Getting My *Weld* On

I spent this past weekend taking a welding and metal cutting course at Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Warren, Vermont. It seems a bit like a school run by unrepentant back-to-the-land hippies--hey, that's not a knock, it was a pretty cool and fun experience. It's a bit of a haul (3-1/2 hours out of Boston), but the campus is lovely.


The course itself was well taught--two instructors, six students, and loads of hands on experience. This was the first time I have ever welded--I consider it embarrassing that at my age, I have not developed that skill set (a similar rationale to taking that wilderness first aid course). Also, there are plenty of projects I have done where just a quick amount of welding would have been really useful.

We did oxygas cutting--heat up the metal with an oxyacetylene torch, and then dump boatloads of pure oxygen on the cut, and the steel burns off (like fuel--highly exothermic), blasting out the molten metal. It's pretty wild... I've suffered through cutting 1/4" plate with all sorts of tools before (bandsaw, horizontal bandsaw, abrasive cutoff saw, angle grinder)--but cutting through that material with oxygas like it's barely there is a really odd (and wonderful) sensation.


We also did some metal bending--classic heat it and beat it stuff.

The main portion of the course was stick (SMAW) welding--it's electric arc welding with a flux-coated consumable electrode. For instance, when you see ironworkers welding steel, it's stick welding. It's pretty much classic welding--if you can do this right, you can pick up MIG (metal inert gas) no problem. It's a bit difficult to figure out at first, but by the end, I thought I was laying down a passable weld bead.



TIG (tungsten intert gas) welding was positively magical: an airbrush-shaped gun which, with a blinding light and a quiet hissing noise, melts away a 4 mm diameter puddle of steel. All that with a welder that plugs into a 110 V wall outlet!


One part of welding is that you need to wear those big masks--unfortunately, when you're working in a crowded shop, you end up getting "flashed" once in a while--somebody else is welding, and you get a blast of electric arc seared into your retina. My eyes were feeling a little bit achey after the weekend, but they're fine now.

The instructors were a pretty neat bunch. One swaggered in with his union ironworker Local 7 sweatshirt, looking a bit like Jesse James (from Monster Garage), complete with wallet chain, who spends nine months out of the year erecting wind turbine towers in Alaska. Who later revealed that he's a former architect who gave up on the profession because he was friggin' tired of drawing bathroom details. The other was a sculptor who needed to pay the bills, so he does architectural-detail-level welding for a shop in Vermont, with most of their installations in the Boston area. They were really great guys and excellent instructors.

Not a bad weekend cost-wise either: $415 for tuition ($300), plus lodging for two nights in their dormitory and their home-cooked local meals. And the communal meals were neat--lunch outside, and folks from various walks of life.


Yeah, I know you next question--"So what kind of a welder are you gonna buy now, Bats?" Well, I think I'll hold off for a while--honestly, I have plenty of hobbies involving expensive equipment that I have no time for already. But would like to find some arrangement to use a welder once in a while. And heck, if I find one for cheap on CraigsList, I might pick it up. But all of these newly found skills make me want to come up with some project to use them.

But overall, this experience at Yestermorrow was very positive--perhaps I'll take another short course in milling lumber ("from stump to sticker"), concrete countertops, or shop machine maintenance.

However, that course took all of the weekend, from driving up on Friday night to driving back on Sunday night. So I really need a break from my weekend... but let's hear it for a three-day week for Thanksgiving!