Welding 101

I had been making wooden furniture for a couple of years and had made a wide variety of pieces. There is one particular style which I had always liked, that being wrought iron work. I love the combination of black steel and heavy wood, especially in furniture. Adding metalwork to my skillset would be of great advantage and enable me to create truly unique furniture.
Welding had always appealed to me but I didn’t have access to the necessary equipment to try it out and buying a machine and accompanying tools without knowing if I could actually do it was not an option. One day I was invited to help a buddy out at his guesthouse. He was having a barbeque made from an old oil drum and needed a little help. He had employed a local guy who had borrowed a welding machine for the day and as I watched him work I thought to myself that it didn’t look to hard.
A couple of months later, after two big contracts, I had saved enough money and went to town on the hunt for my own equipment. As luck would have it I came across the perfect machine, at the right price. I was even able to buy a couple of sets of welder’s grips and a mask. Happy with my purchases I headed home eager to get to work.
I wired up the requisite 220V power supply and gathered some bits of steel that were kicking around the workshop placing them on a workbench I switched on the machine, place the mask on my head and stopped.
For those unfamiliar with the process of welding one needs to position the tip of the electrode close to the workpiece then, using your other hand, drop the mask over your face and begin welding. Here I encountered a problem. I had seen people simply nod their head to drop the mask but each time I tried this, my hand would move and I couldn’t see through the black glass to reposition the electrode. I tried and tried for the whole afternoon but without success. I remained positive, convinced that I would find a solution but by the end of the second day I still had not welded a single inch.
As I often do when confronted with practical problems I closed up the workshop and headed down to the beach to chill out and relax with friends. I think about everything but the problem at hand thus giving my subconscious the chance to work its magic. Sure enough the following morning it occurred to me that I should dismantle the mask and fabricate a kind of prosthetic to hold the lens. I searched around the house and workshop gathering bits and pieces which might serve.
I cut the bottom off a plastic mineral water bottle and attached some string to it which I then passed behind my neck and around my right shoulder thus holding the bottle onto my stumpy. Into the neck of the bottle I twisted a short section of broom handle attached to which was another piece of wood with a groove cut into it to hold the lens. I could position the electrode the move the lens in front of my eyes and begin to weld.

Aside from getting a rather amusing suntan on my face with a rectangle of white skin where my eyes are, I managed to get a fair bit of welding done that day. Over the weeks that followed there were other challenges to overcome but they were no different to those faced by any other apprentice welder so I won’t bore you with the details. I now possess a mask which darkens automatically as soon as a spark appears, a fantastic invention which makes the job so very much easier. Still, it was fun figuring it out the hard way.

The first piece

Then a trailer for outboard motors, just to up the ante