Dave Williams wrote:
>
> -> if I
> -> could only learn how to weld. I've read and read and read but
> -> nothing sticks
> -> in my head....
>
> Step 1) turn on welder
> Step 2) play with lightning
>
> or
>
> Step 1) light torch
> Step 2) play with fire
I'm going to jump in here, even though this thread has evolved from
finding a place to learn about welding to about learning to weld by any
means.
Here are some simple truisms, and while they shouldn't be taken as
absolute gospel, they still might apply here and there:
If you don't think you're good with your hands, don't have a trade
school education, didn't grow up on a farm, etc., find an evening trade
school course on welding, and then listen. Don't resist. Just listen. If
someone grabs your hand in the middle of a weld and says, "hold your
hand at this angle and go at this speed," do it. Don't be a know-it-all,
because the chances are, you don't know at all.
If you've spent your life building things, but can't read a book to save
your life, chances are you can't weld worth a shit, either, and ought to
go to the same class as the guy above, and listen, too, and study the
textbook. Especially if the things you make break, even though you think
they never will, but still do.
Truth is, books and practical experience go hand in hand, so to speak.
What one doesn't learn from hands-on experience is probably in a book,
somewhere. Sometimes, the book doesn't do a bit of good, because the
reader doesn't have the tools and materials for the text to be of
benefit. But, put the two together, and an ordinary sensible guy can
make sense of the two parts of the discipline.
Books teach metallurgy and the effects of oxygen and heat, and someone
close by, guiding one's hand through words or direct influence, teaches
the book stuff in practical ways. The true genius, the real craftsman,
combines both of those methods of learning, and always pays attention to
them both, because books, in total, are the accumulated wisdom of the
ages.
I can't say I can do all that yet; I'm still learning, still working on
it. I had to teach myself gas welding thirty years ago, but after that,
the hand and eye coordination learned from that made it easy to learn
TIG with the help of a book or two and a little while with a TIG welder
of some experience. Now, after twenty years of off and on TIG welding, I
can do a rosette plug TIG weld on aircraft high-temp 556 Hastalloy that
would take an atomic bomb to break. Can I do a soft vertical stick weld
all the way around on a fixed cylindrical steam pipe? No, not yet. I
still need someone to teach me that trick. <smile>
Keep on learning, any way that you can. <smile> That's the point, and
that's how such skills are preserved in an age of diminishing public
school interest in the trades. If you keep on learning, twenty or thirty
years from now, someone is going to say to you, "uh, could you come down
to the school and give a demonstration on welding?" <smile> And maybe
some kid is going to go ga-ga, and will want to learn, too. That's the
only way skills survive without public money and influence. Now, can
anyone help with a Scientific American article from the middle `80s on
the history of making Damascus steel? <g>
Cheers, all.
--
Michael D. Porter
Roswell, NM
[mailto: mporter@zianet.com]
`70 GT6+ (being refurbished, slowly)
`71 GT6 Mk. III (organ donor)
`72 GT6 Mk. III (daily driver)
`64 TR4 (awaiting intensive care)
`80 TR7 (3.8 liter Buick-powered)
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