A Challenging Craft

Yeppa, yeppa, I love teaching TIG welding and watching students become so proficient they can fabricate a bike frame. Sophie, Jacob and Piper.

TIG welding demands a high level of technical skill and dexterity! And this reality contributes to its reputation as a challenging (yet incredibly rewarding) craft. Unlike other welding methods such as MIG or stick welding, TIG requires you to simultaneously control the torch to within one to two millimeters with one hand, while feeding filler metal with the other, and use one foot on a pedal to control heat. This dual-hand+foot coordination necessitates fine motor skills and intense concentration. Mastering this technique not only enhances your manual abilities while cultivating patience and attention to detail, but it makes you someone who can create something from nothing.

TIG is a big piece of the curriculum, alongside learning other fabrication skills (and translating a two-dimensional drawing into a bike, with a precision of a half degree and 1 mm), why the curriculum is being taken up at other universities.

In the spring I will do a one-week workshop with faculty and students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the world's largest university specializing in aviation and aerospace. They want to do the Design, Build, Ride curriculum. Yeppa, yeppa, as Brooks says.