Tag: creative outlet

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Hey..That’s A Nice Bead.

I am in my third week of the welding class I have been taking at College of DuPage and we just moved into the hands on portion of the semester. The first two weeks we just lectures, reading homework and workbook exercises. All of that was very important, especially the chapter on safety, but now we get to the part that puts the theory into practice.

Today we were given the task of creating a uniform bead on a 1/16 thick coupon of sheet metal. The metal piece is called a coupon because it is about the same size as a store coupon (4x4inches or 2×4 inches). We used the Oxy Acetylene torch as our tool for this task and were allowed to practice until we were comfortable and confident that we could run a straight uniform bead 6 or 7 times on the same coupon.OxyTorch

The hardest part was getting comfortable with my positioning so that I could keep a steady hand as I moved the torch over the work. Positioning was a challenge because of the stools we were working with. They are OSHA compliant so they were a bit too tall for the work bench they were paired with and it made for an uncomfortable top down perspective. If you are not comfortable all kinds of negative things things can happen:

  1. Torch to far from work – metal won’t melt (pool)
  2. Torch too close – metal melts too much and you burn through
  3. Too shallow of an angle – molten metal can blow out of the pool and leave gaps.
  4. Move too fast – pool is not consistent
  5. Your angle fades up or down – the line is not straight

OxyBead

This is one of my 7 good beads on the work piece. Not bad for my first day.

The other challenge for me was concentration. I found I was getting mesmerized by the glow of the molten metal and it caused my mind to wander off to other places and non related thoughts. I found it very relaxing and an almost therapeutic exercise to move from bead to bead bathed in the hot glow of the torch light. I really had to stay in the moment so that I did not move too far from the work or drift off the straight line I was trying to keep.

After today’s exercise, I see why the fabricators who have been at this for years can earn the title of Master Craftsman. It takes a great deal of skill to do what they do on a day to day basis. I have a long way to go but I think I am off to a great start.

 

 

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Trying Something New

I always wanted to learn how to weld. Well maybe not always but at least since I was in high school and developed an interest in low-rider’s (mid 60’s Chevy Impala’s). lowriderI knew that if I ever wanted to get one to restore, I would need to reinforce the chassis if I wanted it to hop. Making it ‘Hop’ involves installing hydraulics and putting as much as 500 pounds of batteries in the trunk to power the pumps.

Even if I don’t get that dream car for awhile (2 college educations to pay for still), I want to use that skill for repairs and for some personal art. I started doing stained glass in high school  and wanted another more permanent, industrial, creative outlet.

Another reason for wanting to do this is fear. I had an accident in Catholic grade school that has caused me to have a fear of high voltage electric.  We had no showers in the school so we would wear our gym clothes under our uniforms on gym day. We would have gym and then put our uniforms back on over the sweaty clothes. Good thing we didn’t really care about girls back then. For game nights, we at least go to change in and out of game uniforms in the locker room.

As members of the basketball team at St. Francis, we had volunteered to clean up and repaint the lockers in the boys locker room in the basement. One of the dads had brought in or rented a big electric grinder to get the rust off the lockers before painting. Being an old building, the outlets were not properly grounded (you can see where this is going). Not knowing any better, I was using the grinder to remove the rust without the protection of any gloves. I had used the grinder for a few minutes before stopping to brush the dust off the locker with my bear hand. Grinder housing – metal. Locker – metal. All that was needed was my hands to complete the circuit. Luckily I was not leaning forward when I touched the locker, but rather had a bend in my knee so when I did get the shock, it only lasted a few seconds before I fell back and broke the circuit. No one noticed me until the grinder hit the ground and I muttered something (I am sure I did not swear as I was a good Catholic boy).

Ever since then I have not liked to perform any electrical work because I had not  know the proper preventative measures to take to be safe at that age. I know they stress safety in this welding class so I intend to use this opportunity to learn all that I can about the proper precautions that will get me comfortable with the technology. We will be learning not just electric based but also gas based techniques as there are advantages to each and situations where one is better to use than another.

I am looking forward to the next 16 weeks at the College of Dreams (that is the nick name  for College of DuPage), and who knows, if the economy tanks and the zombies attack, I will have a useful skill to use in the wasteland.