RIDE HARD OR STAY HOME!

By Zach Taylor
HIWT Alumnus

The combination of desire for a career change, a passion for old school choppers, and a strong mix of tall stories and road sodas led me from Juneau, Alaska to Troy, Ohio for the nine-month Combination Structural and Pipe Welding course offered by the Hobart Institute of Welding Technology.  The welding trade is a far cry from scaling Alaska’s tallest mountains or harvesting the rich seafood bounty of its seas, which until now had been my livelihood. 

With my course date set for November 2002, I made plans for attaining another lifelong dream – to ride this great country from the saddle of my chopper.  A year of pinching pennies, working three jobs, and living the entire year from my tent, I now had enough money to cross the barren Yukon, British Columbia and Alberta territories of Canada to Montana, then through the mountains and across the Great Plains, which, in itself, is a story.  The old scooter held together just long enough to make my final destination of Hobart.  Now I was ready to weld!

Until my first day of class, I had never struck an arc.  Yet, I soon found my niche for good welds.  Life was good!  School was good!  And then tragedy struck my family. 

My father, “Pops”, a long-time biker, was killed on his Harley® early one Saturday morning.  Our dreams of one day fabricating our own style of “old school choppers” as a family came to a sudden, but temporary, halt!  With the graces of Hobart, I was allowed to take the summer off so my brother and I could make proper tribute to the man that made us tick.  In this time, my brother and I rebuilt Pops’ bike, then set out across the nation.  Pops had often spoken of some day attending all the big motorcycle rallies around the country.  That dream he had became a reality as we dispensed his ashes among the most beautiful places we came across and every burnout pit we could find.  Pops loved to burn rubber!  In total, we covered 11,000 miles on our Harley’s.

In September 2003, true to my word, I re-enrolled to finish my course.  In this time, I was fortunate to become friends with Kevin Scott, a TIG instructor at the school.  Kevin was equally as intrigued by my stories of the far north as I was in his ability to airbrush and draw.  Our combination made a good team for restoring my old chopper.  Kevin’s fine-tuning of my TIG skills allowed me to put not only sound welds on my old scooter, but also top-quality aesthetic welds known only to the big bike builders. 

Kevin and I continued our brainstorming ideas in developing the paint scheme for the bike.  Note: Kevin had never painted a custom Harley tank, but was enlightened by a previous student that he would some day be painting Harley’s.  I feel honored and privileged to be his first!  We finished the tank not only on time for graduation, but with the quality that would make Pops proud!  Ride hard, Pops!

For more stories, contact “Alaska Zach” at Zach_Taylor1@yahoo.com

For color pictures and airbrushing by Kevin Scott, check his web site at www.kevin.scott.s5.com or contact Kevin at kevin.scott@voyager.net

For information about the Combination Structural and Pipe Welding Program, contact:

Hobart Institute of Welding Technology
400 Trade Square East ~ Troy, OH  45373 USA
http://www.welding.org
hiwt@welding.org or 1-800-332-9448 or 937-332-5000