throwing Charlie's name out there one time, like he always says, what gets measured gets managed. Yeah, what gets measured gets managed. So if you don't know where you're leaking, if you don't know where the boat's leaking, you can't patch the hole. If you don't know where you're spending that extra money, whether it's in well deposition or volume or training or whatever the case may be, if you don't know where that money's going, there's no way you can manage that. If you don't know how many parts you can crank out per hour, if you don't have these numbers as a business owner, what it costs to
Nate Bowman (49:13.754)
Yes, yes.
Nate Bowman (49:18.702)
Exactly.
Jason Becker (49:35.243)
to run the business, but also where am I losing money? Where can I start cutting corners to increase that profit margin or decrease my overhead or increase my bottom line? You need to know and understand those numbers. And I think that's the difference between most businesses, like 50 % of them go under within the first two years. And it's because you're so overwhelmed. I don't have time to track this or that. I've got work to do and you just keep buying shit you don't need and you buy it on credit. And the next thing you know, it's like,
Nate Bowman (49:53.68)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Becker (50:04.907)
Oh damn, if I would have actually sat back and reevaluated that and got the correct weld size. Not saying that it's always going to boil down to weld size and how fast you're to able to swap out a grinder, but all of this stuff compounds. you know, it's at end of the day, it's costing you money. And if you're wasting money to earn money, I mean, it costs money to make money. Yes. But it doesn't mean the more that I waste along the process, the more I'm going to bring in, right? You got to be financially savvy and smart about
Nate Bowman (50:11.781)
Right.
Jason Becker (50:31.883)
what you're spending to bring back into that business to make your business successful and make that money. But if you're just pissing it away and lost time and over welding and all this other stuff, you can save a lot of that money and since make dollars at the end of the day. So if I can save $3 per employee for this one task, and then can save per 1000 feet of weld, I can save an additional $720 per welder. Now I'm up to $723 per welder.
And you just keep compounding that. Like you said, the labor burden or the burden of having somebody on staff. I did a whole episode on that because people were like, they don't pay welders enough. And it's like, do you understand what it actually costs to have a welder on staff? It's freaking expensive. And I get a lot of, don't want to get into that. That's a whole different rabbit hole, but like, that's why certain shops don't pay a whole lot because the financial burden of having an employee is exponentially high.
Nate Bowman (51:14.906)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nate Bowman (51:29.924)
Yeah. And then it's it's so in it almost seems that they use shops are the ones that are like, we can't afford to get you another grinder. And before you know it, those shops are long gone. You know, like they they cannot last because they're just hemorrhaging money. And, you know, they refuse to look at this sort of stuff. And it comes down often to if they refuse to listen to the welders because it's the welder that's like, hey, man,
It would be a lot faster if I had two grinders. But they're like, I don't want to go spend $150 of my own money to go buy another grinder to make you money. Rightly so, exactly. it's like, you can understand the reason why Jack Barkoff's Total Welding Management, this orange book, and all this stuff is kept at arm's length and has been kept at arm's length for so long. Because it ruffles so many feathers, too.
Jason Becker (52:07.092)
rightly so.
Jason Becker (52:24.222)
It's scary.
Nate Bowman (52:29.944)
Like, how could we possibly be spending this much money? Or how could we possibly be wasting this much money? And it's really simple math. And it's almost scary when you see how simple it is, and you start plugging in the numbers, and how big they get really quick. And you're like, my god. But they're real. Like, they're not, I don't know what to tell you. They're real numbers.
Jason Becker (52:52.565)
Well, like you said, that's why nobody wants to grab that book because it's scary. Once you start looking into that and digging, you're like, damn, we're we're hemorrhaging money where we don't, we don't need to. But it's also good to like dig into that book, figure out where you're, you're losing the money and plug those holes. And let's get this boat on plane.
Nate Bowman (53:00.038)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (53:07.942)
Yeah, win where you can. And this is, why I want to do this podcast and why I appreciate you having me on so that we can get this out there and folks can understand this stuff. As much as I hate to say that take this like a buffet, because that's a problem that I deal with a lot when I consult. People will just pick what they want to do and they don't do everything.
but then they don't get the results that they're expecting. And it's like, well, you only ate half the meal. So I don't want to tell you. But choose one that's easy for you guys to work on. And that brings me to the third lever, which is the one that I talk about all the time with people, because it's the easiest one to grasp or feel as a welder, and that's deposition rate. So we talk about deprate all the time. Yeah, go ahead.
Jason Becker (53:57.161)
Okay. Hey Nate, hold that thought one second. I gotta run and grab my space heater, I'm fucking freezing. One second. Okay, cool.
Nate Bowman (54:04.664)
Okay, yeah, we'll take a break. Yeah, we'll take a break.
Jason Becker (56:31.563)
Okay, thanks. Yeah, it's fucking the temperature. Like, I'm not used to this. So like I got out here and my AC was on like 68 just from the other night. So I turned the AC off and I was like, yeah, I'll be fine. I'll be out here for an hour. It was like 40 degrees outside and it's like just continuously dropping and I'm not used to that shit.
Nate Bowman (56:32.741)
Heck yeah, no problem,
Nate Bowman (56:39.938)
Yeah.
Nate Bowman (56:46.352)
man, yeah. Yeah, dude, I heard it's like super cold down there.
Jason Becker (56:50.121)
Yeah, I was like, let me run out to the garage real quick, get that space heater that's been like sitting there since like two years ago.
Nate Bowman (56:53.367)
Yuck.
Yeah, yeah, heck yeah. All right, you ready?
Jason Becker (57:01.375)
Yeah, deposition.
Nate Bowman (57:02.853)
Okay, all right. So I brought a couple examples of deposition rate with me here. We talk about this all the time. Deposition rate is basically just, it's easiest to understand in MIG welding. So when you squeeze the trigger, your wire feed speed comes out in inches per minute. And you know, there's, know how much one inch of wire weighs as welded, right? So that would be called what we call a deposition rate multiplier.
If you want any of those deposition rate multipliers, I'm going to give you the multipliers for these different electrodes that I'm going to call out. But if you want any of these, would be Bartonian conversion factor is the depth rate converted to travel speed. Yeah, based on the fillet-outside, yes, exactly. So we do talk about that a little bit. So we're going to use 516's fillet welds because of the Bartonian conversion factor.
Jason Becker (57:38.955)
That's the Bartonian, right?
Jason Becker (57:46.46)
to fillet weld size. Travel speed based on fillet weld size. Yep.
Nate Bowman (58:00.4)
The Bartonian conversion factor basically says that your deposition rate in pounds per hour is your travel speed in inches per minute, which is a great rule of thumb for anyone setting up any sort of like bug or Gullco or tractor or something like that to make a weld. Yeah, right. Exactly. So a five 16 spill it welled in the deposition rate is the exactly one to one. So
Jason Becker (58:15.913)
Right, no welding procedure. Yeah.
Nate Bowman (58:27.845)
There's a bunch of other stuff. If you want to see the Bartonian conversion factor again, hit me up with my DMs. I'll send you a screenshot of his little chart for different size welds. And then if you want to know what any deposition rate multiplier is for any particular electrode, I'm happy to help you guys with that. But, you know, the ones that I'm using, I'm going to use the common stuff that everybody uses, like a 70 S 6035, like just regular solid wire that everybody's got in their shop. So
Jason Becker (58:56.159)
the workhorse.
Nate Bowman (58:57.413)
the workhorse, the classic. So let's say you got, you know, some three eights material to weld out a bunch of stuff that you're welding out. You're welding a bunch of buckets together or whatever it might be. So you have a bunch of different levels that we're going to go through. So like level one would be like oh, three, five and 70 S six doing short arc. So 300 inches a minute. Our deposition rate multiplier is 0.017. So if you have a machine at home,
And you're using 03570S6 solid wire. Doesn't matter the brand. If you take and multiply your wire feed speed times 0.017, that's going to give you pounds per hour that you're going to deposit if you weld for one hour nonstop. So that's 5.1 pounds per hour. So approximate travel speed to make that 5 16th's fillet weld is going to be about five inches a minute. And also by the way, you're going to have no fusion on three eighths material with 035 at 300 inches a minute, just so you know.
Jason Becker (59:56.651)
Ooh, let's jump down that rabbit hole next. 3H plate on 035 wire, please.
Nate Bowman (59:58.213)
Right. Yeah, so level two I I'm just I'm just using it as an example. I know that people are freaking doing it though as horrifying as that is I'm sure they're doing it
Jason Becker (01:00:08.907)
Oh no, I know. I convert a lot of... Let me introduce you to my friend, Gas Shielded Fluxcore. Have you ever met 71885? Oh, that's awesome.
Nate Bowman (01:00:15.525)
Right. Yeah, for real. So if you are going to use a 71, 85 or a 71 T1 and 045 flux core and 04571 T1, a great multiplier for that is going to be point zero to one. So let's turn the wire feed speed up a little bit and we're going to go up a diameter and wire. You're to go from a 035 to 045.
One wire is solid and one wire is cored. So the deposition rates are not necessarily a huge jump because the center of that wire is going to end up as smoke and slag. keep in mind. So level two would be 04571T1 flux core or 7185 if you will at 350 inches a minute times 0.021 gives you 7.4 pounds per hour. So again.
You got a 250 amp machine in your shop. have 04571 T1, whatever wire feed speed is on the front of your machine times 0.021 is going to give you the travel speed that you're going to make a five sixteenths fillet weld more or less very, very close. Um, I've done a lot of testing in this. I know these numbers are right. If you don't like it, come at me in the comments. I'd be happy to show you the math. Um,
So then the level three would be, and this is something that I typically do for a company that has 7525 gas, 045, they're welding a bunch of three eighths parts on a bench and just making five sixteenths fill it well, two F, right? I will take their wire out of the machine and put in a spool of 04570C, which is just a metal core wires. So it runs in spray transfer in flat and horizontal position only.
Jason Becker (01:01:51.678)
Metal Chord.
