Day 71 of 365

Metal on metal action

On day 71 I wanted to do something that wasn't terribly physical. My tree chopping adventure on day 70 was exhausting. Today I needed to use more brain and less braun.

What did I choose?

Welding

You might be surprised that a person who enjoys blacksmithing as a hobby has never used a welder. I've had tons of opportunities since we own a MIG welder but I have just never tried it. Now that my metal magician is home from his travels we are back in our happy work space.

My instruction started with a few explanations about materials and types of welds. Since I'm not the most patient person I just wanted to spark things up and melt some metal. That's why my kid and I work so well together, when I want to go wild he reels me in and I do the same when he's excited for a new experience.

Once I slowed down, and listened to his instruction, sparks were flying and I was melting metal in horribly disfigured ways. My lines were bumpy and nothing was actually sticking together. That's the learning process. We stacked up more scrap and I started again.

My teacher was very patient and I wanted to get it right. We spent the next few hours working and decided to attempt to build a project. I've been thinking about this since I made that cheesecake on day 8. That's when my tripod fell over and dumped my phone/camera into the chocolate batter. It was messy and since that mishap I've wanted to counter weight the tripod with a solid base. That's what we made today.

We cleaned up a few pieces of scrap metal on the grinder and I set a tack weld to hold them as I moved around the edges. As I worked each of the four sides my welds improved and by the last one I was very happy. I'm not going to become a welder but I might be able to put some unique accents on future blacksmithing projects.

Sparks are flying on day 71.

Love & Light