Life Church has a welding class, and I’ve made it to 3 of the 4 meetings so far. There are two to go. This post is a vent to my exhuberant delight in the process of welding.

I was wild about hot glass work, when I was at university, but I can’t very well justify the expense of a glass oven and kiln any more today than in the intervening years. Welding appears well suited to giving vent to this same compulsive need to control the plasticity of the material world. It’s less expensive by an order of magnitude. Indeed, there are some very nice TIG welding inverters available from Shenzhen at shockingly low prices, since recent advances in inverter electronics have made their way into the mainstream of Chinese industrial manufacturing.

K has expressed an interest in welding as well, so it seems like something we could enjoy doing together, a sorely needed nexus for father-daughter quality time. This will undoubtedly form the backbone of my case for a properly equipped welding facility.

Steel and aluminum calligraphy welds seem like an attractive expressive outlet that combines my interests. Metal forging, of course, has a natural tie-in.