Nate Bowman (01:01:58.66)
Um, so can't weld it out of position. You can, if you're really good, but you can't run it on a position on paper. Um, and you turn it up to like 400 inches a minute. And the other cool thing about, um, Oh, four or five metal core is it loves to be run at high wire feed speeds. Like you can run it at five or 600 inches a minute and it's happy as can be.
Jason Becker (01:02:18.589)
It's just got like a nice little... It just sizzles. Yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:02:21.189)
It just, it, it, just ripping, ripping. So Oh, four. And this is usually like the example that I give folks that are, are, you know, Hey, we want to weld a little bit faster. We're not really happy with the quality. We're well than all these parts that are on a bench. There are five sixteenths fill it wells all day long. So rather than talk about pulse, talk about spray transfer, different gas, whatever same drive rolls, just a different spool of wire with 75 25 gas. is a little rough.
but it will get there 400 inches a minute. Your deposition rate multiplier for that is 0.0246. That's going to give you about 9.8 pounds an hour at 400 inches a minute wire feed speed. So now you're traveling at about 10 inches per minute. So we're twice as fast as that 035 and we're about 30 % faster than that 045 flux core. And the other thing too, you don't have to chip slag.
now that you're using the metal core, which would actually affect not deposition rate, but operator factor. So you can see how kind of these two things are connected. So those are a few examples. And then if you wanted to get into something that was a little bit crazier, you know, where you have like something like hyperfill or another advanced process, this is the fourth lever. Hey, we're making five sixteenths fillet welds all day long, every day.
And we're using 04571T1 at whatever, through whatever we had here, 300 inches or 350 inches a minute, 7.4 pounds an hour. Hyperfill makes the same welds at 18 pounds an hour. It's not even like you're making exactly the, not even close. So it would literally take you two people, two welders welding at the same time for to produce the same amount of parts as one welder with one hyperfill system.
Jason Becker (01:04:02.539)
Not even close.
Nate Bowman (01:04:16.835)
And I'm not saying hyperfill is the only thing that can weld at 18 pounds an hour. Miller has a system. You know, there are single wire options that you can run at high wire feed speed metal core and so on that you can get big fill it welds in. you know, typically what I see average deposition rate across the country is between five and seven pounds an hour. And if you want to know what your deposition rate is, like I said,
Slide the DMs, I'll be happy to give you the deposition rate multiplier if you want to know what it is. an easy one, I'll give you the multipliers for the most common ones would be, where's my world science cheat sheet?
Okay, so if you're using flux core 71 T1, if you're using 035, deposition rate multiplier is 0.010, 045 is 0.021, 052 is 0.025, and 1 16th is 0.036. And for solid wire, 030 is 0.012, 035 is 0.017, 045 is 0.027, and 052 is 0.036.
And then metal core 045 is 0.0246, 052 is 0.0326 and 1 16th is 0.046. So that covers most of the common ones. And the way that I got these deposition rate multipliers is I took the full range of process efficiency. So depending on where you run an electrode, it will be more efficient or less efficient if you run it down lower or up higher.
So I created an average and then I created an average deposition rate multiplier for these based off the spec sheets of most common electrodes. So every bit of research that I've done, every bit of testing that I've done that these numbers are accurate. yeah, feel free to use them, share them and yeah, tell me what your depth rate is, I guess.
Jason Becker (01:06:18.411)
Those numbers aren't only good to figure out, you know, how much is it costing per hour to run this based off of, you know, how much weld wire we're putting into the joint, this, that, and the other thing. How much, you know, how long it's taking the welder. That information right there is good for bidding. Because at the end of the day, company A, company B, company C, they're all bidding on the same job, the same work. Let's say two of those three companies don't know their numbers and one company does. He knows exactly what it's going to cost him to do that job.
Nate Bowman (01:06:35.213)
Yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:06:47.906)
Yep. And exactly how long it takes to weld it out.
Jason Becker (01:06:48.403)
So if it gets to the point where they're exactly, so if they're under bidding or trying to get the best, some companies are gonna lose a lot of money because they think welding happens a lot faster than it does. So I worked for a structural steel company prior to joining the union and they did all their own estimating and bidding. I was the first welder that they had hired. I was the only welder they had on staff and they were like, now we can start bidding all these welding jobs.
Nate Bowman (01:07:00.846)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (01:07:15.438)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Becker (01:07:15.515)
And so like I'm doing like spandrel beams. I'm doing like moment connections. Like I'm tying all this stuff into in beds, perimeter angle, the whole nine bar joists. It was all screw down decking. So thank God they didn't have me welding decking, but it was all screwed down our panel and stuff like that. But sometimes they'd use whether it was a bar joists or Z Perlins or any of that stuff. I was the only welder on site doing all of this stuff. And they call me up after like, I did this one big welding job and I was burning like 30 pounds of rod a day.
Like 70, 18, eighth inch diameter. that, mind you, I'm moving from point to point because not everything happens in a little bubble on a job site, right? You finish out one weldment, you got to move 20 feet over to the next one or the spandrel beam connections in between. I'm also 65 foot up in the air, working off of a man lift, literally towing a Miller Bobcat inside of a, what the hell, a tractor supply garden trailer, right? Cause I was like, how do I move the welder with me without tying it beneath me on the basket? Because I'm scoped out so far. But anyway, they're like,
Nate Bowman (01:07:43.534)
Yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:07:50.883)
Right, right.
Nate Bowman (01:08:00.324)
Yeah, reposition. Yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:08:06.606)
Yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:08:12.246)
Right, right.
Jason Becker (01:08:13.395)
What's taking you so long? You've been out there for five days. We need you on another job. And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. They're like, you need to hurry up. We didn't bid you to be out there welding that long. And I'm like, dude, I'm putting in 30 pounds a day. I'm doing 10 hour days. Like cut me a fricking break. I can't make this rod burn any faster. Like I can, but it's going to end up on the floor. Right. So like, cause all these welds are vertical overhead, some are flat, you know, I beams to embeds and all that stuff. So I was like, you guys.
Nate Bowman (01:08:32.289)
Yeah. Right.
Nate Bowman (01:08:41.069)
Yeah, you gotta kinda take your time and make sure that they're, yeah.
Jason Becker (01:08:43.711)
Yeah, do it right. And like, there's a lot of gaps in there because, the in bed, the guys that did the concrete, the in beds are like sunk into the concrete a little bit, you know, so you're, you're getting creative. Yeah. You're getting creative with filling gaps, but I
Nate Bowman (01:08:51.629)
That's another hidden cost right there. That's a, that's a weld volume thing. Cause now you're.
Now your joint is not that 5 16ths that you're filling. You're filling a 5 16ths fillet plus all that other space. That's a lot of extra volume.
Jason Becker (01:09:05.707)
Yeah. And they didn't factor this in. So I told them, was like, hey, look, you guys are obviously new to how long it takes to weld things out. So the next time you bid a job, why don't you bring me into the office and say, hey, how long do you think this will, this is going to take you to weld out? Cause I'm not going to bullshit you. Like I'm going to give you a, a realistic number and like you can come out here and watch me. You can hang out in the basket with me. I'm not up here screwing off. You know, I didn't have Facebook or Instagram at the time. This was like 2000 and fuck 2006.
Nate Bowman (01:09:26.335)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jason Becker (01:09:32.789)
So like social media wasn't even around. still, I had like a Motorola razor, thought I was king shit on Turd Mountain. Didn't even have internet connectivity. So I'm not screwing off on my phone. Like I'm out here working, but them not knowing how fast the welding actually takes place or having an idea that, you know, SMAW is going to run somewhere between one to four pounds per hour. You know, and that's if you're stationary and you don't have to chip or wire brush anything, that's just rod after rod after rod. And then we're going to weigh the base metal.
Nate Bowman (01:09:36.833)
Right. Right.
Jason Becker (01:10:00.509)
understanding those numbers, you're going to save a lot of money or you're going to like prevent losing a lot because you'll, you'll bid properly.
Nate Bowman (01:10:07.908)
Yeah, yeah. it's the other thing too is like, you know, if you know, if you know what your deposition rate is, because you use welding procedures, then you know what the person's going to be putting in. If you have your parts fit correctly, you're going to be putting in an expected amount of weld. But if your parts are fit up poorly, and you don't have welding procedures, then how the hell do you know how long it's going to take? Like I just told you that if you go, you know, if you're welding out quarter inch material and you
changed it by a 16th of an inch, you just affected that job by 77%. So, you know, and that's just weld volume. We're not even talking about weld volume combined with operator factor combined with deposition rate. So like if you have an optimized dep rate, you have, you know, all the stuff that you need, multiple grinders and so on and so forth.
Your operator factor is gonna be as clean as possible. You're considering the fact that you don't need a chip slag if you use You know an electro that doesn't have it Because you're welding to F all the time anyways If you if you're welding in the flat horizontal position, you don't need slag Like you don't need it. So why are you putting it in there? It's just one extra thing that needs to come out off the top of the puddle and sometimes gets trapped in the joint which can create more rework so it's like
These are the things that you got to kind of ask yourself when you're going out for these jobs and you could see how quickly this can get off the rails for companies. So I mean, this is about, like I said, this is about me trying to open people's eyes to what affects what you make as a business or as a welder. And I'm like, I want to advocate for you guys. Like this is coming out of love so that you guys can, you know, make educated decisions. It's not about calling people out.
Jason Becker (01:11:57.737)
Yeah. No, but when you, when you threw that, that number out there and like everybody just every, I think it's just, it's human nature with welders. get defensive. They feel attacked. You know, you're basically, you know, they, they interpreted that as, he thinks I'm lazy or he thinks welders are lazy or, know, it, it's not like, like I told you, we'll do that. So like, I've been working with chat GPT a lot. So I saw your story and that was like, I got to get Nate back on because I want to talk about this.
