Page 16 - Hobart Institute Fall 2019 World of Welding

Oh to Weld

The Satisfactions of Teaching a Trade
By: Mario Meier

As a boy, I admired my Uncle Danni’s ability to weld. Something welder and he trusted me. In his gentle way, he was teaching me
about permanently bonding two pieces of metal together intrigued so much more: about work ethic, manhood, and life. Now I was
me: the crackle and blue intensity of the electric arc that he forbade not just welding plates for the practice. Every joint I welded on
me to look at. It was the late 1970s during what was then called a water jacket or heat exchanger pipe had to survive hydraulic
“the fuel crisis,” and my uncle was designing and building wood pressure testing. Uncle Danni was testing my mettle and I loved the
furnaces to heat the homes in the community in upstate New York challenge.
where he lived. He was a self-taught master, adept at fabricating After high school, I took a year of machining technology at a
his own hinges and cam lock latches. Watching him, I knew I community college north of Pittsburgh. Eventually, I started working
wanted to weld. for Rifton Equipment, a business that manufactures therapeutic
In my high school sophomore year, I signed up for a vocational equipment for people with disabilities. I became a welding
welding course. My instructor had years of experience in the instructor in the company. Even after I moved on to other jobs,
Steel City industries, along with chilling tales of the dangers married, and raised a family of four, I kept using my welding skills to
of metalworking. We learned all the types of welding and we create and fabricate and as a hobby.
practiced in all positions. A welder has to conquer gravity to make Two years ago, I came full circle: I find myself teaching high school
liquefied steel stay exactly where he wants it – there lies the students in the new vocational welding program at the Mount
challenge. When I mastered a specific joint and earned my teacher’s Academy, in Esopus, New York. A hundred-year-old red brick garage
approval of technique and form I felt proud. A weld is your very has been renovated into a beautiful welding facility. This past
own signature. When Keats wrote that “a thing of beauty is a joy August I took the Hobart Institute’s Preparation for AWS® CWI®
forever,” he wasn’t thinking of a perfect weld, but he could have Examination two week training to hone my skills.
been.
Now it is my chance to pass on the welding trade. Every student
The next summer my uncle invited me to New York and together that enters the course comes with mixed abilities but eager to
we fabricated and welded a large wood boiler. I had become a master this skill I had learned long ago. Practice makes perfect.
Mastering a 3G vertical weld and having it survive the root, face
bend tests is the equivalent of a high jumper clearing a 6 ft. bar, and
the pride of achievement comes with it.

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