In Celebration of Women’s History Month (which ends today) I have, for your belated enjoyment, two articles from the Rosie the Riveter World War II / Home Front National Historical Park website.  The Rosie the Riveter Trust has been compiling oral histories from those who were true to life Rosies back in the day.  Here are contributions from two old-time welders – your great-grandmothers of the trade.

An excerpt from “Wartime Memories” by Katie Grant

“I worked the graveyard shift 12:00-8:00 a.m., in the shipyard. I took classes on how to weld. I had leather gloves, leather pants, big hood, goggles and a leather jacket. They said you weld like you crochet.

“Well, I did not know how to do that, but I could sew and make a neat stitch. We held the welding rod with one hand and the torch fire in the right hand. Placed the rod in a seam and melted it down in a small bead seam and brushed it off with a steel brush.

“They put me forty feet down in the bottom of the ship to be a tacker. I filled the long seams of the cracks in the ship corners full of hot lead and then brushed them good and you could see how pretty it was. The welders would come along and weld it so it would take the strong waves and deep water and heavy weight. I liked it pretty good.

I don’t remember how much I got paid for working. Lots of people came to Richmond to work in the shipyards. Lots of women went to work to help with the war. I told Melvin later that I helped to make a ship for him to come home in.”

CONTINUE READING ONLINE ->

The following woman’s entry has to be my favorite.  Why?  We share the same names.  Her first and last our my first and middle.  Perhaps we are somehow related?

A Wartime Poem and a Recipe

This poem by Irene Carlisle was published in the Saturday Evening Post on February 3, 1945

Welder
by Irene Carlisle

Slowly upon the ways the gray ships rise,
The hammers ring on forepeak, hold and keel.
Under our gloved hands and hooded eyes
The blue arc stitches up the patterned steel.

Over the hulls, between the clanging cranes,
We climb and kneel and seam the ships together,
Women are always sewing for their men,
It tides the heart through many a bitter weather.

The chattering rivets button up the shell,
The waiting bay is laced with windy foam,
The molten stitches glow beneath my hand,
This is the ship on which he may come home.

Irene Carlisle was a welder at Moore Shipyard in Oakland, California while her husband was in the navy during the war. She is now living in El Cerrito, California. This poem seems so appropriate for recognizing the contribution of the thousands of women who build the ships and planes.

CONTINUE READING ONLINE ->

The Texas Custom Choppers are building this bike as a fundraiser to offset the cost of treatment for a local breast cancer patient.

When a disease like breast cancer affects people close to you, awareness of the tremendous personal expense becomes apparent.

Our hope at Texas Custom Choppers is that we will be able to partner with other local businesses to build this motorcycle at a minimal cost so that the maximum benefit can be passed to the recipient.

CONTINUE READING AT THE TEXAS CUSTOM CHOPPER WEBSITE–>
 

Be sure to pass along this info to anyone you know who could help out, and let us know if you’re doing anything to give back to the community….

I hate to admit it but I don’t know how to weld. Sure, I know a lot about welding, the various processes, the equipment you need–  especially the high performance TIG welding accessories at Arc-Zone.com.  I even know a bit about plasma arc welding and cutting. But ’til now it’s all been book learnin’ and talking to a lot of knowledgeable people.

Finally I got a short one-on-one lesson in TIG Welding from Arc-Zone’s own Joe Welder (aka my boss, Jim Watson).  Wow. What an eye opener that was! 

 And fun.

First off, let me assure you, that contrary to popular belief, Welding is NOT for dummies.  You have to keep a lot of things in mind. And if you want to be any good, you’ll have to understand about electricity, metallurgy, a little geometry, joint fit up, and then there’s the hand-eye coordination that takes practice. And more practice.

Safety First.

Even though with TIG welding you don’t see sparks flying, you still need eye protection. We did not have one of the super slick fancy electronic welding helmets in stock so I had to go old skool and flip my lid up and down.  

At least the helmet looked good– the orange flames matched my long-sleeved  cotton t-shirt perfectly.

And check out these gloves. They’re the Firefly TIG Gloves made for women who weld, which means the sizing is smaller.  I was suprised at how well I could maneuver the TIG Torch and the filler rod.

Here’s Jim showing me the proper way to hold the TIG torch.  It’s heavier than it looks,  and this was a WP-20 water cooled TIG torch.  Though the torch body  itself only weighs 3 oz. you’ve got to take into consideration the weight of the cables and hoses which makes it a little awkward and it feels heavier than it really is.  Because this is delicate work, you’re using all those tiny muscles in your hand, wrist and forearm.  Of course I’m a bit of a wimp, I’ll admit it.

I let Jim set up the machine.  This is a basic Miller Machine upgraded with a Cool Kit so we can use the water cooled TIG Torch.  

First he opened up the Argon bottle-  slowly so as not to “shock” the flow meter.  

Next he plugged in the water cooler. It was a little noisy, but not too bad.  Kinda comforting to hear the hum and gurgle since the welding machine itself was so quiet.

Then he checked that the work cable was grounded to the work bench…  

Jim got me a coupon to practice on, 308L Stainless Steel, and some 1/16″ diameter  308L Stainless steel rod.  We cleaned the material with EZ Wipes to make sure there was nothing to contaminate the weld and mess it up (I figured I could do that all by myself without any help from dirt).  

