ARC MAGAZINE

The colors, movements, sounds and shapes are mesmerizing.

A ghost-white flame emanates from a stubby, cylindrical object that rocks back and forth against a ridged tower of metal. The hues on the screen run the gamut from magenta to orange to blue to black. Meanwhile, the haunting strains of “Zombie” by The Cranberries provide an eerie backdrop to the hypnotic rhythm playing out in the foreground.

You’d be forgiven for thinking this was some epic scene from a sci-fi flick. Instead, what has you transfixed is one of the stunning welding videos posted online by El Paso native David Ciriza (pronounced Suh-RIZZA).

Shot from the point of view of a welder under the hood, the videos vividly cover topics ranging from how to master the art of gas-tungsten arc welding, to how to use an oxygen acetylene torch to fabricate a spool piece. The result? Ciriza has, in just three years, watched his Instagram fan base balloon from about 200 to 120,000.

But beyond their beautiful production values, the videos also reflect Ciriza’s rock-solid commitment to superior craftsmanship. “True craftsmanship is evident when passion meets expertise,” he says, “and I’m fortunate to work alongside dedicated teammates who share that love for their craft.”

Ciriza discovered his love for the craft early, thanks to a father, and uncles, who were eager to ensure he learned the proper way to weld.

“Welding trucks were always around when I was growing up,” he recalls. “So I started to learn welding when I was about six. By age ten, I was welding on my own. My brother was racing go-karts, and I helped weld a rotating jack stand he could use to lift up a kart whose clutch had gotten too tight.”

“At the time, the fact I was welding at that age seemed perfectly normal. Looking back, I realize now it wasn’t normal at all.”

As a teenager, Ciriza used his welding skills to fix the brakes on his friends’ bikes and repair miscellaneous items brought to him by neighbors. “I surprised myself in fixing all that stuff,” he admits. “But my confidence with welding really grew as a result.”

It wasn’t long before Ciriza got the opportunity to exercise his talents in the industrial arena. His father found him a job at a fabrication shop building piping for the petrochemical industry. “At first, I was just grinding pipe fittings,” he says. “Then I started watching the pipe welders, and I thought, ‘Not only can I do that, I bet I can do that really well.’ So, I started practicing pipe welding during my lunch break and whenever I wasn’t learning how to fit pipe.”

On one occasion, his extracurricular activity flipped from getting him into trouble to getting him discovered. “I was secretly practicing pipe welding on a coupon, which I would take down whenever my supervisor would stroll by,” he says. “But he caught me once, and asked what I was doing.

“He examined the penetration on the coupon, then walked away, and boy did I start sweating bullets. Soon, he returned with the plant’s quality control manager who, after looking at my work, said, ‘This looks great. Finish it.’

“I did, and it passed all the non-destructive tests they gave it.”

Since then, Ciriza has easily passed all the tests given to most younger welders. At his full-time job, he quickly graduated from working on simple welding projects to helping the maintenance team with more complex repairs. He was only supposed to fill in with the maintenance team for a couple of weeks, “but once they saw what I could do, they brought me on full-time,” he says.

That change in status led to the company encouraging him to pursue a track in quality control and within a couple of years, he had passed the American Petroleum Institute’s 570 piping inspection exam, its 510 pressure-vessel inspection exam, and its 653 tank inspection exam. He also earned CWI status from the American Welding Society.

But perhaps his biggest test came not in a classroom but on the plant floor itself.

“Several welds on one of our heat exchangers began to crack,” he recalls. “Every company available attempted repairs for a week with no luck – which was concerning, since the plant would lose millions of dollars every day it was offline.

“I threw myself into the fire, asking them to let me give it a shot. That was controversial since I worked directly for the plant, but they approved it. In one night, my team got the plant back online.I couldn’t sleep the next morning, knowing the testing of our work was underway.

“But our repairs all held.”

Today, Ciriza applies his skill at two locations – the petrochemical refinery where he works 40 hours a week and a pristine shop at home, where he and his father rebuild vintage cars and undertake miscellaneous welding projects they find challenging.

“The home shop is sentimental to me since it’s where I honed my welding skills under my father’s guidance. Even though he’s in his sixties, he continues to mentor and tease me. But our relationship has evolved into one of mutual respect and trust. Together, we solve problems there, exchange ideas and pursue our philosophy of leaving welds as artistically perfect as possible, even if it’s going to be on a piece of industrial equipment.”