Nate Bowman (01:12:07.775)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Becker (01:12:25.353)
because so many people don't realize, and I thought it was much higher for the longest time. Like I did a bunch of classes up at Lincoln. You know, they were talking about the, the power wave manager and all that stuff. And like actually tracking weld data arc on time for major companies that they have a whole group that's, that's fitting and tacking for them. So they just run it down the line. Like they're going to have a much higher arc on time than a mom and pop shop or somebody that's building rails or like a custom fab shop, but like,
20 % is like, that's a generous percentage of arc on time across the industry. I understand it's much lower than that. So I was like, just screwing around. was like, I wonder what ChatGPT has to say about this because it scrapes the entire internet for all this data. So it's pulling data from every source. It's unbiased. It's not a welder, although I think eventually ChatGPT is going to enter that arena. But yeah, so I wanted to ask ChatGPT that.
Nate Bowman (01:13:19.703)
I hope so. You can come to my shop.
Jason Becker (01:13:24.393)
You'll appreciate this, right? Your moniker is the weld scientist. So I would venture to say you watched the movie Weird Science back in the day. Cause I remember when you guys did the logos, what was the chick's name?
Nate Bowman (01:13:33.315)
yeah. Yep, yep.
my God. I just remember, I remember what she looks like. Gosh, and I can't remember what her name is. I'm like playing the whole damn movie in my head right now. And I just remember like when she comes out and she's like, what do you maniacs want to do first? And then she turns.
Jason Becker (01:13:43.583)
Yep. You can never forget that.
Jason Becker (01:13:56.585)
Now you got to bust out the VHS and go check it out. I'll, spoiler alert, I'll tell you. So I named my chat bot Lisa. Yes, from, was like, okay, it's like, this is kind of like the 2025 version, 2026 now version of weird science. It's only a matter time before she jumps out of the phone or the computer and it's like an autonomous person, right? So my chat bot is Lisa. So check this out, right? Let's see. All right.
Nate Bowman (01:13:59.701)
I know. Anyways, okay, good.
Nate Bowman (01:14:04.871)
Lisa, okay, Lisa, that's right, that's right, okay.
Nate Bowman (01:14:11.807)
Yeah, Lisa. Okay.
Nate Bowman (01:14:17.569)
Yeah, is the right right.
All right, let's go.
Jason Becker (01:14:26.069)
Hey Lisa, what is the average or what is the percentage arc on time across welding? What is the industry average for arc on time when it comes to welding?
Jason Becker (01:14:41.899)
Catch it. Hold on one second. Having a connectivity area. All right. All here we go.
Nate Bowman (01:14:45.09)
We'll edit this part. God.
Jason Becker (01:14:54.961)
when you connect to the right Wi-Fi. Damn it man, I'm gonna have to cut this out.
Nate Bowman (01:14:57.078)
It's all good.
all good we can cut it out or just leave it people will be like yeah you can just leave the part with me screwing up my numbers in the math yeah
Jason Becker (01:15:00.779)
Here we go.
Jason Becker (01:15:05.599)
your shit together. let me end that part now it's picking up. right. Yeah. Hey, Lisa, what's the average arc on time for welding across the industry?
Jason Becker (01:15:22.057)
shit. Whether you're looking at massive bridges, intricate aerospace components, or the handrails in your local park, you'll find worlds holding things together. Every sector relies on it. Construction, automotive, energy, manufacturing. Is one of those foundational skills that quietly keeps the world running? No fuss, just sparks and strength. Well, that didn't answer my question at all. okay. It didn't catch my full chat. Hold on. One more time.
Nate Bowman (01:15:48.162)
All right, here we go.
Jason Becker (01:15:55.711)
Hey Lisa, what's the average arc on time for welding across the industry? The average arc on time, meaning the percentage of a welder's day actually spent welding, can vary a lot depending on the industry and the type of work. In manufacturing or high production environments, it might be around 30 to 40 % of the day. For more complex or on-site jobs like structural welding or pipe welding, it might drop to around 10 to 20 because of all the fit up inspection and prep time in between.
So not far off, I mean, that's the numbers we've pretty much been throwing around.
Nate Bowman (01:16:25.57)
Don't take it from me, take it from Lisa.
Yeah, I mean, in a lot of studies that I've done personally, the operator factor, I, how do I say this? Like, was below 10%. And in, in the, the, some of the studies that, that I've done, now granted these are in shops that have hired, us or myself or whatever agency I was working for at the time to come in and help them with this stuff. So.
Jason Becker (01:16:42.913)
I could see that.
Nate Bowman (01:16:59.106)
All's fair in that as well. And we definitely were able to help them out with that and stuff. But yeah, mean, these are real numbers that I've seen. like I said, the way that I collect ARC data monitoring or ARC data, ARC on time is by using ARC data monitoring, which is digital. It's connected to the power source. So it knows exactly when the ARC is on and off.
in a given period of time. And like I said, the longer the surveys that you can do, the better the picture it paints of what's going on. again, I cannot reiterate this enough. This is not about calling people out. It's just about identifying what that number really is and then figuring out what things on the list that you can, you know, what what levers do you have to pull? What knobs can you turn to be able to put things in your favor that you so you can spend more time welding?
Like it's more about, I don't know, to me, this is all about the welder operator factor so that you can go in and operate, you know.
Jason Becker (01:18:05.931)
I mean, also being a better educated welder and understanding this, like when you like when a company hires somebody, they don't expect a welder to have that level of knowledge to talk about deposition rate and weld volume and operator efficiency and like adding, you know, automation to a line. They don't anticipate that. They're like, we need somebody to come in here and pull a trigger. Well, you get somebody in there that actually understands this stuff because they they take a deeper dive.
You you get that kid in the welding school, like they just have that continual thirst for more and more information. You get somebody like that in your shop. And the next thing you know, they're running the place because look at how much money that one welder is saving them. Or they turn around and show the other welders how to do that. And a lot of companies, they're afraid to do anything different because they're still, again, as much, I hate to say it, we've been doing it this way for 20 years. Like I've seen that in so many different companies. Like, why are you doing it this way? Well, that's, what, how would you do it?
And I was like, well, there's, me introduce you to a new wire, a new mode of metal transfer, a new, you know, this, that, and the other thing is like, you're going to spend a little bit of money upfront, but look at how much money you're going to save in the long run. Like most people don't even realize that you lose, you lose weld metal or your efficiency factor drops due to smoke fumes and weld spatter. They have no idea. You switch over to a spray transfer, even on thin parts. Like, you know, Lincoln's got rapid arc, rapid X for thin.
Nate Bowman (01:19:21.59)
Yeah.
Jason Becker (01:19:28.875)
thin gauge material, we're talking like 800 inches per minute. And like you're just smoking, but like you will not warp an eighth inch piece of material. But then you've got guys out there doing 035, you know, they're 250 inches a minute and you know, 18 volts and they're just, you know, slowly going down the joint, just cranking it in there. And the next thing you know, you can put in a Pringles can, but like you turn up, you crank up that wire feed speed, jack up your voltage. Yeah, the amperage is going to seem super high.
Nate Bowman (01:19:45.356)
just turning things into a potato chip.
Jason Becker (01:19:57.045)
But guess what? I can travel like 36 inches a minute doing that. And there's like no heat input into the part. Well, I mean, it's very minuscule, but you start thinking about these things. So you got less rework, you've got less weld spatter, you've got less smoke and fumes, you've got a healthier environment for the welders. You're cranking out parts quicker, but like just taking a deep dive and understanding this stuff at a little bit of a deeper level. And just, you know, for, for companies that are like, this is too overwhelming, know, Nate over here, he's got four levers. We haven't even talked about the fourth one.
Nate Bowman (01:20:03.732)
Yeah.
Jason Becker (01:20:27.507)
It's just like eating an elephant, you know, take it one bite at a time. Maybe we start off with like, let's make sure we're just, let's just weld to the size that the engineer has on the drawings. If the engineer has it listed, let's just make that because that's the calculated weight. Plus there's like a fudge factor and there's their safety factor built into it. So that welds already oversized when it leaves the engineer's desk. It's not like here's the bare minimum size. need to make that weld to make it safe. No.
Nate Bowman (01:20:51.775)
Yeah, no engineer would do that ever. Yeah.
Jason Becker (01:20:54.133)
There's a factor built in there because they're going to see why. Right. So any engineer that's going to stamp that like it's safe welded to that size. And if it breaks due to weld size, it's on them. So don't feel the need to over engineer after it's left the engineer's desk. mean, like start taking small sections of this, you know, so work on your deposition rates or work on your weld volume, your weld size. Okay. Now we got that dialed in. Everybody's welding according to print. Well, now let's look at the, know, how can we make your life easier as a welder?
Nate Bowman (01:21:04.417)
on them.
Jason Becker (01:21:23.531)
Maybe I can move your parts closer to you. As crazy as that sounds, if the welder's not trying to track shit around, you know, around the shop, if your parts are there waiting for you, like I'm, the welder's probably the most highest paid person on that shop floor. Let's keep him fed with all the parts and materials he needs. You know, maybe we hire a fitter so that he's fitting and tacking the, you the new guy where you're going to fit and tack for the welder. Make sure everything's nice and tight because we don't want to lose. We don't want to have to put more deposition in there than we have to. Right. So you just start.
Nate Bowman (01:21:31.179)
That's a huge time waster, yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:21:50.89)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Becker (01:21:52.395)
chunking these things out a little bit at a time, you're gonna start saving money and you can pay your people better, A, you can provide better benefits, you can pay off your business loans faster, you can do all these things a lot faster because you're not pumping money out the door because you're not paying attention to the numbers. Again, like Charlie says, what gets measured gets managed. If you're not managing anything, if you're not measuring anything, if you don't know your data, go out to the shop floor, figure it out.
Grab the Microsoft Excel and start plugging in the formulas.
Nate Bowman (01:22:25.6)
What I do is for like, if you hired me to come to your business, I do what's called a weld shop snapshot. And this is a, this is what I start off with for a company and. We don't even have the conversation about well, well, know, deposition rate, well volume up. don't have any of this conversation at all. Like we, may talk about it a little bit, but the snapshot basically is exactly that. is a, a moment in time.
of when I was first introduced to the project, always best for me to come in, you know, kind of on like a Tuesday where it's just business as usual. And I can look, this is not about calling anybody out. don't name any names in these reports. We're just pulling the data. What's your wire feed speed and voltage? You know, what diameter electrodes are using, what shielding gas are using, what's your shielding gas flow rates? What are your consumables look like?
