Crash Course in Welding

Never in a million years would I have thought I would write a post on welding, but here goes…

Any welding we need to have done, we bring to Mike McCarron who owns Maritime Directional Drilling. He is excellent, and only a few kms down the road from us. His company provides directional drilling, really fascinating. No doubt we will continue to bring him any big projects but we Jim thought for the smaller welding jobs we could do it here ourselves.

The plow that came with the skidsteer was originally very narrow. That meant the tracks would pack down the snow on either side of the path made from the plow. It made our driveway lumpy, bumpy. Jim decided to bring it to Mike, the welder, to add a wide section to either side of the plow blade, wider than the footprint of the tracks. Worked like a charm.

Now, we aren’t planning to make a career out of welding. We will leave that to Mike. But living in the country has taught us to be a little more self sufficient. And in this case, means learning how to weld.

Mike was going to come to our workshop, but there is too much sawdust in the workshop and it is kind of tight for space at the moment.

So we packed up our brand new equipment and headed out for a basic welding lesson.

Most people who want to learn just about anything probably watch YouTube videos. Been there, done that. Easier to learn from a pro who can answer your questions, give feedback, and give you some hands-on training.

When we got there, we took everything out of the box for inspection. Mike walked us through the steps of setting everything up. Lots of hoses, plug this in, plug that in.

Then it was time to actually weld. Yikes! First up was practising welding in a straight line. Easier said than done at first.

Mike demonstrated, Jim observed, I took pictures.  Mike was good at explaining things. I think it has a lot to do with practising and gaining some experience.

After an explanation and demonstration, it was time for Jim to give it a go.

Here is another picture of Jim putting his new found skills to the test.

Here is the result of practising straight lines on steel.

Next up was actually welding two pieces of steel together.

It’s not pretty but we aren’t going for pretty at this point.

Overall, Mike was really impressed with the machine Jim bought. And that was impressive considering this is his go-to welding machine.

I’ll leave you with this picture, thought it was kinda interesting.

Have a great weekend.

Later