Welding and school spirit come together for the students of
Colorado’s Hayden School District.  Each of the schools are welding a mascot — and get this — they’re welding it for one of the other schools!

Hayden welding students design steel pieces depicting school mascots

By Jack Weinstein Sunday, January 31, 2010

Hayden — Kevin Kleckler, director of the Babson-Carpenter Career and Technical Education Center, hopes a project some of his welding students are working on will promote goodwill among the area school districts.

Hayden School District students participating in the welding program at the vocational education facility are designing and creating steel pieces, made from scrap metal, that depict the mascots of the Steamboat Springs, South Routt and Moffat County school districts.

Senior Oscar Rodriguez and junior Chris Zirkle completed Moffat County’s bulldog mascot last week. They had planned to donate the mascot to the school’s student leadership.

A student group in the welding class recently completed the Soroco ram. Another group is nearly finished with the Steamboat Springs sailor.

Rodriguez and Zirkle, having finished the bulldog, began a new project last week. On Tuesday morning, they were piecing together steel that eventually would depict the Denver Broncos logo.

When Rodriguez and Zirkle finish the Bronco in the next few weeks, it will be about 5 feet long and 3 feet tall. They’ll eventually present it to the Broncos through a contact Kleckler has with the team.

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Yes, we’re a little in posting this…. but a belated CONGRATS to Carissa!

What are you doing this Sunday? Planning on going to church?

How about Metal Church, with your favorite preacher, Jesse James?!?

It must be a dream come true for students at the Western Dakota Technical Institute.  I mean, since when do you get to custom build a motorcycle during class, and get credit for it?!?

WDTI students gear up for bike build

Barbara Soderlin Journal staff
Posted: Thursday, January 28, 2010 9:15 am

Western Dakota Technical Institute welding students will be able to add “custom motorcycle builder” to their resumes, thanks to a program announced Wednesday.

A bike, built by a team of WDTI students working under custom builder Michael Prugh of Prugh Design in Black Hawk, will be auctioned at the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally Legends Ride this summer.

“I don’t know bikes, but I’m hoping to learn,” said welding student Don Pyn, a custom hot rod enthusiast. “It’s along the line of what I want to get into when I’m done with school.”

Rod Woodruff, owner of the Buffalo Chip campground, which created the charity ride two years ago, announced the program in the technical college’s welding lab surrounded by welding students.

He said the partnership, called the 2k10 Challenge, would help develop a workforce skilled in motorcycle building, which would benefit the growing number of bike builders in the Black Hills.

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Clackamas Community College offers welding classes seven days a week.  Their most popular time slot?  The “graveyard shift”.

Welding school offers night shift to fit busy schedules

Story Published: Feb 3, 2010 at 4:30 AM PST
By Chris Parker for KVAL.com

OREGON CITY, Ore. — The sun isn’t necessary for students welding at midnight: the blinding electric arcs provide enough light at Clackamas Community College metal shop.

John Phelps and David Williams instruct welding classes during the graveyard shift, from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m., to accommodate an enrollment demand that has surged over the last year.

According to Phelps, enrollment increased 60 percent since last fall term, making it difficult for students to take welding classes during normal hours.

“Because the enrollment shot up so high, there was no other way to accommodate these needs,” Phelps said. “We already offer classes seven days a week. The only other time slot we didn’t offer was this late at night, and so we wanted to give it a try.”

At first the graveyard classes were only held two nights a week, but since being offered spring term of 2009, more students have become interested in the late night class. Now, the graveyard class is offered Monday through Thursday.

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College isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  In fact, if you’re looking for a career in welding, a technical school might just be the place to go.

Technical schools give students a leg up on a career

By FARAH TAMIZUDDIN/VOICE CORRESPONDENT
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted Jan 25, 2010 @ 11:00 PM

Seventeen-year-old Konner Fenwick doesn’t want to go to college.

She isn’t taking any more history or English classes.

The Springfield High School senior doesn’t want to get a job after she graduates in June, either.

Her plan? Attend a technical school.

“School’s never really been my thing,” Konner said. “I think I’ll enjoy this a lot.”

More than half of the country’s high school seniors each year head to college right after graduation, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

However, 30 to 40 percent of seniors find their footing elsewhere.

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I never thought I’d see the day. Let me repeat that – NEVER.

But the day has indeed arrived, from whence forward, a newbie welder will be able to practice welding, not the old-fashioned way, with torch and electrode, but via virtual reality.

