thursday, august 28, 2003
jayplay.17
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A wonderful weld
By Maggie Koerth
mkoerth@kansan.com
Jayplay writer
Blue and white sparks shoot upwards from a metal table in the basement of Marvin Hall. From behind the black anonymity of a welding mask, Jason Newland, Springfield, Mo., senior, drags a straight line of molten wire across a piece of metal. Popping sounds like hyperactive Rice Krispies echo in the tiny welding room of the Architecture Department Craft Shop. After a moment, Newland flips up the mask to explain the finer points of welding a strong joint. "It should look like a stack of dimes," he says. "You can see how it looks like they're all lying on top of each other."
Newland, assistant shop technician, is teaching me how to weld and is prepared for the danger. The first thing he explains about welding is the need for safety supplies: long sleeves, heavy-duty, fireproof gloves, closed-toed shoes and the welder's mask.
Of all this equipment, the mask is most intimidating. It covers the entire face. Older versions plunge the wearer into a blackness that's only broken by the flying sparks. The newer mask that Newland wears provides a clear view of the room, until the nozzle makes contact with metal. "It's got an auto-darkening lid so it's a lot safer. As soon as it hits the spark, I believe it's 1/64 of a second, it automatically adjusts," he says.
Before the lesson began, Newland told me about how welding works. The welding
machine in the craft shop is a MIG (metal inert gas) system. Metal wire runs through a tube, where it's heated by electricity and comes out the nozzle. Meanwhile, a bubble of argon gas at the end of the nozzle protects the wire from rusting and helps maintain a strong joint. Depending on the thickness of metal you're welding, Newland says, you set the machine to a different voltage level and a different wire output speed level. How you adjust the wire speed is very important, Newland says. If the speed is too fast, you won't be able to weld and will end up with chunks of loose wire. If the speed is too slow, the heat will burn a hole in the metal.
After this, Newland begins to weld. He fixes a clamp onto the metal table to ground the electricity, flips his mask down and goes to work. The first thing he shows me is how to make straight lines on flat pieces of metal. Given the near-blind conditions behind the mask, this task seems impossible at first. "I hold the nozzle against my fingertip and you can kind of use that as a guide. You aren't actually touching your finger, you're keeping it far enough away, but it makes a straighter line," Newland says. He says this is the first thing most people do when they're learning how to weld.
And Newland should know. He's taught over 20 people how to weld in the craft shop. Many of them were students in Nils Gore's architecture studio last spring, but others were friends of his, non-architecture students who like to build things as a hobby. Newland says that anyone who wants to use the craft shop can. It's open between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. He's also willing to teach more people how to weld. "Just show up. We're usually pretty lenient about making time for anyone who wants to come down here and learn," he says.
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