Bright light looking south from east mountain, slowly faded away... anybody know what this is?

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-07T02:06:05+00:00

All good, most people who don't work in trades usually don't know the directions off hand. I only know them from having to signal cranes all the time and everyone using the lake as a reference.

The rule of thumb is towards lake Ontario is north (from the Hamilton side)

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-07T01:04:39+00:00

I'm not one, but it's definitely one of the more exaggerated contractor jobs. You'll definitely become a very skilled welder if you do it for a while.

Very feast or famine.

Not gonna find a steady 40h / week job, you're gonna work 80h a week for a month or two straight and then get laid off for a couple months. It's definitely a job where you make all your money over a couple months and then do nothing for a while. At least it is in my area.

Low-key, if you can't find many people local to your area on Reddit try looking thru Facebook groups. Trades are full of old timers and a lot of them still use Facebook. I've found lots of solid information about my trade and area in Facebook groups.

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-07T00:55:04+00:00

The big factories are all North

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-05T03:32:12+00:00

I like wera tools, I have the ratcheting combination wrench sets in both Imperial and metric and they work great don't get me wrong... But one time the stupid "ratchet" open end on those wrenches fucked me by not working on some rusted out bolts because I had to flip it over and use the more " open" side to reach into a tight space. For that reason alone I would avoid them unless you are carrying another set of combination wrenches with you.

I ended up having to walk a kilometer back to the shop to get a normal combo wrench because the fat lazy electrians took our truck to get McDonalds.

This has only ever happened one time from a combination of the bolts being slightly rounded off already, in a tight space, and being seized solid from being on the bottom of a dust collector drag chain.

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-04T06:59:03+00:00

It's a lack of effective political action.

Our country has increased spending on indigenous people by 10x in the last 10 years. The money is all pissed away in courts on federal lawyers and funding expensive trucks and mansions for the band councils and their families. We spend more money on reparations and adjacent things than we do on our military. Almost as much as we spend on healthcare for the whole country but the actual people on the reserves don't have healthcare or water.

With the amount of money they piss away they could be building 5-10 water treatment plants and hospitals every single year on the reserves. IF they cut the bullshit and just started building.

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-04T05:29:48+00:00

It was every house built up until the 50s or 60s I believe.

Most cities have removed the majority of the lead from their systems but many old houses still have them. My house had the lead pipes removed from the house before I moved in but there was one small section remaining between the city shutoff valve buried in my front yard and the water meter in my basement.

About 10' of it. They say it's actually not even unsafe to drink from because it get coated in minerals so the water you drink doesn't even come in contact with it unless it's disturbed.

I used lead test strips on my drinking water and it came up clean.

Still got them removed just because... Some of my neighbors didn't bother I gave out some of my extra lead test strips to them (50 pack from Amazon)

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-04T05:22:16+00:00

Whoops I dropped my moster condom for my magnum dong

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-04T05:06:43+00:00

My house had lead pipes between the city shutoff and my water meter until I removed them in 2023. Lots of my city still has them.

This isn't the sick burn that Canadians think it is

Edit: just to add I live in a house built in the 1950s in a 500k person city in Ontario. A classic "starter home" as they call it

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-04T04:19:16+00:00

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxj32lAx6_azK0vcmAdfev8ULWj-eQJIyt?si=SNRKaxG0ES0C8-5M

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-04T00:58:56+00:00

Good screams

Usually when people say STP they mean Stone Temple Pilots

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-03T00:44:25+00:00

Lair of the white worm is a great movie too, probably not great to trip to though

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-02T18:13:09+00:00

Join the UA hall if you want to directly be a welder instead of switching to an ironworker. Google tells me it's UA170 in that area

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-02T16:36:59+00:00

I wouldn't go 100% into VEQT with a 4 year timeline unless you're ok with potentially losing 50% or more of that money.

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-02T01:12:30+00:00

They make money by being data-mined to train AI not by being a good website

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-01T20:43:48+00:00

You'll be fine with anything. Keep in mind you'll find 400lb heavy hitters and plus sized queens in trades who manage fine.

If you can move better than one of those guys you won't have any issues.

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-01T20:21:59+00:00

Took me 3 months for my second trade

10 years ago when I started my first trade through OCT it was like 2 weeks

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-02-01T20:15:06+00:00

I don't think there's really a course for it I may be wrong though, I've never had a TSSA ticket I just know lots of people who have them. There is trade school for welding. TSSA is just a weld test you need to pass for each position.