What are your abrasives look like? And then getting a good sense and overview of the flow of the shop. I was in this one company doing a survey. And I had multiple people come up and tell me that they were waiting on a fork or that they're waiting on a forklift or something or complain about this. And the business owners were thinking that they needed to buy.
you know, overhead cranes and do all this other stuff because like the forklift thing, you know, or because of, you know, parts movement and it's like, well, actually I think you just need another forklift. You know, or something like that. Right. so it's the, the weld shop snapshot is a great way to kind of do that sort of thing. And you can kind of do it yourself. Like I said, go out there, go to all of your different weld stations and make a, make a per cell. You know, whatever, however it is per welder, per cell, however you want to break it down.
Jason Becker (01:24:00.725)
Mm.
Nate Bowman (01:24:18.506)
and gather wire feed speed, voltage, amps if you want to shielding gas flow rate, the consumables. And then now you have this data and then you can look at how does this person that's welding the exact same part compared to this other person. Why does Timmy weld at 500 inches a minute, but Billy's welding at 200 inches a minute with the same exact electrode on the same part. What is happening here? Why are, what's the thing? Then you can go have a conversation.
And you can say, Hey, why do you weld here? Why do you weld there? What parts look better? What do you, know, and then you can from there develop like a welding procedure. That's what I usually do. So now everybody's welding on the same settings on the same parts. Now your parts are a lot more consistent. And this is, this is how I do it. This is how I work through the, you know, that kind of workflow and how you eat the elephant, just like one bite at a time, when, where you can and lean on the welders because they're
Jason Becker (01:25:13.099)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (01:25:18.155)
freaking smart. They've been building the parts day in day out. Chances are when they're under the hood, they're thinking of cool ways that would go a lot faster, a lot easier. Like, yeah, get an amnesty box and have them put freaking suggestions in the amnesty box, you know, or whatever. Like welders have so many creative ideas on how to run a business faster, more efficient. And we want to try to implement as many of those as possible. And especially
Jason Becker (01:25:26.537)
Yeah, because they want to make their life easier.
Nate Bowman (01:25:48.235)
they're so much more valuable when you've created this step, this snapshot, this, you've established this baseline. then now any changes or modifications you can go, we'll see, this is where we were. This is what we changed. And here's where we are now without it being measured. It's like, well, did that really change anything? Did that really make it faster? Like, I feel like I spent a lot of money on grinders, but like, you know, if you, without revisiting and relooking at the data again,
Jason Becker (01:26:03.584)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (01:26:17.429)
How do you really know how much you've improved or what's working, what's not working?
Jason Becker (01:26:21.545)
Yeah, I like the idea that the Amnesty Box, there's Mitsubishi Power Systems has that set up at their facility. And it's not like an anonymous thing. It's like, here's how I could improve, you know, my jobs or like my work area or, you know, how we're cranking these parts out, whether it's for new fabrication, because they've got a new fabric or they got a new side and then they got a repair side. So it's like, what can you do to improve that? And then the companies, they'll look at it they'll actually, you know, they'll do an analysis.
Based off what the, cause the employee fricking knows they're doing that job day in and day out. They know all little quirks and kinks with what they're doing and how to improve it. And if that, if they're, you know, if their tip gets selected for that year, that person gets flown to Japan. think they go there for a week. They get to tour like the main facility, the main headquarters building, but you also get like an all expenses trip to Japan to go hang out there for a week.
So, I mean, it's like a really cool thing and like all the employees are like constantly trying to come up with new ideas because they want theirs to be selected. Well, obviously I would imagine that whoever's idea is going to create like the best flow or, you know, save the most amount of money or decrease the amount of waste that's going out the door. That's probably, you know, who's going to be selected. So you've got an entire shop floor of people dedicated to doing their job, but also constantly trying to figure out how to improve it and make things better for the entire company. And then you get rewarded for that.
Nate Bowman (01:27:44.928)
Yeah, I think that's such a great model. I I wish that more companies would adopt that sort of thing.
Jason Becker (01:27:52.971)
It's better than the, you know, like the safety thing. We're going to give everybody a pizza party and a $10 gift certificate to Amazon if we don't have any incidences. Guess what? You're not going to have any incidents because nobody's going to report shit.
Nate Bowman (01:27:56.796)
Yeah, like the city. Yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:28:07.136)
because nobody's gonna report exactly. It's like people are gonna be, yeah, they're gonna be bandaging themselves up and stuff like that in the bathroom and be like, nothing happened here. I don't know what you're talking about.
Jason Becker (01:28:15.263)
That was the thing, dude. I worked at a company and they were like, Hey, you know, if we go the entire quarter without a reportable injury, you guys are going to get paid an extra dollar for every hour you worked during that quarter. And we're working 70 to 84 hours per week. You know, like we're working six, 10, seven, 12s, like on the regular. And so guess what? Nobody reported an injury. I mean, like I fell off a ladder, snapped both my ankles, well, didn't snap both my ankles, like busted my ankles up pretty good.
Nate Bowman (01:28:22.728)
Uh-huh.
Nate Bowman (01:28:37.01)
Yeah, yeah, I-
Jason Becker (01:28:43.957)
Did I fill out an incident report? No, I sat down for a little bit. When I got home that night, I soaked everything in ice. I called in sick the next day and then, yeah, I should probably not tell that on the podcast. This is years ago. I work for myself now. Anyway, but that's what causes people not to report injuries is the reward system for no injuries. However, if you flip the script and say, if you've got a better idea on how we can save money or make more or get parts out faster and still,
Nate Bowman (01:28:56.478)
Yeah, there. Yeah, you're fine. Yeah, you're fine.
Nate Bowman (01:29:06.623)
Yeah, I-
Jason Becker (01:29:13.063)
improve quality or maintain our current level of quality and you'll get rewarded, you're going to, that's, think that's a better system than don't report an injury.
Nate Bowman (01:29:22.1)
Yeah, I totally agree. was in a shipyard at a giant pizza party for this shipyard or like a big lunch, like a big catered lunch that they did. And because they didn't have any recordables or whatever, and they were at that same day, a kid took a grinder to the face and was like had to get brought to the hospital like, you know, like that that same exact day.
Like that while the pizza party was going on, there was like a bunch of people that like left to like go help this kid get to like an ambulance or something like that. But I remember that. it's like, man, like the like, well, so much for zero days since they're like. Yeah, for real. But yeah, that's it's. Yeah, yeah, that's not necessarily the goal of those things. But I mean, I feel like they have good intent, you know, but.
Jason Becker (01:30:05.171)
Nope. No pizza party next quarter. Counter goes back to zero.
Nate Bowman (01:30:17.865)
Yeah, I like this much better incentivized, come up with a solution that saves the company money kind of thing. And then the other thing too that you could do is, now that you guys have some of this info and how I calculate this sort of stuff, start doing some of this math and bring it to your employers. You can now calculate your own deposition rate. You can now calculate.
about what your you know, you could figure out what your burden rate is or figure out, you know, the the grinder example is a great one. hope everybody goes out and gets a new grinder on their company dime. And, you know, if that's the case, please send me a message. I think that'd be really funny. But I yeah, I mean, that's, you know, take initiative to do this sort of thing. And and I totally understand because I was the guy that was taking initiative and they're like, do just go color, man, like
Jason Becker (01:31:01.067)
Yeah
Nate Bowman (01:31:14.258)
Stop with the ideas. companies like that and companies that I worked for that were like that, they still suck. They may be still in business, but I've visited some that I worked at in the past and they are still exactly as I left them over a decade ago. Same, same shitty freaking freezing, disgusting, dirty, like no, yeah.
Jason Becker (01:31:32.851)
working under the same lean too and yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:31:42.816)
So I mean, that's the thing, like you gotta, people gotta get with the times. They gotta start looking at different ways of doing this stuff and keep an open mind. The fourth lever is the, yeah, the fourth lever is gonna be cheating in welding. So anytime you hear, oh, that's cheating, it's probably a good idea because at the end of the day, welds don't know what they hold together or how they were put in there and.
Jason Becker (01:31:52.809)
I was gonna ask, let's pull that fourth lever,
Nate Bowman (01:32:09.192)
Whether you did it with your hands, you did it with a laser, you did it with a cobot, a full-size robot, a buggo, you know, Gullco tractor, whatever it may be, sub arc, all of those things are controlled by you, the welder, the welder operator. and your job is to put welds in. So, you know, lean on these things like pulse welding technology, lasers, cobots, all these things.
Figure out how to implement those things in your toolbox. know, these are, can't stress this enough, not replacing anyone. they will replace people that want to keep it at arm's length and don't ever learn it. Sure. Like your job is probably limited, especially if you just weld widgets all day. But you know, if the, they roll the cobot in and you look at the cobot and you're like, yeah, this is dumb. I'm never going to learn this and blah, blah.
And, you know, the new kid learns that and now can weld the parts that you've been welding for the past 20 years and you're 60 bucks an hour and they're 30 bucks an hour. Guess what? You're probably long gone. And, you know, it's really at the end of the day, your fault because you're not willing to you're not willing to invest anything in your career or your yourself, then you're going to get replaced by technology or other people.
that are willing to study and read and learn and improve. And that's, think, probably the scariest part for a lot of folks that have been doing it the same way for all this time. You know, I got to say, like myself, I have kind of kept I've wanted to get into CAD. I don't know anything about CAD. I don't know anything about machining or 3D printing or anything like that. And I've just never had a plasma table or anything like that.
So I've taken some CAD classes, I've taken some drafting classes, I've taken some machining classes, but I've never really put it into practice. And I haven't told anybody this, but I bought two of the top of the line 3D printers that are like out and I'll have them in a month. The two new ones from bamboo that just came out. So I can start doing some more advanced composite parts for my heavy equipment stuff and car parts for my Volkswagen Golf that I'm building and
Jason Becker (01:34:23.552)
Nice.
