A couple of months ago a leaflet/flyer came through my door inviting people to free maths courses for adults. I wasn't interested in that but I thought I would check out the website. Once there I happened upon a free "Introduction to Welding" course*. Having acquired an old car early in the year I can envision that welding will need to be done at some point and that's costly stuff, therefore such a course might lead me in the right direction to do this work myself.

There were a few instalments of the course, two 4-week evening courses of 2 hours each, and then the final, being the last before Christmas, was a 3-week course of 2.5 hours each. I got onto the latter. However, and this is where I went yesterday, after half an hour of moving our cars (because they wanted us to park in the staff carpark so they could close the student carpark for the evening), and the obligatory form-filling, we went through to the fabrication hall and received instructions for an hour, shown the tools and equipment and small welding booths. That was it really, not a full 2+ hours.

*The instructor mentioned that this and other courses hadn't been well publicised as the leaflet only mentioned the maths, and I concurred. Ultimately I got the impression he just turned up to teach the course (and that's what he got paid for) and expected others to get all the planning, publicising, and communication done - besides the booking confirmation there was no other information sent, such as "where to go on the day", and I only received a reminder the day before, and that had landed in my spam folder.

Anyway, I always think of issues after the event but I'd had a chat with a friend prior to the course and they were under the impression that I might get into teaching, but I explained that I only ever consider 1-2-1 assistance when asked, partly because teaching a group appears to need more planning (or at least that is my impression, but the evidence often shows this is the lacking part), but that I should observe the process when I am at this course. Alas, I think yesterday's introduction could have benefited from some more of that planning and the consideration that there were 2.5 hours to fill and not just 2 because while it might have been enough for those other courses to only do an introduction on day 1 we ended up being sent home an hour early. I'd planned my afternoon/evening around this and it had cost me an hour's driving in the rain (my car had been under its cover for three weeks), so in hindsight it didn't feel like the best deal. Next week will be hands-on though.

I've had mixed experiences over the years with college courses; one where I went on a 6-month part-time course where, by the end, it turned out I had been given the wrong coursework to do for the certificate I was aiming for. Another one was actually an "Introduction to Webdesign" but the course tutor was like me and hadn't "moved with the times" and was presenting out-dated methods... exactly what I went there to get away from! Besides the Memrise language courses I do online in my own time, and make pitiful progress in, since my actual college years I will no longer subject myself to full-time courses as I lose momentum once the novelty has worn off.

Here on this welding course, I'm not aiming for a qualification, although some form of attendance certificate might be nice and useful at the end; I'd just like a run-down on how to weld, since watching people do this on Youtube seems to miss the initial considerations. Even our instructor seemed to make a few assumptions, like, do we even know what welding is?

The instructor did say we could bring in things from home that we might want to weld, and I'd actually planned for this; I had a broken exhaust mount in my bag that I'd replaced recently that cost me £25...

Actually, if I could source the correct sized bolt
I could manufacture a couple of these in class and list them on ebay...

Also, my woodburning stove has an issue and I spent some time yesterday trying to remove the part to take with me - sadly I think that's too damaged however and I failed to ask about welding cast iron.

Two of those three mounting points are broken off, but they have mostly disintegrated. I suppose three new holes could be drilled, but also how those bolts are attached inside the stove may not be easily accessible... I had to use my recently-acquired impact driver to remove them... and ended up with a broken bit.

I thought after though, when he invited us to bring something to weld... I could just pull up at the workshop with my car... "You can't park that here.." ... "But you said we could bring something to weld..."! I think "anything that will fit in the welding booth" was what he meant!