Welding

One of the things I've completely forgotten to mention up until now is that I'm currently in a Welding class. Specifically, I've been working on learning MIG, TIG and Arc Welding. The course is at the adult education wing of the Wellington High School which offers quite a few courses I'm interested in for approx. 150$ per course (8 weeks, 2 hours a week, that's less then 10$ an hour for a workshop with unlimited welding materials)

Why you might ask? Well, the basic reason was that I wanted to try something completely different from what I typically do; something that would take my mind off of the day to day and end up with a useful skill to have around for the crazy projects I typically end up doing.

I also wanted to see if it's something I could get more training on if I decided to give up my current career. Having a backup that's more or less always in demand isn't a bad idea. In the end though, the number of projects that I dream of that could use basic welding was the catalyst for the course.

Right off the bat, I'm going to be building a steel framed aluminum roof box for our car. something like a Thule box but done DIY. The instructor of my course actually works for a company that does steel tubed cargo protectors that go between the driver and the cargo in commercial vans. He's able to get tubing cheap and get it cut and bent for me. All that would be left to do for me is weld it together.

Further along, furniture might be a possibility. Making legs and frames for tables and bookshelves out of box steel would match much of our furniture.



Finally, I'd eventually like to get into restoring older japanese motorcycles. Honda CBs from the 60s and 70s preferrably. Part of that is customizing them to get the "cafe racer" look for them, as seen in this excellent example from www.cb750cafe.com:

That's the dream at least. We'll see how it goes in the end. So far the class has been going well. I've only burned myself significantly once, I'm starting to get the hang of MIG welding and I can join two steel tubes fairly reliably. All in all, it's another skill to add to my collection of excentric intrests :)