Things are winding down here in the Garaggio for a while. I am about ready to start into an intense training program for a new company and new aircraft for work. I will be spending a lot of time away from home, studying, and learning which will severely limit my hobby time. While I’m hopin’ that I will have even a minimal amount of time in the workshop over the next two months, I did have some time today in the workshop.
Vic made a cameo appearance in the Garaggio to get some Tig welding instruction. Vic is a friend of mine, and a home brewmaster. He introduced me to brewing, and is pretty much solely responsible for adding brewing to my list of hobbies. He is designing a ‘brew sculpture’ to aid in the brewing experience and most importantly to increase production! To fabricate the sculpture we will need to weld some steel tube together. Since I will be out of commission for a few months, and the project is getting under way sooner than later, Vic needed a primer on the Garaggio steel working equipment.
I passed on to Vic what knowledge I could in the two hours I had available today. We basically went over prepping the workpieces for welding, cleaning off millscale and rust, the basics of the Tig torch, grinding electrodes, settings on the Tig machine, and other various minutia. I then left him to burn some metal and practice. There was some frustration at the results. Tig welding requires coordination of both hands and a foot as well as some intuition of the concept of “flowing heat,” heat affected zone, puddle control, etc. It is not an easy welding process, and requires practice. I am confident that Vic will get it, and I even think he will enjoy it once he is more familiar with it.
After a suitable level of frustration was reached, I sent Vic home and told him to watch some youtube videos on Tig welding thin wall tube. I made him promise he would visit the Garaggio in my absence and practice and that he would get started on the brew sculpture. Hopefully we can post some pictures of the progress.
I did have a little bit more time this afternoon between other tasks. So I was able to get stipplin’ and layup the bottom side of the elevator root fairings. It was a simple two ply BID fiberglass layup. One more simple layup on the top side and they will be well underway.
the Garaggio 