By Randall M. Rueff
Taylorsville, Indiana
RandallMRueff@TLS.net

After two years of Vocational Welding at the C.A.V.P. "Columbus Area Vocational Program" (Columbus North High School - Columbus, Indiana) under the watchful and guiding eye of high school welding teacher and mentor, Mr. Malcolm Stalcup, I thought I knew a lot about welding. 

Looking back on those words, I can say I was right about the part "I thought I knew a lot about welding!"  After receiving the Outstanding Welding Student award my senior year of high school (1992) and with help from family, friends and a $3,000 insurance policy that my grandparent bought for me when I was a baby (that I could now cash at age 18) I was headed to Troy, Ohio to the world famous Hobart Institute of Welding Technology! 

My parents were real glad it was only two and one-half hours away (the way my mom drives) from our home in Taylorsville, Indiana.  My first apartment and my first car that I had worked for all summer at the 25^th Street Taco Bell in Columbus, Indiana to get!  Words to the wise… never give your parent a summer-long earnings of $950 and say, “Get me a car.”  A week after I arrived in Troy in the family-borrowed car, my parents once again drove to Troy with my "new" Toyota Corolla.  After 6 months of driving, it lost a muffler which I didn't fix until I got pulled over one night by local Troy police because my car was too loud.  The funny part came when, after borrowing some money from relatives (Mom and Dad) to fix the car, the mechanic said he was going to have to find a new way to set his watch each day, as I would no longer be passing by so loudly every morning!

I remember watching the instructor we all called Sarge (Terry Burr) perform a 5G, G.M.A.W. pipe weld flawlessly, even after accidentally being nudged by a student who lost his footing while watching.  I remember listening to Mr. (Dale) Morris go on about the many different ways we were going to conserve metal…or else!  I remember the panic we almost all (who am I kidding…almost?) felt as Big Blue bent out our test samples.   “Mine isn't going to brake or even crack but I'll bet yours is!” I can recall hearing and even saying a few times to my fellow students, in jest.

I can remember the teacher, who upon finding out that he now had a female student in class, say that “the only place for a woman is in the kitchen, bare foot and pregnant,” and later watched as he gently smiled and said, “Congratulations” after she very successfully passed the last of the required bend tests for that class! 

I can remember fellow classmates leaving a fellow classmate lie in his own puke in the doorway of his apartment simply because he always said he had a high tolerance for alcohol and "never" got drunk!   

I remember all of the cheap welding jackets I burned through until I decided to spend some real money and get a good heavy-duty leather one from the school's store.  I remember when my welding hat, that I had mislaid, fell into the bucket with all of my welding rod stubs while I was at lunch.  It caught on fire just before a tour group was coming through the welding area!  I remember talking and learning new and different welding techniques and practices along side of people from all over the world that were there the same time as I. 

I learned a lot of things during my 10 months at the Hobart Institute of Welding Technology in Troy, Ohio. As I drove away after the last day while listening to a Whitney Houston song on the radio I remember thinking, “I know a lot about welding.” 

After accepting my first real welding job back in Indiana in the nearby town of Edinburgh, welding high-pressure tanks at Penway, I remember thinking, “I used to think I knew a lot about welding.”  After more than a few years of welding, I took an adjunct teaching position at Ivy Tech State College nestled in the education district of Columbus, Indiana. I got the job because of my welding credentials, background and because I told them I knew what I was doing. 

As I started teaching, the first thing and most important thing I learned is that “welding” and “teaching welding” are two very different things, to say the least. When you are welding, a lot of the time you get into your own little patter or what I refer to as the zone.  You weld one piece right after the other, day after day, and you don’t even notice the heat or the sweat except, of course, when it comes to break time or when you have to stop because somebody up ahead of you got behind and you have to wait instead of weld.

Teaching is a lot different!  There is no “zone”.  But believe you me, teaching is good and many times challenging and many times a fun and inspiring thing.  With the limited amount of equipment that I have to teach with, I have some students working on S.M.A.W. (Stick) some on G.M.A.W. (MIG) some on Oxyacetylene and some on G.T.A.W. (TIG).  It’s a far cry from the Hobart Institute of Welding Technology where, in some ways, I think my instructors had it easy teaching just one class with enough machines for every student.  I think back many times to my days in high school and wonder if this is what it was like for Mr. Malcolm Stalcup, my high school welding teacher. 

I must say that along with the new and different challenges come some really neat rewards.  Aside from the job itself, there was a student I taught who came back and told me of how he got a job at the Arvin Tech Center in Columbus, Indiana.  They were holding welding tests as part of the job testing this student.  Not only did his test pass, but after seeing some of the other candidates’ samples lying on a table, my student told the guy conducting the tests that those weld samples were, in his opinion, pathetic, and explained why and how they needed to be improved.  He went on to explain that, when he did his welding, he knew how to avoid the problems these other less experienced “welders” were having. 

After reminding him to be careful, because that not everybody likes to be criticized in that way, I gave him my congratulations as he did, in fact, get the job.

Another student told me that, even before finishing my semester long “Introduction to Welding” class, he was implementing what I taught him at work.  What he had already learned had saved his boss over $20,000 by doing in-house what they used to have to send out to be welded.

Another thing I have learned through my teaching is that there is a whole other field of welding that I had no idea existed.  That is the field of welding supplies.  Now, with a very small budget, I have to order welding gas, base metal, welding rods and wire, and all of the other supplies.  This is an area where I know my ignorance was bliss!  It is a lot easier to weld and not think about who pays for what than to weld and wonder every second who is going to pay for the next spool of wire or next box of E-6013. Our local Praxair salesman, a very nice gentleman by the name of Mr. Lee Naylor, stops by from time to time.  As I show him the broken machine, it never ceases to amaze me at how, without even looking at a catalogue or book, he can, for the most part, spit out part numbers and many times even the prices (all of which I think is over priced!)  But now that I am the one not only using the materials, but also having to consider price, I am very much aware of the real fact that everything everywhere is overpriced!  This, after all, is America! 

I have to admit though, even with all of the problems associated with the job and many of the perks as well, my greatest joy in teaching comes from seeing a student who couldn’t previously do a particular weld and, after they ask for help, I am able to demonstrate some trick or technique and later they are able to do the weld by themselves that they previously thought they wouldn’t ever be able to do.

 Some days I think I know a lot about welding and think, “Man I deserve a raise!”  Other days I wonder if I have any real skill at all and think, “Man, am I lucky to have this job!” 

So I ask myself… do I know a lot about welding?  I can honestly answer “yes”.  But do I know all there is to know about welding?  And of course, without any hesitation of any kind, I know the answer is “No”!  And that is how I think it should be it should be…always something new to learn an, if nothing else, it makes life more interesting, to say the least.

I had an eighth grade social studies teacher by the name of Mr. Tony Peck who told me in class that reason we study history is so that we can learn from the past and not repeat the mistakes of the past.  As I teach welding in our small welding shop area at Ivy Tech State College in Columbus, Indiana, along with the Hobart Pocket Welding Guide, several Hobart Institute of Welding Technology videos, and the very helpful and understanding bosses, Mr. Kim Haza and Dr. Zin-Ran Duan, Ph.D., and our friendly and helpful support staff, I am trying my best to do my part. 

I have told my students many times, sometimes in jest, “What I am telling you here and now is, when it comes to welding, the minimal and only acceptable standard is perfection or better, so get to work!”