It’s not every day that you get a chance to learn how to fuse steel! Before we started, most of us had not worked anything other than wood or plastic. By the end, we were on our way to harnessing our new found super power.
We spent a few hours to go over safety, procedures, techniques, and practice. We covered only the MIG (Metal Inert Gas) style welding, which is the easiest, and a great place for beginners to start.
At the start, we cut some scrap metal into smaller pieces for working.
Yes, this tool requires training. The biggest dangers are hot material and light exposure. Others include electricity, compressed gas, and inert gas.
We are shown the technique on how to stabilize, position, and move the gun. Here are some close-ups of a practice run and in action.
Quickly tacking 2 pieces together with a pea sized weld prior to re-positioning the piece to complete the weld.
Students peeking around a welding screen to receive more instructions.
Student welding.
Checking out the result:
Hmmm, needs some practice to get rid of the “cold roll” profile. This seemed to be the biggest problem we were having. Getting the technique right to lay down just enough metal and heat up enough area so that it fuses is tricky. In fact, it usually takes weeks of practice to learn this for just one material in one position (steel and horizontal in the basic case).
While this crash course didn’t make us experts (of course it was never intended to), we now have a sense of what can and can’t be done. After some more practice, we’ll be able to do simple non-critical welds to steel fairly proficiently. It takes years of practice to master the techniques to do vertical, overhead, or structural strength welds; as well as materials such as tungsten and aluminum. Best go to a pro for this stuff. For adept amateurs, making sculptures and simple mechanisms from basic steel is well within reach.
Thanks to Stephen for teaching and Neil for organizing the event!