That sentiment doesn’t surprise Andres Moya, who works alongside Ciriza at the petrochemical refinery.

“Our team is always joking that if David ever busts a weld, we’re going to throw a shindig, because it will be the first time he’s messed up.” He adds with a laugh, “We may just have to throw that party, regardless.”

Moya met Ciriza at the refinery about 12 years ago and turned to him for help in becoming a better welder. “He was there from day one,” he says, “guiding me on my hand and foot movements. He also taught me how to watch my heat. I tended to keep it low, so I’d have more control of the puddle, but he explained I needed to turn it up to avoid porosity.

“Now, after 12 years, we know the other’s body language so well, I’ll go ahead of him on a pipe and work toward him, knowing we’ll meet in the middle. He’s taught me a lot, but I probably taught him patience, because I wasted several welding rods early on.”

Still, Moya views Ciriza to be not just a patient teacher but also a kick-butt welder.

“Whenever we’ve needed someone to knock out something, we’ve turned to David,” he says. “He welds fast, and the welds are smooth, tight, uniform and clean.

“That’s because he believes welding, even in an industrial setting, is an art form.”

Ryan Martinez agrees with Andres Moya about Ciriza’s elevated view of welding. Like Moya, Martinez is a welder who works alongside Ciriza on many projects. But unlike Moya, Martinez has known him almost since day one.

“Our fathers hung out together because they grew up on the same street and were both into vintage muscle cars,” he says. “So as a kid, I was at the Cirizas’ house a lot. David’s father taught me the basics of welding when I was in sixth grade, and when I started showing promise in high school, David started showing me TIG welding.

“My father is a principal. His motto was always, ‘Strive for perfection, settle for excellence,’ and that’s the philosophy David brings to our team. Like my dad, David believes every weld is a signature of your character – how hard you work, how much you care about details.”

Ciriza has significantly influenced Martinez’s knowledge and skill as a welder. What’s ironic is that Martinez has, almost by accident, exerted just as significant an influence on Ciriza’s trajectory.

“During COVID, we were the ones working in the refinery,” Martinez recalls. “I was always on social media, watching welding videos on Instagram and WeldTube. One day, David asked, ‘What are you always looking at?’ I showed him, and explained social media wasn’t just social. It was also something people learned from.

“And, man, that dude just ran with it.”

Together, Martinez and Ciriza shot and posted several videos that veered from the norm. Rather than telling viewers how to weld something, they showed viewers what correct welding looks like. Within weeks, Ciriza saw his Instagram following blow up, leapfrogging by thousands in just a few days.

The videos also caught the eye of Alan Solorzano, WeldTube’s owner and president. Solorzano started following Ciriza’s page and quickly determined that he was “confident and someone who knows his stuff and how to translate that knowledge from screen to viewer.”

Solorzano invited Ciriza to fly to Houston and create content for WeldTube. Soon, they were knocking out five or six videos in four days.

“My favorite video of his is the one on pipefitting,” he says. “Pipe welding is hard, but pipefitting is harder because it involves so much math. David’s amazing in how he reads blueprints and understands them.

“He’s what I call a triple threat – someone who masters pipefitting, pipe welding and inspection. It’s almost impossible to find someone who excels at all those skills the way David does.

“Really, the sky’s the limit for that gentleman.”

Given the way his videos have taken off on Instagram and WeldTube, Ciriza is certainly flying high at the moment. But cultivating his celebrity status matters nowhere near as much to him as does expanding his skills and passing along that knowledge to the next generation of welders.

“I want to build stuff with specialty alloys,” he says, “and do other forms of high-level fabrication that I hope the petrochemical industry will want. And I want to continue to pass along what I’ve learned to aspiring welders.”

Ciriza currently visits high schools and community colleges to coach their welding programs and helps those programs prosper by supplying them with hoods, gloves and other welding accessories. One high school program he mentored advanced to the state championship in sculpture.

But he cautions those entering the craft that success like that isn’t always so immediate.

“I tell them mastering this craft is more challenging than it’s often portrayed,” he says. “I emphasize that achieving excellence in this field demands years of unwavering commitment and extensive practice.

“You’ve got to be prepared to persevere. Even during the discouraging moments – and you will encounter them as I have – maintaining resilience is paramount. But the good news is, you’ll eventually feel your competence emerge, along with an ability to refine intricate details into exceptional craftsmanship.”