Nate Bowman (01:34:34.91)
I bought a new Can-Am Defender, like little buggy, and I want to make a bunch of stuff for that. Yeah. Yeah. It's not long. There'll be a welder in the back of it for at least for photos and for welding around my property, but,
Jason Becker (01:34:38.027)
I've seen that, that thing's dope.
Jason Becker (01:34:45.705)
Right. You got to get the, they've got like a, it kind of looks like, you remember back in the day, it's like the, Sockem Boppers. It's like an inflated, like a boxing glove. Okay. Rock them, Sockers or Rock. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. Sockem Boppers. Yeah. The big, big balloon. So they've got one of those for like 3d printing, but it's got all these nodes all the way around it. And so what you do is you, whatever part you want, you like, let's say you want to make a new gear selector for the golf or whatever. You take that gear selector out.
Nate Bowman (01:34:56.328)
Okay.
yeah yeah yeah I know what talking about yeah yeah the big glu- yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:35:08.254)
Okay.
Jason Becker (01:35:14.475)
You put it on a table and you just scan this thing with this big ass Sockenbopper and like it draws the whole thing for you. My buddy's got one and like some of the stuff that he's building is like, you know, cause people drop shit off. like, Hey, I need 10 of these. And he's like, he just grabs his little Sockenbopper with all the nodes on it and like scans it, you know, around there. And he's like, okay, cool. I'll crank these out for you. What filament, you know, he'll put it in there. like my, my seven year old nephew has a bamboo 3d printer now.
Nate Bowman (01:35:17.812)
yeah. Yes. Yes.
Nate Bowman (01:35:43.807)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Becker (01:35:43.933)
And like, I want to send him files to build me shit. Cause I don't understand all I know, but like I need to just like pull the trigger and buy one. Cause they're not ridiculously expensive.
Nate Bowman (01:35:54.623)
They're not, they're not, especially, especially coming from welding. I couldn't believe it. Like that was part of the thing. Part of the reason why I've been like, I'm not going to do it or whatever. And I'm like, all right, you know, new year, I really need to start getting into this. Like I, I went to a school up North and I got to see like an engineering school and I got to see their engineering, like their lab with their 3d printing lab and they're handing me all these parts. And I'm like, this is
not this you 3D printed this is metal and they're like this is not metal. This is carbon. This is like carbon impregnated filament and it's been annealed and I'm like this has freaking threads in it. Like you could put bolts in this thing and like it's like I mean I'm so used to seeing like the stupid little plastic crap that people make you know just stupid with yeah fidget yeah exactly and I'm like whatever. So I
Jason Becker (01:36:43.445)
Yep. Little fidget toys and whatnot. Yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:36:50.431)
That was I mean, this was like I was up working with the Rex and this was got to be like a week or so ago. And after that, like I went home, all I could think about was 3D printers. I went down the rabbit hole and then I bought one. And then the next day I bought another one. So I got the new H H to see the giant huge one with a 320 by 320 cubed work surface all enclosed. And then I bought the basically the new version of the X1 carbon.
And then AMS2 Pro feeders and then a H whatever the HT I don't know whatever the AMS, H to high temp one for doing high temp ABS and things like that. And one of my friends that works, he's the manager of the Volkswagen Performance Place that I get all my work done. He's been outsourcing his 3D printing for these specific composite parts. So he'll prototype them in like PLA or whatever.
and get them all test fit on the car and get them whatever, you get the design dialed in. But then he's sending out the file and ordering these things, you know, kind of like a send cut send kind of deal. So I'm going to pick up a bunch of that business and then I'm getting one of the 3D scanners so that I can start making some parts and things like that. But it's absolutely insane what you can do with 3D printers now. Like I'm just I don't even know what to say. I was just blown away.
Jason Becker (01:37:54.859)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (01:38:13.129)
So anybody out there, by the way, if you guys are printing carbon parts or any sort of like wild structural parts, slide into my DMs. I'm curious about what you're making, how you're making it, any tips or tricks about this stuff. This is brand new to me, but I need to learn CAD. And this is a perfect way for me to do it because you actually get something at the end. You know what I mean? Like sitting on a computer and just like drawing shit is like, that's fine.
But unless you have like a mill or something that's like making these parts, like I just like it doesn't it's not stimulating enough to like occupy my my time. But now that I've like committed and bought these, I'm like, all right, now I really need to like learn this and get some stuff done.
Jason Becker (01:38:58.261)
That's like, I've been, I've been waiting to fuck around with a lot of like CNC just in 2d because my, my CNC plasma table, I haven't been able to like get it up and running and mess with it for the past two years. Well, now I spent, you know, like right after, or right, yeah, right after the break from Christmas and new years and all that, before my other class started, I had time to go through the whole system, get everything cleaned out, get it tuned up. Like I, I set aside time. was like, I'm not.
Nate Bowman (01:39:03.963)
yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:39:09.982)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Becker (01:39:25.771)
training. I'm not testing. I'm not doing one on one classes. I'm not doing anything. I'm cleaning this table. I'm to get it set up. Put everything together. And now it's dude, it's running like a top. And so now I'm constantly in the office just like drawing random shit for the shop and like, okay, let's go out and cut it. And like plasma cutters have been around for years, but like it's so, and now that it's up and running, now I've got more customers and clients. People pop in. They're like, Hey, what are you doing? I was like, Oh, I'm just cutting these parts. Oh, you got it up and running. Cool.
Nate Bowman (01:39:36.543)
I can't wait for that.
Nate Bowman (01:39:41.215)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (01:39:54.793)
Can you, yeah.
Jason Becker (01:39:55.755)
Can you do this? So I've got this one of the, one of the students that took a class, he's opening up a new restaurant down the road. Him and his wife are doing the entire interior artwork. So he's like, Hey man, I got all these like files. Can you cut these out for me? And I'm like, yeah. So like every other day he's just showing up with sheet metal and DXF files. And so like, I'm just ripping and cutting everything. And it's been, it's been awesome, but like for the longest time I just
Nate Bowman (01:40:11.047)
Yeah, 100%.
Heck yeah.
Jason Becker (01:40:22.483)
I need to learn that system so that when I do get it up and running that I can start playing with it. And now, once you kind of get around that short little learning curve, it's super quick.
Nate Bowman (01:40:31.453)
Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's my hope. I just needed something to kind of get me over that that like because I went to like a year. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like I went to a community college in upstate New York. I did a few semesters of CAD and machining and stuff. And it it was so boring that I didn't even I just couldn't I couldn't even finish. Like I just the time and all the extra stuff at that school that we had to do.
Jason Becker (01:40:39.167)
The hump.
Nate Bowman (01:41:01.342)
that weren't related directly to like building a part on the screen and making it in a CNC mill or a hand mill or whatever, know, making it. There was so much extra crap that was just like part of the politics of going to like a school that it just like at that time in my life, I just didn't have the capacity for it. But that's the other thing that we got with this particular system. I got the 40 watt diode laser.
that will that you can put in there and you can also cut out flat sheets of stuff not metal but like wood or acrylic or whatever. So I got that as well so that I can learn the 2D stuff to be able to then translate those skills into a plasma table at some point in the future. Yeah, so
It's an investment. This is the same like for everybody that's rolling their eyes. Remember like, I don't know, four or five years ago when I bought that tiny little mini excavator. Now I have a few of them and now I have like a basically a business doing that and I run heavy equipment like a few days a week at least now. So I know how this goes for me and I can't wait to start making different cool stuff and you know, stuff for welding equipment and
You know, so there will be some some super high end parts coming out of world science, like in the 3D printed space, specifically in advanced composites, not PLA, like not plastic like the the real deal stuff. So I'm excited about that.
Jason Becker (01:42:32.565)
Look up, link up with Nick Bizennis. He's doing, I think he's got a 3D printer. He's been doing some stuff with them.
Nate Bowman (01:42:37.086)
Yes, he's got. He does. He so funny story. So that's exactly why I got the laser portion as well. I know. Well, everybody says that like about me, about me. Yeah. Like, but Nick, man, my God, that guy's got like he's like, oh, yeah, I got one track thing. No, I actually have four of them. And then, you know, like, oh, my God. Yeah. He's so when I built I put Baja Designs flush mount.
Jason Becker (01:42:44.607)
He's an expensive follow, isn't he? So are you, fucker.
Jason Becker (01:42:58.847)
Yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:43:05.694)
LED lights in my mini or not my mini excavator but the skid steer so it has like lights on the front and then lights on the side and then one on the back so there's five of these Baja design squadron pro scene whatever diffused scene lights well the way that they fit in there they needed like a grommet like a like a seal to kind of seal them up so that they they fit in there so I gave him the the lights and he laser cut me a perfect beautiful
Jason Becker (01:43:27.915)
Mm.
Nate Bowman (01:43:34.728)
foam gaskets that have holes in them and all this stuff on his laser. I paid him to he's got a little laser. So he cut those out for me a while ago. And that was something I was thinking about just for all just so many things you can make with it.
Jason Becker (01:43:39.559)
I didn't realize he had a laser now.
Damn.
Jason Becker (01:43:49.759)
Dude, just get like a little Glowforge and like dick around with it, because you can do a lot of like woods and plastics and like really thin gauge metal. Yeah, like a Glowforge would be like ideal. You can do engraving on that stuff and all kinds of shit.
Nate Bowman (01:44:01.598)
Look up X tool is making the X tool. Rex has one of the X tool ones. And that was this is the other part of it. I've been hanging out with Rex and his crew of SpaceX brilliant like former SpaceX employees and stuff like that. And then all their engineering friends. And I'm like, man, I'm an idiot. Like compared to these guys, the stuff that they do like to watch, you know, to go up there. I was up there like last weekend with Demi and
Jason Becker (01:44:03.977)
Yeah, Xtool is another one.
