Welding and Fabrication Technician

Think of the steel platforms, pressure vessels and structural beams that hold up a Sudbury smelter: someone had to lay them out, cut them and weld every joint. Welding and Fabrication Technician is a two-year, four-semester Ontario College Diploma taught full time in the welding shops at Cambrian College’s Barrydowne campus in Sudbury.

Semester one opens with Welding Applications I, Welding Processes & Technology I, Metal Trades Practices, Blueprint Reading & Drafting I and Trade Math I. In semester two you take Fabrication & Assembly Practices I, Welding Metallurgy, Layout & Template Development I, Drawing Interpretation & Drafting I and Welding Applications & Practical Skill I. Semester three adds Fabrication & Assembly Practices II, Welding Processes & Practices, Introduction to Steel Detailing and Welding Applications & Practical Skill II, and the final term covers Plate & Structural Steel Development II, Layout & Template Development III, Job Planning & Preparation and Welding Applications & Practical Skills III.

Cambrian caps enrolment so you get time on industry-standard welding equipment, and you carry projects from concept drawing to finished fabricated product. The diploma equates to three levels of required theory toward your welding apprenticeship Certificate of Qualification, shortening the in-school part of an apprenticeship. Domestic students can add an optional paid co-op, and selected students represent the college at the Skills Ontario Competition.

Graduates of Cambrian’s Welding and Fabrication Technician diploma work as welder, metal fabricator, welding apprentice, structural steel fitter, plate layout technician and maintenance welder in steel fabrication plants, manufacturing, construction, pulp and paper mills, mines and refineries. It suits patient, steady-handed people who enjoy reading drawings, like physical shop work and want a head start on a welding apprenticeship.