What is a licensed mechanic? That is the most ridiculous thing ever. I suppose in that crap country everyone that has to work needs some sort of License? Wow. I just don't know how I spent so many years as a mechanic and even more as a machinist with only a drivers license and a pilots license oh yeah a few radio licenses as well.
Canada has required licenses for mechanics for as long as I've known. Most that I've met were on par with the best I've worked with here. I do think it likely discourages people from taking that route in life. Maybe some wrenches up there can comment.
A licence doesn't make everyone good at anything, plenty of licenced car drivers couldn't and shouldn't drive a nail little alone a car
Three hots and a cot, company rig, 6-month contract, $70 clams per hour. I could sober up for that. I have an official state of Alaska issued bear baiting license and an expired passport. That should put me in the race.
Have worked in that town in 1995 for Komatsu Dealer and what is not being said is that Timmins goes minus 40-45 C every winter for sometimes 1 month or more. Lots of snow and very cold. Hard to find guys who want to work outside in that cold. I split a large Pierce Pacific Log Forwarder in 2 and put back together in Minus 40-45C and just to plug in an air line to a impact needs the coupler warmed up with heat gun. Every 5 bolts or so you have to add a mixture of Dextron mixed with WD 40 and a tiny amount of Gasoline antifreeze to keep gun from freezing. Did that for 2 long 12 hour days and gun never froze with that regime. Not going there again. Simon C
Canuck Clams that is.......
Teds looking for work, no one will go to his concerts. *
Don't appreciate Canada being called a crap country. It's an insult to a a lot forum members. As an example the late Bob/Ont was one of the most knowledgeable the forum has ever had. We have a higher standard of living than the US. As far as trades most require that you are a registered apprentice or a journeyman to work in that trade. There are some though that work in trades that aren't registered. For a journeyman it means you have so many hours working in that trade each year of the apprenticeship as well 6 weeks or more formal schooling. It used to be 1800 hours/year. It doesn't mean there can't be crappy mechanics but a large majority are well trained and very good at what they do. There are some that aren't registered or journeyman though. It's not like somebody goes around to shops all the time checking. If there was an issue and something bad happened and it was determined work was done by someone who wasn't an apprentice or j-man the company could be in big trouble. I'm in Alberta that has the largest training institute in Canada. Many of the departments are sponsored by large companies. The most recent 10 million dollar addition of the welding building is named after a large steel fabricator that donated a million dollars to it. As far as welding Alberta is recognized as the best pipe welders in the world. The welding dept. has set up training in other countries as well because of Alberta's high standards. It doesn't mean that people from other countries aren't as good just that Canada has high standards. If people from other countries come to Canada and can prove their hours in the trade and pass a Canadian test they will be given a Canadian trade certification.
No it doesn't. It means they had the training and hours in the trade but that doesn't automatically make everyone proficient in that trade. Some just think it's good money but don't apply themselves or just aren't made for that type of work. I've talked with apprentices who think they can get into pipeline welding because it pays the big bucks. They don't realize how hard and heavy of work it is. It takes a special breed to be a pipeline welder in all weather conditions and every weld has to be perfect to pass X-ray. It's wasn't for me.
As a licensed 310T technician there is no way I'd go to Timmins for $50-70/hr. You can make $50/hr without leaving the GTA and be home every night. Good luck.
After chatting with several Canadian mechanics at a manufacturer training for a week I didnt see any higher quality of living just more expensive without the matching pay. From their stories the quality life seemed pretty iffy in a lot of areas that were weirdly heavily regulated for no apparent reason other than to let Uncle Beaver get his hand in the publics pocket. So no not interested at that pay range.
Does Timmins have a Tim's ?
I like that the trades are trained and certified as such. The USA needs to do something like this.
Some either have the knack or don't. If you have to go to school to learn to be a mechanic then you weren't born with it. And are just a trained monkey, sorry to offend anyone, the trained monkeys are the most nasty ones to have to work with, especially in a dealership atmosphere, they seem to have a god complex.
I explain it as if you never figured out the problem when you where miles away and hours away you dont have the nac for it to fix it one must become it im someways
Paper on the wall don't turn a wrench. Known plenty of ticketed guys who couldn't diagnose their way out of a paper bag, and old timers with no license who could fix anything. Regulation just adds cost.
There's good and bad in every job and a lot in the middle. If someone is working on something like tanker trucks with highly flammable materials I'd want somebody well trained and knowledgeable working on them rather than someone that thinks they know. An apprenticeship requires that training. Doesn't mean a journeyman is the best but they did get the training and have to pass written and practical tests. That's why trades that go through technical schools are better than someone who gets their training just reading books but has no practical experience in the field.
Shops years back farmed they're own. Many only ever worked for possibly two different dealers or independents in a life time. Job jumping wasn't a thing, and getting a job at one required someone retiring or they died creating a opening. They bought one house normally and stayed there, training was factory, the rest was on the job. Then vo-tech entered the scene and all of the above disappeared.
Ah, yes, just what we need, more government ! ! !
All I know is that I have never in my life met anyone who could do 100% perfect welds without having some formal training and had to do school training before they would ever be considered for the real pipeline welders world. There was a man where I did contracting, who had done more than 100, 6-12 inch pipe welds and did not have to redo one after Xray checking. He was born with some real talent and then was trained by some other experts. Simon C
A fello that was in moble maintance with dad and uncle in his spare time would weld dents in stainless trim off cars he finished his working dads at a nuc
A lot of pipelines will kick you off if you have more than a 10% failure rate, some are only 5%. It's very precise work and literally has to be perfect. The weld can't penetrate too much or be built up too much on the cap. It's not that hard to do roll welding pipe in a shop but a pipeline is done in position in all kinds of weather and ground conditions.