Nate Bowman (01:44:30.813)
just messing around in their lab and I helped him film some infrared camera stuff where we actually see the the the focus point of the laser moving across the and create moving across the joint and creating the puddle and all that stuff. So we we messed around with that. But in the process of like doing all that and hanging out with them, like I'm watching Rex like on his computer do 3D modeling of something printing stuff out that's
been 3D printed that's going on to the laser equipment and then laser cutting out flat sheets of steel and making different things like he 3D printed dies for his little press break so that he could bend these parts like 3D printed the dies to make these parts and he's made a bunch of these parts out of it and I'm like, I am in the stone age when it comes to this sort of stuff and
Jason Becker (01:45:16.373)
Cheers.
Nate Bowman (01:45:23.75)
I, they just inspired me like in a matter of like three days of hanging out with them. Then I'm like, I need to learn CAD. I need to get a laser and I need to get a 3d printer like now. So I did.
Jason Becker (01:45:33.579)
It's the problem is like finding the time to learn all that stuff. Cause I mean, like you're doing excavating, you're doing a whole new renovation. You're doing an expansion. You weld science is blowing up. You still got a full-time job. It's a lot, dude. You let me know when you figure out or link up with a crew of nerds or guys in lab coats to figure out how to like get 25, 26 hours out of the day.
Nate Bowman (01:45:43.984)
Yeah, still got the full-time job. Yeah, it is a lot. But I-
Nate Bowman (01:45:55.258)
Yeah, my big thing like is I'll pivot like I always have to have like something to pivot to like the way that I manage my time is like imagine like a like a running task list of all the stuff that I have to do all these projects. And when I hit a roadblock on a project, I pivot to a different one. So for example, like I got helping a neighbor down the street with a
It's like a 70 something foot retaining wall that we're doing and there's two parking spots and stuff like that. Well, I was supposed to get material delivered like over the weekend that didn't happen or whatever. Well, now I can't really finish doing what I'm doing. And now that kind of puts our timeline out to like next weekend or one of the evenings after work when I have time to go ahead and do it. But instead of doing that, I just pivoted to a different project and spent.
like, you hours working on preparing for the podcast. Like, you know, we're setting up a new advanced manufacturing center here in Vancouver that I've been part of the planning process for years. 16 weld cells, a great mix of Miller and Lincoln equipment. And, you know, so I've been working on helping our team develop all of the parts that need to be on the quote for that and then coordinating
our micro bulk gas guys, because they're going to do micro bulk gas delivery and every booth has a gas mixer in it. So we also have fume extraction from Lincoln, all the weld cells are from Lincoln. So, you know, like, I just pivot between these projects. And then when you hit a roadblock, like you send the email out, well, now what, like, what do you know, it's not like you have anything. Yeah. So then I pivot to a different project. So that could be
Jason Becker (01:47:37.867)
Just sit wait, wait for response.
Nate Bowman (01:47:43.674)
spending time messing with the 3D printer that could be spending time out in my container organizing tools and equipment. could be, you know, whatever. that's that's really like how how I've been able to be so productive is I don't necessarily waste a lot of time sitting around like I'll just pivot between these projects and just keep the needle moving all the time. And that's good for me because I get really frustrated when I kind of like hit a wall where
You know, we were supposed to have like material delivered and it didn't happen, but it's out of my control. You know, rather than just going crazy because you didn't get what you wanted, you just pivot to a different project and, you know, move the needle on something else.
Jason Becker (01:48:24.117)
Dude, that honestly sounds like just like a high functioning way of dealing with ADD. Because I do the same shit.
Nate Bowman (01:48:30.686)
Yeah, I found out to. Yeah, spoiler alert, I found out that I'm like pretty much 100 % on the autistic spectrum as well, like recently, which has kind of been something that I kind of thought because I've had like I was diagnosed with like 80 and ADHD like as a kid. And as I got older, I noticed like quirks about myself that just seemed really weird. And I didn't
Like a lot of it has to do with just like being around like tons of people or being overstimulated or whatever. And then also just like how my mind works. And I started doing some like testing and stuff. And I'm like, holy shit. That makes a lot of sense. So, yeah, I don't know. That's just something that I've kind of found out. I mean, like a reveal it on a podcast, but.
You know, having ADD and ADHD or being partially autistic, you know, it doesn't have to be something that's like detrimental to your life. Like you just have to figure out how to manage it. And like I just said, like this is how I manage my, never ending, you know, pipeline of shit to work on. and it keeps me entertained and keeps me busy. And it keeps me from being like really frustrated when you you're stuck on a project, you can't move the needle anymore.
Jason Becker (01:49:47.819)
Yeah, like you said, you you figure out a way to get something done on another task. So you kind of bounce around. That's why I said it's like a high performance eight because I do the same stuff. It's like you said, I sent that email off. I can't do anything now. I'm at a hold point until I get a response. And like lately, everybody's taken longer and longer and longer to respond. So it's like, OK, well, that's out. Like, I'm going to work on this until I hit roadblock and then I'm going to work on this. And then I'll circle back and like I'll check and see if check my email and all that stuff. But like I used to have to have
Nate Bowman (01:49:55.825)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (01:50:02.523)
It could be an hour.
Jason Becker (01:50:17.365)
constant, like some sort of engagement to keep my mind just moving because like, it's not good when I sit idle. Like I just go into like a deep, I had Alex McNamara on the podcast the other day. We were talking about that and she's like, that's ADD. If you don't have enough that you feel is important to get you moving, you just fall into like a deep depressive slump. And it's like, I had no idea that was like part of an ADD thing. I thought I was like, that's just me. Cause I'm burnt out. And it's like, no.
Nate Bowman (01:50:37.009)
yeah. Yeah.
Jason Becker (01:50:44.253)
I don't have anything to get me excited enough to get my ass up and move because like nothing's due at the moment. Nobody's waiting on me for something. If none of that's going on, it's like, okay, I've got to keep my hands busy. Like I just got into a...
Nate Bowman (01:50:57.703)
That's hard part about being a business owner, because there is no one there to get you out of bed. There's nobody that like, yeah, nobody's there, hey, you should check your email or, you should do this. I have a full-time job. have 40 plus hours a week of responsibility to give to essential welding. But I'm not just going to sit there and stare at my screen until somebody responds to an email. I want to fill that extra time.
Jason Becker (01:51:06.013)
No. I gotta do it myself.
Nate Bowman (01:51:26.865)
Like I said, could only be an hour, but that hour I could get a lot of shit done in an hour, you know? What you're saying, go ahead.
Jason Becker (01:51:34.783)
No, no. So I got into kayak fishing. like I took time off in between. Yeah. I got, I took time off between Christmas and new years and well, yeah. So like right, right before, so like the 18th to like the six, I didn't come back to work to like January 6th. had everything was caught up. Everything was done. I wasn't waiting on any meat, any emails. And like I got into, I went for, I went camping for like four days up in Fort white Florida and I got into kayak fishing and dude, it's been a fricking blast.
Nate Bowman (01:51:39.732)
yeah, I saw that.
Jason Becker (01:52:03.977)
Just like getting into all these little tight spots and like I've always loved fishing. Like I could, I could throw a fricking, my motto is like one more cast and I'll throw one more cast 60 times before it's time to go like go to another lake or go home for the day. But it's something that's kept my mind busy. It's like, it's like a flow state, I guess. So like I can, it's something where I can relax and focus at the same time. It's kind of like welding. It's like when I flipped my hood down, like everything I was on autopilot.
Nate Bowman (01:52:14.461)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (01:52:24.007)
Yeah, yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:52:29.383)
That was.
Jason Becker (01:52:33.012)
It's the same thing with phishing.
Nate Bowman (01:52:34.993)
That's how running excavators has been for me, you know, like got into running heavy equipment and stuff and just that whole, that whole thing. Yeah. That flow state, you got your headphones in, you know, and you can kind of just like, you know, do it, you know, like, yeah, you're, you're the, the entertaining part about that is like, you're learning the whole time and you're also in real time watching progress happen. that's assuming you've gotten to the point where you don't just make a mess all the time.
Jason Becker (01:52:38.635)
I could see that.
Nate Bowman (01:53:04.7)
But now that's kind of shifted into like now I work for an excavation contractor and now I have like deadlines and projects and stuff. So it's not it's still extremely fun. Don't get me wrong. And I wouldn't give it up for anything, but it's less of that. Like unless I'm just working on my own project or something like that where there's not a deadline or time, it's more work and less of that. And that's actually kind of part of the reason why I got the buggy.
I traded, I traded the Raptor in and got the four 50. So, you know, I used to go off roading, like just go wheeling. Just like literally as, as just driving through mud, not like anything, you know, no destination, no nothing. You're just out screwing around on the trails. and that has been a hobby for a long time, just to kind of like clear your mind where you're just, you're literally doing nothing. It's like fish, you know, like you said, fishing, you don't have to be catching anything. You're just out there.
Just the fact that you're out there doing it is,
Jason Becker (01:54:03.455)
I proved that point last Saturday. I fished for six hours, got one bite the entire time I had a fucking blast.
Nate Bowman (01:54:10.286)
Yeah, and that's like so I kind of, you know, I've been yeah, I've been working doing that. I guess I get older. I've kind of been doing more soul searching and kind of figure out like what it is that I need to do and what what makes me happy and keeps me happy. And, you know, I thought about getting this buggy as, know, this is a great way. If I if I have it, I know that I can spend at least like one or two days a month just going to hit the trails like no destination. Ride around. Look at nature.
maybe find some cool rocks someplace, you know, and just drive through mud puddles and that's it. So yeah, I think that, I think it's important to have like a fun thing to pivot to, whatever that might be, but yeah, the buggy is, that's part of the reason why I got that.
Jason Becker (01:54:58.315)
I mean, that's like part work, part fun, you know, because you can use that, you know, for, especially if you've got like a heavy equipment or light equipment business or whatever you're doing excavating and stuff like that. those are very essential. Plus, like you said, you can throw a welder in the back. Yeah, you can get a couple of photos for the gram and all that stuff. It's super cool. But you can also start getting into tight spots. Like Nick's got his on fricking tracks and just gets into the weirdest fricking areas with that thing.
