Welding 101

[andygates]

My present to myself this year is an introductory welding course.  Two lessons in and I'm pleased to report that the hand that carves a foam sword is steady enough to lay down a nice consistent weld too; I seem to have an aptitude for it, which is nice.  We start on funny stuff like verticals and curves and thinner metal after the holiday break.  Things wot I have learned so far:

• Welding is like climbing in that it is disruptive.  You know how after you've been climbing, you can't walk down a street without looking at the buildings a little differently, planning a route up the Cathedral and across Primark?  Like that.  It's a new superpower.
  
• It's like wheelbuilding too - changing the game when it comes to bike fettlin'.  A whole extra bag of tinkering opportunities are opening up and verily doth this rock.
• A slow steady tune in your head helps with a slow steady weld.  The Blue Danube is better than anything Trent has done. 
• Gloves are good.  The nice purple burn on one hand and swollen UV sunburn on the other are a handy reminder here. 
  
• The arc tearing up the surface impurities as it melts the joint metal is really, really pretty in a furious, destructive, power-of-physics wild magic Tesla plasma apocalypse kinda way.  But don't stop to gawp or you'll melt right through your piece.

I'm going to make such horrible, twisted funnybikes now. 

Comments

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, yes. If you can weld, you must weld. And there's an awful lot of junk out there that's weldable.

And there's a whole other raft of new fun when you get to plasma or flame cutting. If MIG is glue, plasma is scissors.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Gas-axe sabotage here I come! >:)

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

It's not just the sabotage, though, it's the opportunities for freehand fabrication of randomness. Stuff like this:
http://jarkman.co.uk/catalog/furnitur/kitty.htm
or this:
http://jarkman.co.uk/catalog/furnitur/cylpod.htm
becomes suddenly very, very easy.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Hello Kitty strikes again! Someone better stop me before I start making things.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

Hah. You wish. You'll be lying in bed at night, trying to get to sleep, and things will float across the surface of your brain demanding to be made.

That is your fate.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Oh, that happens already, and it's at least part of why I never seem to finish anything. I'm just adding welding to the list of options (which, to be sure, has created mad-project-plan sprawl inside my poor tortured skull).