How to turn diesel fuel into noise?
Notice--no one is smiling in those photos.
The guy in the top pic. looks like he'd rather be doing anything else.
Poll , who here has had formal class room weld training? Not me, got a few tips along the way, friend of my dad showed me on his welder how to strike an arc. Next few days or so got a nice JC Penny's buzz box good ole AC and E6013, and learned how to weld with a 1/2 inch by 2 foot square asbestos board to put the projects on the concrete floor to weld on, maybe 14 or so then.
It was fairly common in the 90’s for a student enrolled in a diesel mechanic program to take a couple semesters or quarters of welding classes. Gas welding, cutting and brazing. Then, a class on SMAW. Many programs had AWS certification at the end. Usually 1G-1F and 3G-3F. Before sending them off into the real world. Whatever that is.
It's required in Canada to work as a welder but isn't that strongly enforced. For pressure work it is.
For most, it's a life time of toil trying to get ahead, interrupted by a funeral in the end. * The name of this thread, {any interested-licensed mechanics}. A nation full of licensed drivers, privet and commercial and 50% are not competent. A common statement {he went to school for it}-----so. A few occupations should require a license---but a mechanic isn't one of them, next it would be licensed & bonded parts sales people and it's not hard to see how that would end.
No idea what the purpose of a licensed heavy equipment mechanic would be. I know a lot of large companies require operators to have a red seal to be hired. You have to be a licensed mechanic, automotive or truck and trailer in order to do a safety inspection or at least to sign off on it.
Maybe but my brother went to mech in HS and the dealership, just up the road, put him in college. Got him an accociates degree and hired him full time, after that. He has spent 40 years there and just got promoted to service manager. Partly because they had no other candidates for the job and mostly, his body is ruined from the work but they can’t lose his knowledge. Still happening at that particular dealership. Granted, the program at that HS is an excellent one. I couldn’t get in the mech program, so I did welding.
A license is meaningless to me. In real life you either can do an excellent job or you can't. Some people thrive in a classroom and can easily pass tests but are no good in the field. Others struggle in the classroom, struggle with the tests, but are a natural when turned loose in real life. I know a guy that was a natural truck driver, competent, safe, everything you could wish for but when it came to taking the tests he froze up. Tried 6-7 times and failed and finally gave up. Meanwhile, the roads are filled with warm bodied steering wheel holders that can't tell east from north, don't know what a fifth wheel is, much less if it's latched or not, etc, etc, etc. We work on projects designed by licensed civil engineers, apparently at their desks at preschool using half eaten crayons... We had a project last year where the "engineer" literally gave up on it and told us to figure it out and make it work. That's not too say all civil engineers are incompetent. We work with some that do excellent work and actually know how to make the water run downhill.
Some very good power mechanics and metal shop teachers in my highschool, guess who had to teach the teachers? And fix their stuff on occasion? Most kids then had to party and what ever, I was either in our garage, or studying all I could find on the topics back then, real hard in those days the get good real information on any mechanical type topic. Well its about the same now with everyone on youtube that thinks they know something, and show everyone the wrong way to do the procedure.
Well on the subject of commercial driving there are many reasons why trucks are designed the way they are plus the caliber of driver attracted to the industry. {OTR in a nut shell---The life SUCKS}. Where else can you go to work on a timed schedule get paid for 11 hours and still responsible for the truck/trailer/load while off duty. Don't receive pay for dock time. Eat sh---- food everyday, put up with one jacka-- after another on the road, including other jacka-- truck drivers. Have to take a dump and the toilet seat is still warm from the last week long unwashed user. Hardly ever see the good side of a town, no it's mostly industrial with cardboard houses under bridges or open lots. Filthy truck stops with people {in most cases working there} that are not all that friendly. The list is long. The shippers/receivers/transport companies/brokers built that house of crap life style, so in many cases it doesn't attract the best of society to work in that climate. Oh, I forgot home life--there isn't much of that. Get sick on the road--your on your own, eat some bad food, you may not make it to a rest area. Yes there are some good companies to work for, but not many. It's hard to find drivers, the reason for AMT transmissions, it removes bad habits and achieves better fuel mileage, that simple. * Welding--yes it's a good thing to be proficient at, but in a shop dealer or independent if a experienced mechanic is over welding when there is mechanical work waiting out- side, that's wasting man power. Send it out or hire a flunky who can weld. I took a semester of welding at CWU in late 70's, can I weld do I weld have I worked as a welder-{yes}, but I'm not a welder per-se. * Mechanics--Sears sold a 199 piece mechanics tool set, I bought one of those. I especially like the clear/red striped handled screwdrivers, weren't very good quality but looked good in my $88 dollar tool chest.
I still have a Sears ratchet and a few sockets. Probably if I went to my mother's I might find one of those screw drivers. I had a Sears shopvac, it was awesome and I'll never find one as good
Off topic but the best screwdrivers were the red striped, gold handled screw drivers. I only have a few left, that I have pretty much ruined. When they went to the red stripe, with the clear handle, the steel changed and they weren’t as good.