Nate Bowman (01:55:00.718)
It is, it is, yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:55:16.026)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have like my property is is on a very steep hill and we have a lot of different like gardens and like levels and things like that. And I've been trying to figure out like, you know, how am I going to weld all my fence up because I'm doing all steel five by five one twenty wall posts. No, I think the posts are actually three sixteens. They're they're thick. And then the.
cross beams are three by three 120 wall and then they're filled in with a core 10 or whatever. So I have to weld all these things out and weld them. want to weld them all out on like in place. yeah, fab, you know, fab and in place, cut them in place. So like, I got to bring the ranger with me out to that place, you know, run the chop saw, you know, run whether you're
Jason Becker (01:55:56.031)
Yeah, fab them in place.
Nate Bowman (01:56:07.33)
using a suitcase and then short circuit that you know, well, that or whatever, I'll probably just run an extension cord and run like my Multimatic 200 or one of the, you know, 211 I or pick one one with with three and it little short circuit machine is 7525 to well all that tubing out. But to get that stuff there, that's kind of where I was thinking like the buggy is going to be really handy. And yes, I did get it for playing, but a lot of it actually is a huge time saver for me.
Um, like I had to run the chainsaw down in the back corner and you know, when you're running a saw, you gotta have like a bar oil fuel, maybe a couple extra chains, depending on what you're cutting up. And I was cutting up a bunch of crap that's been in a big dirt pile. So needed a couple extra chains, the tools to change them over. Yes. Yep. I have the, uh, I have the Arbor tech ones, the ones Arbor tech. Um, yeah, the, yeah, the Arbor tech.
Jason Becker (01:56:53.973)
Hopefully some chaps.
and a face shield.
Jason Becker (01:57:04.971)
Yeah. For those, for those that don't understand like chaps like this, it's not even a joke. They'll, it'll, it'll bind up the saw. So if they, if it hits the fabric, it'll bind the saw up and immediately stop it before it hits flesh. Ideally. Yeah. And a perfect scenario. My, my uncle went to go help my aunt fell a bunch of trees and he's like, he brought over all the safety gear. And she's like, I'm not wearing all this shit. Just show me how to, you know, cut a tree down. And he's like, you're not, he gave her a brand new steel chainsaw, like 36 inch bar.
Nate Bowman (01:57:15.609)
Arbor Tech.
Jason Becker (01:57:32.455)
And like trained her how to properly fell a tree. So my uncle, does, he far, he makes his own maple syrup every year. Like it's, it's January right now. He'll be making maple syrup like right now all the way through February, maybe early March, but in like, he's felling trees throughout the year and chopping and splitting his own wood to run the sugar shack. He still does it off, off like wood, like so, but he, knows how to fell a tree and all that. So he like trained her.
Nate Bowman (01:57:33.272)
my god. Yeah. Yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:57:40.104)
hell yeah.
Nate Bowman (01:57:57.146)
Yeah, that's awesome.
Jason Becker (01:58:00.905)
And so he brought all that stuff over. He's like, no, you, if you're going to run this chainsaw, you need to have the appropriate PPE for all this stuff. He's got the still hard hat with the face shield and the ear muffs and the whole nine.
Nate Bowman (01:58:13.216)
This company, they're a Portland company, Studson, Studson Safety. They make the hard hats now to have the clasp, chin strap and all that stuff, which is required on a lot of different job sites and stuff now. But they make them and they actually make one now with the chainsaw face shield for the full brim. So I'm going to have one of those soon for my setup.
Jason Becker (01:58:22.549)
Chin strap.
Jason Becker (01:58:35.01)
that's cool.
Nate Bowman (01:58:36.954)
But yeah, I mean, and I know that seems like really silly to have like the chin strap and stuff, but like kind of the whole point is to keep it on your head. And when you're doing stuff like running a chainsaw and you're in like weird positions and things, actually having it attached to your head is pretty freaking important. So
Jason Becker (01:58:41.291)
Until you need it. Yeah.
Jason Becker (01:58:51.711)
Yeah, because I mean, especially if you're not out there, if you're not like an arborist by trade and like you got to go fell a couple of trees for the weekend, maybe cut some limbs or whatever. got storms moving in. You want to protect your investment. Like it's good to do that shit like the safe way. Like we were talking about earlier, just putting the wrench on the grinder, know, tying it to the end of the grinder. You know, just like these little safety things, face shields, like even like, dude, especially now that I work for myself, nobody's in the shop. Like, so nobody can see me break the safety rules. And it's like, okay.
Nate Bowman (01:58:55.516)
I'm not.
Nate Bowman (01:59:09.434)
That's such a great idea. Such a good idea. Yeah.
Jason Becker (01:59:21.673)
I've got to cut this. I've got to grind this, whatever. I'm using a cutoff wheel. Okay. I tuck my beard in because I've got a pretty large beard now. I'll button that up inside my shirt, know, tie up long hair, put a face shield on. I've got earplugs in or my isotunes, one of the two safety glasses, got the face shield, the appropriate gloves. Like I still safety up because guess what? it's only going to take a second. You know, I only have to make this one cut. one, that's when accidents happen and there's nobody around me.
Nate Bowman (01:59:29.116)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (01:59:46.864)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Becker (01:59:48.469)
So if you're out there working on your property, do everything as safe as you can, because guess what? If your wife's at work and you're out there doing this stuff by yourself, I would rather have something there to protect me, to get me out of that situation. God forbid something went wrong.
Nate Bowman (02:00:03.6)
Yeah, I actually have a rule. won't run the chainsaw if my wife's not home. Like just, you know, just like I've run chainsaw for years. I have the PPE, but just like shit happens. And if something happened and I didn't have somebody to call or somebody to help, like you could be in a pickle pretty quick. And I'd like to like to be around later to enjoy all the fruits of my hard work, you know, so.
Jason Becker (02:00:06.965)
There you go.
Jason Becker (02:00:15.776)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Becker (02:00:28.5)
Exactly.
Nate Bowman (02:00:30.396)
Then into your point about the the PPE the same I'm the same way, you know, even if I'm I will not run a grinder without a face shield on like full stuff will not with safety glasses underneath a hood. I mean you have everybody's got a hood that has a grind mode on it pretty much. I mean, and if you don't you freaking should it's 2026. They're not terribly expensive. There's a million brands that make them and if you're you know, like it's the
Jason Becker (02:00:42.623)
Yep. 100%.
Nate Bowman (02:01:00.027)
Let me just cut this quick thing. Let me just do this really quick. That's when you blow apart a cut off wheel. Like that's when that stuff happens and nobody's around to help you or yeah, it's yeah, just be safe. And it's not hard to be safe. It's really not hard. And especially if you make it part of your like if this is part of what you do every single time, like I call it putting on my costume like.
Jason Becker (02:01:02.187)
That's all it takes.
Nate Bowman (02:01:26.247)
Everybody knows like, you know, you guys may have seen me only a few times on the internet, but you know exactly what my costume looks like. Mechanics wear gloves, up and smoke jacket, heat wave safety glasses and a speed glass hood every single time. So, you know, figure out what works for you. Figure out what your safety costume is or for whatever it is and and go rock it. You know, it's doesn't have to be uncomfortable.
Jason Becker (02:01:49.483)
Speaking of the speed glass, because I was wearing mine earlier today, the G502. Have they come out with a better headgear?
Nate Bowman (02:01:51.225)
Yeah. Which one?
Okay.
Nate Bowman (02:01:59.703)
No, and that's something that I talked about when I did R &D for them. That was one of the biggest things that I brought up. And what their engineer said was they did not want to go to the like 9100 style, one with the pivoting rear section and the multiple straps across the top. They did not want to go that because they were concerned about overall weight of the product. And I told them, I said, it doesn't, I said, that's what I said. I was like, it.
Jason Becker (02:02:03.115)
Yeah.
Jason Becker (02:02:24.053)
Yeah, but the weight's sitting on your temples, not on the crown.
Nate Bowman (02:02:29.091)
I was like, yo, it doesn't matter that headgear part is attached to your head already. It's sitting on your head and then the hood weighs what the hood weighs. know, that's the part that right. And it's like and it actually would be even better and feel even more comfortable and even lighter with this better distributed weight and stuff. So I brought that up to them. But their their pushback or whatever they said was that it was it was about
Jason Becker (02:02:33.779)
Irrelevant. Yeah.
Jason Becker (02:02:38.525)
is the weight. And that hood does the weight nothing!
Nate Bowman (02:02:58.925)
It came down to, and it's so crazy to me too, because there was multiple people on the team that did their, the, product testing development development on that. that's the same thing everybody said, why are you using this very simple head gear and why aren't you using the head gear out of the 9,100 series? So, Hey, maybe you know what I need to do. I need a 3d print a freaking retrofit kit. Uh-huh.
Jason Becker (02:03:14.4)
Yeah.
Jason Becker (02:03:22.411)
Yeah, for the 3350, because if I can put a 3350 headgear on there on the G502, buddy, yeah, I'll send you money tomorrow. Because I had to zip tie the headgear to my G502 just so the hood doesn't slide off the gliders because that little plastic catch doesn't catch. It just separates on its own. then like part of the, the, it's usually the left side of the hood just flies off. But yeah.
Nate Bowman (02:03:30.063)
Yeah, man.
Nate Bowman (02:03:37.493)
yeah, those little things, yeah.
Nate Bowman (02:03:44.923)
Yep, yep. I also in the same thing, I actually use electrical tape in mine, but a zip tie actually will also work.
Jason Becker (02:03:50.943)
Yeah, because zip tie actually fits around the grooves and I was like just clip that. Yeah. Did a flush cut on there. But other, mean, other than that, it's, it's a great hood. Like if I'm not wearing my, I wear the 3350 like 90 % of the time, but my G502 is specifically dedicated. So when I do my week long comprehensive, it's the, Lincoln 3350, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we get into TIG. I bust out the G502.
Nate Bowman (02:03:54.085)
and it locks it in. Yep. It's a really, it's a really good idea.