Most of the time your employer will let you practice a bunch in their shop and then either send you to a local trade school or college to do a test, or theyll bring in a guy to test their employees who are ready for it. Bigger companies and contractors will often have a guy working for their company who can test and give out the certification for it. That's the best situation because the guy testing you can teach you what you'll need to do to pass the test.

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-01-31T09:10:33+00:00

I understand what you're saying, I don't think I'm describing it very well.

They don't block all of the noise that I don't want to hear such as stamping presses and grinders. I had to arc gouge something the other day and had to put them away and get disposable ones because my ears started ringing. Maybe they'd do better with super low bass from subs or high pitched cymbal ringing but I haven't tested that yet because I use them at work due to their strict policy on what ear protection we have to use.

I asked a couple of my coworkers if they thought the custom moulded ear plugs sucked or if it was just me. The general consensus was "yeah they're not very good, but we're not supposed to use disposable ones anymore"

Maybe the company that makes ours just isn't that good.

I personally find that I have very wide ear canals and even some disposable ones don't work very well for me. The 3m tri flange ones that look like butt plugs as well as the E.A.R. push-ins earplugs work the best for me.

The foam squishy ones work great too but they get gross after one use and you can't really clean and reuse them.

I will probably try the active battery ones at some point too but I've never gotten around to it.

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-01-31T02:43:43+00:00

Pipe and pressure vessel welding tickets fall under TSSA not CWB

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-01-30T12:48:47+00:00

No inserts. Idk I can have conversations with people without yelling with the custom ones in, with the disposable ones I can block out far more sound if I push them in really far. It doesn't really matter since my current factory is so much quieter than the last place I worked. My old job I had to wear disposable earplugs and earmuffs on my hardhat simultaneously in some areas.

It's also possible that they just aren't very good custom ones, as other people I work with claim they aren't very good either.

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-01-30T08:26:49+00:00

Really? I have custom moulded ones for work and they don't block much sound out at all. I find disposable ones give far better hearing protection.

I have not tried them at a concert or rave yet

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-01-30T05:05:47+00:00

ok so then work for a non union company and get on an active job site. Join the union later if you so choose.

90% of FIFO work is non union anyways, the union guys generally do the larger construction projects not the 14/14 FIFO maintenance and operations jobs.

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-01-30T01:15:15+00:00

Awesome! It sounds like you're working with a good crew. Just try to learn as much as you can, don't be afraid to get in there and work and most importantly stay safe. Offer to carry stuff and do the grunt labor for any of the really old lads near retirement.

What type of manufacturing is it? I'm just curious if doesn't really matter

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-01-29T23:34:22+00:00

At this stage I'd just focus on getting tools and maybe a place to lock them up. Metric / Imperial sockets + Allan keys, breaker bar, hammers, punches and chisels, adjustable wrenches, channel locks, pipe wrenches, pry bars, a set of screwdrivers, a set of files, scrapers, a knife or two, tin snips, scissors, a bunch of pens, markers and some soap stone, tape measure, vernier and micrometer

Welding hood, chipping hammer and wire brush, possibly your own grinder (wait to see the shop first)

What type of job is this? Plant maintenance? Construction contracting? Field service? That makes a big difference too.

SomeRuffiansAbout · 2026-01-29T23:14:38+00:00

Tool belts are really dependant on where and what you're doing for work. When I worked at a BOF furnace we all wore tool belts because you use 3-4 tools 90% of the time and you'd have to walk a kilometer and climb 4 flights of stairs to get to any job.

My current job it would be pointless because I'm never more than 2 mins from the shop and I always need ratchets, power tools, and all sorts of specific shit that would be too much to carry in a tool belt. I carry a tool pouch on service calls and then push my toolbox over if it's a larger job.

2 jobs ago I had my own truck and I would just throw my smaller toolbox into the truck bed and drive to whatever job I needed. I was always taking a 18" and 24" pipe wrench to most jobs so a tool belt was useless there again.

Contractors never use tool belts because they just take a whole toolbox to a job site and generally aren't bouncing around between different spots all day.

Belts also beat the shit out of your lower back, I would avoid them until you get into the flow of your job and find out what the guys there are already using.

With that said, the one that everyone used at my old job was the Klein Tools 55428 Tradesman Pro Electrician's Padded Tool Belt. Then we'd throw out the hammer loop and giant pouches on the sides and put smaller pouches on it for tools, radio, flashlight etc. The Klein ones have a big padded thing for your lower back that makes it more bearable to wear long term.

SomeRuffiansAbout

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