| Skill | What it means | Level needed |
|---|
| Follows fabrication shop safety rules: wears the required PPE, checks that machine guards and E-stops are in place before operating, and recognizes hot-work, pinch-point, and overhead-load hazards before starting a task. | |
| Applies or verifies lockout/tagout on shears, brakes, presses, and welding machines before clearing jams or cleaning, and never reaches into a machine that is not locked out. | |
| Accounts for every tool and consumable at the end of a task and keeps hardware, wire ends, and debris out of assemblies under a foreign-object-damage (FOD) control program. | |
| Reads the job traveler or process plan, verifies the material and parts kit against it before starting, and follows the stated task sequence. | |
| Reads assembly drawings and shop prints - views, dimensions, tolerances, and basic weld symbols - well enough to pull the right parts and put them in the right place. | |
| Uses fractions, decimals, angles, and simple geometry to figure lengths, hole spacing, bend allowances, and torque conversions. | |
| Measures and checks parts with tapes, steel rules, squares, protractors, calipers, and micrometers to confirm dimensions before and after each operation. | |
| Identifies stock by type, grade marking, and heat number, and verifies the right material against the work order before cutting. | |
| Transfers dimensions from the print or template to the metal with squares, scribers, punches, and chalk or laser lines, allowing for stock thickness, kerf, and weld shrinkage. | |
| Operates a hydraulic shear or ironworker set up to cut sheet, plate, and bar to the marked size, using the back gauge and keeping hands clear of the hold-downs. | |
| Runs press brakes, benders, and power rolls on jobs a lead has set up, forming parts to the specified angle or radius, and stops the machine and tells the lead when something looks, sounds, or measures wrong. | |
| Drills and punches holes to the layout with drill presses, mag drills, punch presses, and the ironworker punch station, matching hole size and location to the print. | |
| Cuts bar, tube, and structural shapes to length on horizontal band saws and cold saws, squaring the cut and holding the length tolerance on the print. | |
| Cuts plate and shapes to the line with oxy-fuel and plasma equipment - by hand, with track burners, or by running a CNC cutting table program someone else prepared. | |
| Grinds, deburrs, and finishes cut edges and welds with angle grinders, belt sanders, and files so parts fit up cleanly and meet the called-out finish. | |
| Positions, aligns, and clamps parts to the drawing using jigs, squares, wedges, drift pins, and pry bars, then tack-welds the assembly and hands it to the welder square and to size. | |
| Welds out fitted steel assemblies with wire-feed (GMAW/FCAW) equipment to a procedure and machine setup a qualified welder or lead established; aluminum wire-feed weld-out is carried here as a trade-knowledge extension, not standard-sourced. | |
| Loads parts and runs automated/semi-automated welding machines to a setup someone else prepared, checking weld placement and count against the first-piece sample; in sheet shops this is most often a resistance spot welder (nugget placement and count), with stud and seam welders where present. | |
| Assembles brackets, bearings, couplings, bushings, sprockets, and hardware onto fabricated units with hand and power tools, installing the threaded fasteners and hardware the drawing calls for and torqueing them to spec. | |
| Helps align machinery and mating parts with levels, straightedges, feeler gauges, shims, and dial indicators, working with a journey-level worker on close-tolerance fits. | |
| Rigs routine loads - plate, weldments, and machinery - to the shop's standard sling configurations and capacity charts with shackles and chains, uses jacks and rollers to position loads, and gives standard hand signals to the crane or hoist operator; a lead or qualified rigger directs non-routine and machinery lifts. | |
| Checks own work in process and finished parts against the drawing - dimensions, hole locations, fit, and weld size - records the results on the inspection sheet, and flags anything out of spec before it moves on. | |
| Passes clear information to the next station, shift, or trade - what is done, what is short, and what has a problem - so the assembly keeps moving without rework. | |
| Keeps the station clean and organized and does the operator-level care the machines need - greasing points, topping off cutting fluid and coolant, and reporting wear or damage. | |
| Understands how the shop's hydraulic presses and pneumatic tools work - pressure, cylinders, valves, and air lines - well enough to connect tools correctly and spot leaks worth reporting. | |
Oregon publishes ten employability skills, the same statewide. Tick the three that matter most for this job.
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