Ian has a great art teacher at school, and periodically he gets an assignment called “You’re the Artist.” He is given free reign to create anything he wants to in any medium, and lately, the medium of choice has been steel.
He really likes welding…and if I were 15, I’d totally be into welding…the magic of introducing huge amounts of heat into a very small area, almost vaporizing the metal on each side and introducing molten metal. It’s cool. It’s also tricky to get it right without burning through the thin piece or having a cool joint that doesn’t hold.
I think one of the reasons I work with my hands so much whenever possible is that I didn’t have the opportunity to do this growing up. My father had many talents, but he was not a “handy” person. Change a tire on the car, maybe replace the windshield wiper blades, that’s about it.
I want Ian to have opportunities to try things. Maybe he’ll end up doing nothing with his hands, but at least he can say “I weld.” The cool factor is extremely high.
Someday I think we’ll weld up a bicycle frame. Not like these, though.
The finished product.
Tell Ian that is phenomenal work and the welding part looks like a BLAST. That should count towards some kind of Scout challenge too.
If you were to visit, say, for my BIRTHDAY, you would get to weld too. 🙂