Stopping my procrastination & learning to weld
OMG friends thanks for visiting! I must first admit that I am a serial learner. I want to learn ALL OF THE THINGS! Well, all of the things that have to do with building, painting, and business things. (Not too into the cooking “things”). Learning to weld has been on my to do list for about 2 years…2 years is a lot of procrastinating!
Intentions are one thing, but my focus is another.
Stopping the procrastination & finally learning to weld
I literally have had an image of Gina Rossi working on a project with sparks everywhere front and center on my vision board (for 2 years). This desire to learn seemed pretty significant to me. Not hobby learning, but what I needed to learn to take my furniture to the next level!
Side story & what finally broke my 2 years of procrastination. Recently I had a retail store space I was hoping for in the Midtown area of Sacramento fall through. A restaurant willing to sign a lease 3 times longer than I was comfortable with beat me out in the bidding process. When I started aligning my to dos for this shop space and setting up my store hours, I had the realization that I probably would not have time for this class that I have been “going to sign up for” for so long…Sad story short, when it fell through I called Gina almost immediately and got into her next available class.
Gina got a class together and called me with the date. Then Bam…vision board was materializing yet another vision attained. This class coincided with what is a hard week every year. My younger brother, Jeffrey, passed away in 2015. It was terrible. He passed on 9/9, his birthday was 9/12, and we were not notified until 9/16. The class was falling on this 2 year anniversary. Since he passed I have felt an intense push added to do all the things. His loss really put an added emphasis on how short life can be!
Learning to weld:
list of tools I NEED TO GET!
Post includes Affiliate links. If you purchase items from these links I will make a small referral commission. This money helps pay for things on the blog like tools:). Full disclosures here.
I showed up for class ready to learn and with the inspiration of making a dragonfly sculpture. Dragonflies are the token that reminds me regularly of Jeffrey.
Gina took some time and explained some of the uses for welding, showed us some of her pieces, & helped us think of what we would need to create our art pieces. We geared up in a welding helmets, jackets, and gloves to work a little on technique. We practiced feeling the sensation of a correct weld along with the sounds that let you know your weld bead is flowing well… or not. Next Gina turned us loose to dig through her bins of metal and find pieces to make our sculptures. So much fun! We were blessed with one of Gina’s staff member, Conrado, who happily cut pieces for us and helped with anything we needed.
Pieces gathered and wings shaped formed from bent rods. I started to construct wing details using cold squiggly tarnished metal rods and matching metal circles that I had scavenged from bins.
Each little connection was welded together. Some super sloppy, and others quite cleanly. Gina compared modern MIG welding as being a bit like using a glue gun. I’d agree. When paying attention and moving along carefully you get a nice clean weld line. But, lose focus and you get more of a beaded up pile of metal. With the welder when things are going wrong, you will experience much more popping and wild sparks than the hum of a clean weld.
My Christmas list may include items I need to get going with welding I will also be returning for additional classes with Gina that are more specific to what I want to do in my business.
After my dragonfly was all welded up from metal scraps to meaningful sculpture I used the welding torch to scribe the word Free. May my sweet brother be free in Heaven until we may meet again.
Dragonflies find me everywhere, I know he makes sure they do.
What are you wanting to learn? It may not be learning to weld, but know that it is never too late to pick up new skills! Please come back and share what you are up to. If you take are learning to weld and have any tips for me please share, I look forward to learning more!!
Impressive post
Thank you!
The dragonfly is amazing! Good job! I would like to make the same work.
Thank you!