Jim turned the machine to Electrode negative 150 amps, and I was ready to roll!

NEXT POST:  See the results…..

Finally, one guy has the guts to tell us what we’ve all known all along.  Women can weld!  Quelle suprise!

Think females can’t weld? Think again

By Marty Rice, Contributing Writer

March 10, 2009

During World War II, many females filled work force roles in traditionally male occupations. After the war, most left these jobs, but that doesn’t mean women are any less able to fill them. Experience has taught welding instructor Marty Rice that females make danged good welders.

“Girls can’t weld!” That’s what one of my students nicknamed “Bucky” said many years ago as a lone female walked into my all-male welding shop. Seventeen guys and one gal, I can only imagine how she felt walking into that class.

I had just completed a teaching internship at a trade school and had taught a female student who had done well and was hired for a really good job when she graduated. I also had worked with a couple of women who were danged good in the field. One of them was in my Iron Workers Local, and she could weld and work iron with the best of ‘em. She’d walk the high steel in a flash (no arc welding pun intended), carrying leads and tools as if it were no big deal. So I knew girls could weld, and much to his surprise, Bucky soon found his female classmate could weld better than he could!

CONTINUE READING ONLINE ->

Of course we here at CarmenElectrode.com have been showcasing women welders for a year now. Be sure to let us know if you or someone you know would like to be profiled as one of the New Rosies

This is your language lesson for the day.  Today, Carmen Electrode goes INTERNATIONAL.

Our first stop is la belle France, where welding is called la soudure or le soudage.

My favorite French welding website www.soudeur.com (translated as “welder”) has a forum nearly impossible to navigate unless one knows the language.  Luckily the French also use the same names for MIG, TIG, plasma, and laser welding, so at least there’s one thing there that’s familiar.

Second, we have Spain or España.

There, welding is known as la soldadura and a welder is un/a soldador/a.  (I expect in French that means that a female welder would be called une soudeure).

My chosen welding forum in Spanish has to be http://www.ondacuadrada.es/ which is translated as “square wave”.  They too use the same acronyms/names for different types of welding that we do.  Globalization much?

If you or anyone you know has some interesting recommendations for welding sites in other languages, let us know!  We are always striving to be more globally focused.

And if you can teach us how to say “welding” in say, Chinese, or Arabic, we’d be highly appreciative.

It’s common practice to say that someone or something is “on fire” when they’re doing really well.  Well, we found a group that is on fire not only in the figurative but the literal sense as well.  They are the Flaming Lotus Girls (FLG)and they make sculptures that are, well, on fire.

PHOTO Angel of the Apocalypse By: Caroline Miller

These sculptures are made from any combination of: “steel, stainless steel, copper, glass, wood, light, and fire“.  Their works have been exhibited in a variety of shows across several different continents.  Anyone is welcome to join in the fabrication process if they are able and willing to participate in the group’s Wednesday night meetings at the Box Shop in San Fransisco.  To see more of the FLGs’ works, go to the gallery link on their website.

The Flaming Lotus Girls regularly exhibit their sculptures at the Burning Man annual event in Black Rock City, Nevada.  For more information, you can visit the Burning Man website.

My personal favorite of the Flaming Lotus Girls’ projects has to be this one below.  I have no idea how they did it, but the caption on their website reads “Mutopia gas bomb explosions“.

PHOTO Pyrotechnics by Black Rock FX By: Jason Chin

Got an interesting inquiry through my Facebook page (how many of you are on Facebook?  if you are as crazy addicted as I am, go ahead and Friend Me!)

Anyway, a young Canadian Welder named Jen writes:

I’m a welder as well and would love to talk to other female welders , I’m interested in knowing why women have such a hard time getting work in the trades and also to know how women feel working on job sites and if they feel as thou they are sex objects.

Took me awhile to compose an answer.  It’s always hard for me to admit that I myself do not weld.  While my job at Arc-Zone.com (in sales and marketing) does not require me to weld, I do need to understand the industry, the products and listen to the concerns of people in the industry.  And let me tell you, fabricators are an interesting group of people (more on that later).

Also, I’m not sure I agree with her. Maybe I’m a bit of a pollyanna, or maybe I’m naive (you can tell me what you think). And so, here is my reply:

First off, I myself am not a welder..   I write about welders for my job and have taken a special interest in women welders, as I am a woman.

I’m not sure I agree with you regarding women having a  hard time getting work in the trades.  I do believe that it may be perception more than reality and the effects of culture.  What I mean by that is that we women do not grow up around the trades (for the most part) so it is not part of our cultural lexicon–  we don’t necessarily understand HOW to start out and because we are women people don’t think to educate us in that arena. Does that make sense?

As far as feeling like a sex object. I’ve interviewed several woman that simply won’t tolerate that and if they can’t squash it themselves, and management is unresponsive, they leave and get a different job.
Check out some of the interviews I’ve done with women welders–>

And along the lines of that same topic, read Weld/Blog Like a Girl–>

and

TIPS for women in the Welding Industry–>

So what’s your take? Am I naive?  A polyanna?   What advice would you offer Jen in Canada?