Welding when you’re not 40 anymore…

Kern Dog said
This past month I started a welding class with another FABO member. This week we did some stick welding, a type that in my opinion, is obsolete for what kind of stuff that I do. I took the class to improve my MIG skills but this class is geared to exposing students to all the common welding techniques. SMAW, GMAW and even TIG. My skills at stick/arc welding are not good but improving. It was so frustrating , I would have quit but I heard that next week (week six of eight) we focus on MIG!

I'm taking the class along with Greg. I've never welded before and I wanted to learn so community college seemed like one of the better choices. Monday we started stick welding with 7018 and 6010, and I was probably more frustrated than Greg. Just about every time I struck up the electrode it would stick to the material. Today went much better, and even though my welds suck, I was at least able to run a bead across the seam. The 6010 is much more unforgiving than the 7018.

Kern Dog said
The first four weeks were spent learning terminology, symbols, techniques and fabrication. They had us build mini-Hibachi grilles….

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They had “plans” we had to follow to cut and shape the sheet metal. The designs of the bases were up to each student to come up with.

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Looks a lot better than mine.

Kern Dog said
I’ve found that even still with strong glasses, I often need more light than I did before. The booths at the college have a fluorescent lamp behind the work that barely lights up the stuff you’re working on. I struggled with the work today….

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We all struggled with the stick welding but for me, welding blind sure made it a pisser. The younger guys didn’t have a problem with the lighting.

Yeah, I'm 64 and lighting is an issue. I set the hood's light sensitivity to the lowest setting and also lowered the shading two levels. Greg and I are surrounded my millennials, half of them smell like a cannabis factory. But they can see better than we can.

Kern Dog said
I stopped at the local welding supply to see about a welding hood mounted light. They had nothing. At home, I made this:

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It is fairly simple. Back when I was still working in construction, we often started work before sunrise and needed light to see and work. We al started wearing those LED lights attached to an elastic band with power supplied by rechargeable batteries. I just cut the bands off and screwed it to the hood…

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I like the idea. I just wonder about the extra weight sitting on top of the hood.