Man, now you've
Nate Bowman (02:04:14.597)
Do you have you seen the 80 you run the 80 V that 3350 adb. That one's great. I don't that's such a great hood. And for the money, I would say that's probably one of the best hoods on the market. The 3350 adb. Unbelievable.
Jason Becker (02:04:27.913)
You got to show me how to walk through the settings because that thing's like, it's got the plus or minus like 2.0 offset. So like if you're, so let's say you like, you want to rock a shade eight, it'll bump up to a shade 10 if you need it. So it'll go plus or minus based off the amperage, the perceived amperage or the perceived, perceived illumination. So how bright that arc is, it'll go plus or minus one or two, like whatever you set your, your offset. So it'll go up or down. if you
Nate Bowman (02:04:32.185)
It's pretty advanced. I don't know what that does. I don't know what that does.
Nate Bowman (02:04:39.184)
Mm-hmm.
okay.
Jason Becker (02:04:56.861)
If you're on an 11, but you actually need like a 10, you know, let's say you just get done flux core welding and you want to jump over to do some low amp tag or whatever. It'll alleged. I think that's if I understand it correctly, it'll drop. It'll drop down to shades of lens to be able to do that. Or it'll go dark, darker to two darknesses. So it'll go from like a shade 10 to a 12. If you're doing like higher amperage stuff.
Nate Bowman (02:05:07.738)
think that's what it's doing.
Nate Bowman (02:05:20.922)
I'm gonna have try that out. I love that hood. I've been using, I have a G503 Pro VC, the variable color G503 Pro. So you can actually change the color of the glass or not like color of the glass, but the color of the filter, I think between red, green and blue. And I typically keep it on the red one. And it just, it kind of reminds me of the old gold filters.
Jason Becker (02:05:37.163)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Bowman (02:05:47.386)
And it filters out a lot of the smoke. And it just makes it a little bit easier, like easier on your eyes for some reason. But depending on the process, can, you know, like for aluminum, like you could make it green and it almost like cancels the green aluminum GMAW. Like everything is freaking green, you know, it kind of cancels it. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean? Like. But you can change the eyes, but you could change that color. You could change that color to make it.
Jason Becker (02:05:53.493)
Okay.
Jason Becker (02:06:06.731)
Oh, you're running 53, 56 wire. You run the 40, 43, it turns blue.
Right, yeah, yeah.
Nate Bowman (02:06:16.772)
kind of fit what you're welding. And then it's got the grind mode and all that stuff in there. You've seen that hood, right? G503 Pro? All hang on a second. Hang on one second, I'll be right back. I'll be right back, because it's literally right here.
Jason Becker (02:06:19.669)
Okay.
Jason Becker (02:06:25.001)
I have not. thought the last one that they put out was the G502.
Nate Bowman (02:06:42.2)
Also, this is my new hood bag. Someone stole, it's a Patagonia, 40 liter Patagonia bags by the way, make the perfect hood bag, because you can put two hoods in there, gloves and like a welding jacket. And then all your safety glasses and stuff go in the front. like heat waves and stuff in the front. And then you got like, you know.
Jason Becker (02:06:45.801)
What is that? Okay.
Jason Becker (02:07:04.169)
Okay.
Nate Bowman (02:07:10.711)
earplugs from 3M. I know this is like a hood bag tour here.
Jason Becker (02:07:16.299)
Dude, I've never been stopped by TSA so many times than when I took my welding hood as a carry-on.
Nate Bowman (02:07:23.498)
it's so funny. I get stopped by TSA all the time for carrying my no the Rome sat my portable Starlink satellite that I bring with me but this is that's a G five three pro VC. So that's got variable color and stuff. So it's just like it's it's very similar to the 9100 xxi it's kind of the next generation next version of that.
Jason Becker (02:07:27.029)
holographic stickers.
Jason Becker (02:07:35.924)
Okay.
need to check that out.
Nate Bowman (02:07:48.844)
And it's really cool because it has like you can change this lower section out you can pop it off if you want it to just be a little short stubby guy.
Jason Becker (02:07:56.639)
I need a much longer one. Do they have like an 18 inch extension on that? There you go.
Nate Bowman (02:08:00.602)
We get 3D print you want is what we need to do. But dude, now that I didn't even think about that, but you brought that up. But yeah, the G five two, the curved glass one needs this headgear. So I just need to like 3D scan this thing and figure out how to make this work with the other one.
Jason Becker (02:08:15.328)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Becker (02:08:20.405)
Just the hinge points and then you just make an adapter for like the 3350 headgear.
Nate Bowman (02:08:25.498)
Yeah, that's a good point. Stuff to think about. Yeah, I have so many projects. Well, yeah, I don't know. think that's probably a good time to call it. How long have we been on here? Two hours. Heck yeah. That's a good podcast, man.
Jason Becker (02:08:27.349)
That would work. There you go. That's your first project.
Jason Becker (02:08:40.171)
A little over two hours. We never get to catch up, man. So are you doing Fabtech Vegas this year? Okay. Okay. Yeah, I'll be out there. That should be a good one. I've never been to the Vegas show.
Nate Bowman (02:08:47.173)
course man I'm there every year I'm there every year yeah you've never been to the Fabtech Vegas
Jason Becker (02:08:55.027)
No, the year I was supposed to go was 2020 and we all know what happened there. Yeah. That got canceled.
Nate Bowman (02:08:59.418)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was weird. That was so weird. And then the one after that was really weird or was it before 2019 where they
Jason Becker (02:09:08.287)
No, I really liked the 2021 version because like a lot of people didn't show up. So it was like, cool. I get to walk around Fabtech and kind of tour this joint a little bit, see what's going on. A lot of big OEMs canceled on that one. Like ESOB was there. So I got to spend a lot of time in the ESOB booth. They like went all out. But now I guess last year they said it was like 17 % higher than any other year. So like last year was a record at,
Nate Bowman (02:09:13.871)
Yeah.
Nate Bowman (02:09:17.722)
Yeah, it was 2021. That was really odd.
Nate Bowman (02:09:35.981)
yeah.
Jason Becker (02:09:36.189)
at Chicago, so I think Vegas will be even better. And I heard once after it back to Chicago the following year, I'm virtually certain that it's going to go to Orlando once again after that. If it does, you got to swing out and check out the shop, dude.
Nate Bowman (02:09:47.0)
I believe so, yeah, I thought the-
Of course, of course, man. I'll be there. I'll definitely be out there for sure. It's been a while since I've been out there. Yes. Like the last time I was there was when I was doing weld labs and we did the podcast.
Jason Becker (02:10:02.345)
Yeah. You came out to my old school, the college I was working at. And then we did the, you guys were the first in-person podcast. So I have an air conditioner in the studio now. It doesn't have heat, but I do have, I've got a mini space heater that I'm using tonight, but yeah, I've got AC in here. freeze your ass out. You can wear a hoodie in here in July and be comfortable if I turn that split unit on, dude.
Nate Bowman (02:10:06.178)
Yep. Yep.
Nate Bowman (02:10:10.647)
in this.
Yep.
Nate Bowman (02:10:17.582)
That was so...
Nate Bowman (02:10:22.252)
It was so freaking hot, dude. We were dying.
Nate Bowman (02:10:28.506)
I bet, bet. Dude, I remember being in there as me, Rush, and Jesse, and we're filming, we were dying. We were dying. Oh man. Yeah. Well, man, that's it. Yeah. It's, I'm glad that, you know, like, glad that you're still doing this and, you know, like folks have really seemed to appreciate the podcast. mean, it's, you know, six years is, yeah, it's no joke. You're not, not new in the game anymore.
Jason Becker (02:10:31.967)
Yeah. We're like, we, got, there's four bodies. We're like, okay, we got to cut this short. We got to go.
Jason Becker (02:10:54.507)
Yeah, it's been going good. I've got, I have a new, a new idea, a new spin on podcasting that I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna put it out there just yet, but I think I've got a new way to kind of tighten up the welding community based around the Arc Junkies podcast. So as soon as I iron some things out, I'll kind of, release the details, but yeah, I had an epiphany last night.
Nate Bowman (02:11:13.722)
Heck yeah.
Nate Bowman (02:11:21.134)
Heck yeah. Yeah, someday I'm going to.
Jason Becker (02:11:21.717)
but I think 2026 is going to be a dope year for the podcast.
Nate Bowman (02:11:25.538)
Someday when I have my space set up, I'm going to do one. Like I actually had a whole studio set up, you remember, like, and I did a couple demo ones, but I just, it got to the point where I'm like, yeah, just, this is, this is too many, too many things going on, but I have all this stuff. I have all the stuff to do it. I just need to like, it's a lot. It's a lot to do. So.
Jason Becker (02:11:41.035)
It's a lot.
Jason Becker (02:11:47.827)
It is tell me about it, dude. Shit Nate, before we get out of here, tell everybody where they can find you. I'm sure everybody that's listening to our junkies podcast, they've heard you on here several times, but if they don't know where to find you, where can they go?
Nate Bowman (02:11:50.158)
Yeah.
Nate Bowman (02:12:01.154)
Yeah, anywhere on the internet, just look up weld science or weld scientist. Any one of those on any platform, YouTube, Instagram, you can find me on LinkedIn. The easiest way to get a hold of me just hit me up on Instagram and the DMS I hit everybody back. I say that all the time. My DMS are at zero right now. So I make sure that I close the loop with everybody because
Jason Becker (02:12:21.6)
Facts.
Nate Bowman (02:12:28.548)
That's just something I take a lot of pride in. It's really important to me for folks to be able to ask questions and get the answers that they want. And, you know, like any of my research that I have, it's will always be free and always be open source for everybody to have and to use. So, yeah, hit me up anywhere, anytime.
Jason Becker (02:12:49.757)
Awesome, man. As always, I appreciate you coming on the show. It good catching up with you, and I hope to see you in Vegas this year.
Nate Bowman (02:12:55.034)
Yeah, I'll be there, man. We'll see you.
Jason Becker (02:12:56.459)
See you then.
