It is worth learning to weld, if only for the fun of welding. It is a very pleasurable activity. There are many choices for welding machines, my choice was an old 3 phase tig welder. I would recommend buying a used, good brand welding machine, as you would get a better "bang for the buck". Welding makes many things much easier.
Which reminds me of a flight I had over 25 years ago on a DC-3, from Yellowknife, NWT to Plummer's Lodge, a camp 90 miles away on Great Slave Lake.
It was a dark and stormy day...the pilot, lean, silver-haired, and holding his cigarette from below, between thumb and forefinger, standing on the tarmac, looked into the sky, consulted with his copilot, and announced, "Vee vill go now." I swear I could see the outlines of his Luftwaffe insignia where they had been torn from his leather jacket...
Anyway, the full story includes a Native American stewardess who didn't wash but who was drenched in perfume, a 14-foot aluminum boat lashed to the floor where the left-side seats would normally go, the smell of gasoline emanating from the outboard motor attached to the boat, two teenage boys vomiting in the seats ahead of us, and a two-hour trip through storms and fog to go 90 miles...but I digress. The image you reminded me of was this: as soon as the wheels left the ground, both the pilot and the copilot lit up and the cockpit disappeared in a cloud of smoke...the door to the cabin was open and we nearly lost sight of the pilot.
Which was OK, because he couldn't see anything anyway. We circled over the gravel strip at Plummer's for over an hour, waiting for a break in the clouds, upon seeing which the pilot put the nose of the DC-3 'way down, farther than I thought a DC-3's nose could go, and dove through the hole in the clouds; he probably had been a Stuka pilot.
So your mention of smoking and flying evokes a memory of flying through a subarctic storm accompanied by the smells of gasoline, vomit, body odor, perfume and cigarette smoke. They say that olfactory memories are the most persistent because they evoke the most primitive parts of our brain. That was certainly the case.
It was so bizarre (and 100% true, unlike many of my flights of fancy here) that my uncle (with whom I was travelling to Plummer's) couldn't stop chuckling through the whole trip. It was like a cartoon. Fortunately he and I have very strong stomachs.
Next time I'll tell you about the bear that wouldn't let us have our luggage. Another true story from the subarctic, but from a different trip.
Boy, that's the truth. I have similiar memories of a time in India that are like lucid dreams, apparently nearly completely independent of the framework of normal memory, occasionally triggered by some scent or other.
Molecules of wood smoke, sandalwood and organic decay somehow turned these otherwise meaningless mental records into solid islands in what I suspect is a sea of shifting recollection. I imagine that if I live long enough to wear out the old brain I'll end up on one of these islands.
Heh,heh, and you'll be up there flying around with your Stuka pilot in a DC-3!
I had the same issue as you have. I never learned to weld, until someone gave me two old mixing handles and a cutting attachment. I then decided I was going to learn to weld.
I had the handles re-built (not a good economic decision). I started buying one piece at a time (also not a good economic decision).
By this time my wife understood I was serious. Her father (a farmer) wouldn't let the kids near him while he was welding and chased them away with "It's dangerous" - "you could get injured" - You could be blinded by the light" - etc. So she was a little panicked by my decision. "You'll go blind!!!" she said. I tried to explain that was something entirely different.
Some one was going to give me a set of full size tanks but my wife raised such a fuss I turned them down. "You'll blow yourself up and half of the house" was her rationale. I don't have a workroom and I was concerned about where to store full sized tanks.
I bought a set of B size tanks ( a good economic decision) and he threw in the regulators (one broke after an hour), the hoses (I didn't need to check without someone that when hose are flaking rubber it's time to throw them away) and a mixing handle and cutting attachment. Now I have three handles and two cutting attachments and I don't even know how to weld.
I asked a question about welding in one of the blogs (I can't remember if it was this one) and they all gave me grief about wanting to teach myself welding. You'll blow yourself up" - "You'll burn down your house" - "You'll go blind". (Am I missing something about welding?).
They talked me into taking a class at the community college - but the classes were full for spring so it won't be until next fall. I had looked before and couldn't find any convenient classes. The recommendation on the blog was to look for Sculpture welding - which is more for hobbyists instead of professional welding and the times are better - they are not listed with the welding classes at our community college so I didn't see them - nice advice from the blog.
So I am teaching myself, but will take a class unless:
I blow myself up.
I burn down the house.
I go blind.
So go for it - it's not as easy as it looks. My first project (not finished as I just started right before Thanksgiving) was similar to yours. Welds on the surface of the metal look like welds through the metal - but the surface welds don't work well. When I showed off my newly welded table to my wife and gave it a bang with my hand ALL of the welds fell apart and it collapsed in a heap. I can still here the muttering comments "He's going to go blind." as she shook her head and gave me an "are you crazy" look.
More things have been welded for beer, or people have been taught to weld using beer as an enticement. It's amazing what you can get/get done in the welding world with beer.
A memorable smell can bring on a real case of deja vu, with the same emotional reactions and everything. For example, the smell of burning flesh -- which evokes memories of MY burning flesh. I almost panic just when I smell it. It's almost like being back in that fire, even though I had no permanent damage from the event.
I once spent 14 hours at the end of a snowshoe trip waiting in a snowstorm by the tracks of the North Shore and Labrador Railroad for the twice-weekly passenger train. When it finally did arrive, long after dark, it didn't even slow, and disappeared around a bend leaving my friends and I standing there mentally tallying up the food in our packs.
About 15 minutes later it came backing around the bend and picked us up. Turns out the engineer was a substitute from the ore train who was used to taking a few miles to stop, and the conductor, who keeps track of who's been dropped off in remote locations on previous runs, had forgotten to tell him to watch out for us.
Then there was the snowshoe trip in central Quebec when I got an abscessed tooth 12 miles from the road and 200 miles from the nearest town...
Then there was the trip to near Lund, Nevada, when I got an attack of kidney stones. A $972 ambulance ride to Ely ( about 70 miles away ) for a couple of smacks of morphine.
A memorable trip.
Nothing like the cold cold cold air on abscessed tooth, eh. Except, maybe kidney stones. When you mention kidney stones in a room, everyone who has had the experience winces and says wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo like they just smelled a rotten fart. It's an elite club.
Before my "episode", I thought when you got in that much pain, you just passed out.
Doesn't happen.
You think you are going to die, and you are afraid that you won't.
Indescribable.
I had a five way bypass and aortic valve replacement. I would do it all again in a heartbeat rather than go through three or four days of kidney stones.
Oh, jeez, that must have been horrible. I got lucky. I only went through a day and a half with the serious pain.
The only thing that compared with it was severe food poisoning (probably s. aureus, but never diagnosed). I really wanted to die with that one. Really.
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.