Welding shop talk that happily follows the rabbit holes.
Roy Crumrine, Jody Collier and Jonathan Lewis talk welding in a practical, wandering way, from tungsten sharpening angles and stick electrode numbers to rod ovens and whether a tungsten grinder is worth its price. Guests such as Mike Best of Best Fab and Aaron Biefer, better known as Bulldog Welding, bring the business of fabrication into the mix.
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Welding Tips and Tricks Podcast is a conversation among three regulars, Roy Crumrine, Jody Collier and Jonathan Lewis, about the practical side of welding. The format is simple. A topic gets named at the top, and then the talk goes where it goes; the trio say themselves that they tend to go down rabbit holes. Some topics come straight from followers. In one episode the regulars had asked on Instagram for ideas, and the first question they took up was tungsten sharpening angles. That discussion became an even-handed look at tungsten grinders. They make sense for anyone who wants every arc start to be the same, and in food plants where workers wear hair nets and making sparks can require a hot work permit. They are also expensive, and some cost more than an entry-level welding machine. One of the regulars loves the grinders he owns but says he is neither for nor against them. Stick welding gets the same grounded treatment. An episode built on a YouTube video Jody posted sets out to cover electrode types, their numbers and their common uses, and the talk reaches rod ovens. One story describes a job site stocking hundreds of rods in ovens while using maybe twenty. Another notes that code work, nuclear plants especially, often means a portable rod oven, and that on some jobs rods had to be returned at lunchtime. The business of the trade shows up as well. In a discussion of product development, the three are frank that they are not professionals at bringing things to market; they simply describe how each of them did it. One thread weighs how much a buyer values their time, setting a kit against a pre-assembled model and pointing to welding carts. Jonathan's shop upgrade is another personal thread. He describes feeling excited, stressed and overwhelmed in turn, and admits he has barely had time to learn the nesting programs for his new equipment while running the business by day and working on the building at night. As he sees it, the equipment has to pay for itself. Guests broaden the picture. Mike Best of Best Fab recalls a job where he could both machine and weld, and noticing how hard it was to find people to build the framework and machine bases for automation equipment. Aaron Biefer, better known as Bulldog Welding and introduced as the swag king of the Instagram world, makes plasma-cut pieces, railings and range hoods around a day job. He loves the look on people's faces when they get the finished piece, and suspects that doing it full-time would make it feel more like a job. Patreon supporters get an after show about what goes on behind the scenes.
Made for: Suits a listener who welds, or is learning to, and wants practical talk on consumables and equipment alongside the everyday realities of upgrading a shop or running a side business.
What sets it apart: It weighs gear and choices instead of issuing rules, treating a tungsten grinder as a great spend for some and unnecessary for others. It also pairs technique talk with candid stories about money, time and building a shop.
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A drummer's stool joins Roy Crumrine and Jody Collier's bead-consistency talk, and your setup gets a second look.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical shop-floor discussion of tungsten angles, grinder options, and consistent electrode preparation.
"Tungsten Angles" starts with a listener question about sharpening angles and turns it into a practical shop-floor discussion of tungsten types, sharpening methods, grinder choices, and how angle changes can affect penetration and arc starts.
A grounded look at when a welding idea becomes a product worth buying, building, or assembling.
This episode turns a common shop-floor question into a useful product lesson: when is it smarter to build the thing yourself, and when is convenience worth paying for?
A grounded welding story that runs from a 1974 Nova to plasma-cut work, custom railings, and a sticker-built brand.
Bulldog Welding comes through as a practical origin story: a 1974 Nova, a borrowed Lincoln buzz box, and a need for a transmission cooler and subframe connectors.
A grounded look at stick electrodes, from numbering and 6010 to rod-oven rules on code-conscious jobs.
Stick Rods frames electrode choice as something that happens at the bench, not just in a chart. The episode moves from a loose exchange about grind angle and flux into stick welding electrodes, what their numbers signal, and why a rod like 6010 still has a place when access,…
Michael Best shows how a welding niche around machine bases grew into a tougher turnkey machine business.
Michael Best's conversation with Roy Crumrine, Jonathan Lewis, and Jody Collier works best as a plainspoken look at a welding business being pulled beyond its original niche.
Vocational training explained through real institutions.
Clearer governance for stronger RTOs.
Frank farriery shop talk, from competition tents to regulation.
A panel of welders discusses the controversial topic of depth of fusion versus simple fusion in welding, aiming to clarify the concepts for listeners.
Instructors discuss how to prepare high school welding students for the workforce despite limited budgets and experience requirements.
Roy Crumrine and Jody Collier use a listener question on tungsten sharpening angles to frame the whole Welding Tips and Tricks Podcast episode.
["The Welding Tips and Tricks Podcast episode \"Product Development\" has Roy Crumrine, Jonathan Lewis, and Jody Collier talking through how a welding idea becomes a sellable product.", "They use TIG Finger, purge box kits, fixture plates, an unbreakable TIG cup, a Shark Tank tablet pitch, and a $20,000 oil-funnel story to show how badly product ideas can be misjudged.", "Their main filter is validation: a real problem, a pre-order, a swipe of a card, and honest margin math matter more than friends saying the idea sounds good.", "They also dig into 3D printing, packaging, USPS flat-rate boxes, and the difference between buyers who could make something themselves and buyers who will pay for convenience."]
["Aaron Biefer, known as Bulldog Welding, joins Roy Crumrine, Jonathan Lewis, and Jody Collier on Welding Tips and Tricks Podcast to talk shop, process choice, and side work.", "He says a 1974 Nova, a borrowed Lincoln buzz box, and a month of scrap practice started his welding path when he was 16.", "Biefer also describes 25 years in design engineering, including prototype laser-welding work, Oshkosh Corporation in Wisconsin, Saudi Arabia, and seat structures for Lordstown and Faraday vehicles.", "The conversation gets most specific around stick, MIG, TIG, arc gouging, and the new Lincoln engine drive he uses for after-hours repair jobs in Michigan."]
Welding Tips and Tricks Podcast’s "Stick Rods" episode breaks down 6010, 6011, 6013, 7014, 7024, and 7018.
["Michael Best of Best Fab recalls being sent to Delta for aerospace welding certification after Jimmy connected the shops around fall 2009.", "He says Jody Collier's team labeled pre-test joints with employee numbers and metal-group numbers, then sent visually acceptable parts to X-ray.", "Best and Jody talk through PW4000 bearing housings, Inconel, titanium, stainless sealing surfaces, and the fixtures and argon heat-treat cycles needed to keep parts from cracking.", "Best then explains why he left GE's advanced manufacturing lab, moved from a 2,500-square-foot shop to a 400-square-foot garage, and started favoring smaller repair work over turnkey machine projects with slow payments and change orders."]
Roy Crumrine and Jonathan Lewis compare a 40-foot shipping container at $5,000 with adding 20 by 50 feet of shop space.
Jonathan Lewis says the shop build was planned around ROI, not just square footage.
Jonathan Lewis says the shop decision came down to a shear, a plasma table, and a JD Squares tube bender.
Brad Goodman watches "the glow of my tungsten in the puddle" to place every filler dab the same way.
Roy Crumrine links productivity to "batching stuff" and says one hour of copy-paste work becomes faster after the first hour.
Instructors discuss how to prepare high school welding students for the workforce despite limited budgets and experience requirements.
Hosts discuss shop lighting with guest Jason Marburger, sharing tips for setting up a welding workshop.