You can thank Lincoln Electric for this new advancement in welding technology — they are the producers of the new VRTEX 360 which enables the wearer to weld via a virtual welding gun and a helmet that is equipped with monitors on the inside.

You can “virtually” weld in a welding booth, on a construction site — even on a base in the desert!

And, it has to be said, this is the greenest welding machine on the market, and it will enable students to learn faster than ever before.

Who knows — this newest welding “video game” could become so popular that instructors will have to pry the virtual torch right out of their students’ unwilling hands.

One can only hope.

Lincoln Electric is offering Pipeline Welding Productivity Seminars to address the growing demand in energy matters….

Cleveland – Lincoln Electric is offering a day-long Pipeline Welding Productivity Seminar intended for professionals in the pipeline industry. The session will take place on Tuesday, March 16, from 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m. at Lincoln Electric’s corporate headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio.

With the growing demand in energy markets, rehabilitation of existing infrastructure and construction of new cross-country and subsea pipelines will continue to increase.The seminar will focus on this topic, as well as new solutions for overall improved safety, productivity and quality.

This one-day session will cover:

* A comprehensive overview of the pipeline market
* Solutions to common pipeline welding challenges
* Welding consumables selection
* Understanding hydrogen cracking
* Automating your welding processes
* Ways to increase overall productivity
* An update on the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety
* Administration’s (PHMSA) latest findings

Session topics will be followed by welding demonstrations and facility tours.

For more information on this free informational seminar or to reserve a spot, contact Lincoln Electric at (216) 383-8355.

The Lincoln Electric Company, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, is the world leader in the design, development and manufacture of arc welding products, robotic arc welding systems, fume extraction equipment and plasma and oxyfuel cutting equipment. The company holds a leading global position in the brazing and soldering alloys market. For more information, visit their Web site at www.lincolnelectric.com.

If you’re already welding pipe, or just getting into it, check out some of the high performance purge gas welding accessories that Arc-Zone.com carries that will help you out:  Trail Shields and Purge Cups, Tube and Pipe Plugs, Purge Baffle systems, Purge Bladders, Weld Tape, Water Soluble Purge Paper and Film, Purge Chambers….  and a selection of Oxygen sensors so you’ll know when to start welding!

For more information about Arc-Zone.com visit www.Arc-Zone.com

Interested in learning about restoring classic cars? Well, you’ve come to the right place!

The folks over at Second Chance Garage have given us a step-by-step guide to choosing the right welder for the job:

Selecting the Right Welder for Classic Car Restoration Projects

What Welder To Use?

The most common welders used in auto restoration, therefore, are MIG (metal arc welders, gas or flux-cored), TIG (tungsten arc welders using shielding gas) and Arc Welders (the traditional “stick” electrode).

To choose the most appropriate one for your needs, you have to consider the following parameters:

* What is the maximum and minimum thickness of metal to be welded? Fortunately, automobiles use metals that fall into a relatively narrow range.

* What is the metal type? Again, automobiles generally are made of steel and, rarely, aluminum.

* What is the normal position the welding “head” will be put in? Do you need to do a lot of welding overhead? The answer is usually no here.

* How much current is available in your shop and do you have 220 volts? Check your circuits.

Let’s be frank. Our overwhelming favorite type of welder is the MIG. We’ll explain why shortly, but first we’ll give an overview of the other contenders. Here we go!

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It is the best kind of person who takes inspiration from adversity.

When Lee Soucie was laid off from his job with ONG Industries, he decided to start on a project that he’d been waiting years to do: welding a full-size Tin Man, with heart.

Playing Tin Man with heart

Wednesday, January 6, 2010 10:08 PM EST
By SCOTT WHIPPLE
Staff writer

BERLIN — No one would ever confuse Berlin with the Emerald City or 7-year-old Alyssa Watrous for Judy Garland’s character, Dorothy Gale in the classic film, Wizard of Oz.

Then, too, neither Watrous nor her 4-year-old sister, Kirsten have a dog named Toto.

However, what 52-year-old Lower Lane resident Lee Soucie has done with six feet of tubing is more than pure fantasy.

Nothing against the Scarecrow or the Cowardly Lion, but Soucie, a welder with time on his hands, says as a kid he loved this most-watched movie in history. His favorite character was the guy who needed a heart — the Tin Woodman.

“My granddaughters, Alyssa and Kirsten — their mouths dropped open — when they saw what I’d done,” he says.

What Soucie did was a metal sculpture. He says for five years he had wanted to make a welding of the Tin Man.

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