30 Years in a Housetruck

Page Thirty: Adult Ed

Work on the Housetruck continued, with Woodley and I exchanging skills and helping each other to get farther along in the process. My kitchen cabinet got a finished counter top and a backboard, and Woodley's step van was fitted with a fresh water tank and a system of valves that allowed the pump to be configured for several modes. I began building a floor-to-ceiling cabinet to house my refrigerator, and took the first steps to make my apartment-sized gas cook stove operational, hooking a regulator to the tank and using rubber hose to supply the stove with gas so that it could be used, even though the LPG tank was inside the truck (not good...).

I wanted the propane cylinder out of my living space, so it was time to build a rack for it and the three other tanks I had purchased in L.A. before leaving. There was a lot of scrap iron around the Schoolhouse, including many old bed frames, made of very sturdy angle iron. Several of these were cut into measured sections and formed up as a rack that would mount under the truck's van body on the left side. All that remained to be done was to have them welded together. One of the auto repair shops in Creswell had a "Welding" sign outside, so I approached the owner and described my project. He said he would do the welding for $20, but only if I assembled the pieces as he worked, and helped him by holding them in position. I agreed, and after arriving at an appointed day and time, we began. I was given a spare welding hood so that I could watch the process while I held the parts in place. All told, it took about an hour to weld the rack into shape, during which time I received many nice electrical shocks from the rudimentary "buzz box" welder that he was using. Nevertheless, the job was done, and done to my satisfaction. Afterwards, I decided that it didn't look all that difficult, and since I had much more welding to do on the truck, I determined that I would have to learn to do it myself.

Enrollment for Fall classes at the local community college (Lane Community College, or LCC) were just opening, and looking at the schedule, I found that Basic Welding was offered as an adult education class evening and weekends. The tuition was next to nothing, $9 if I recall, with a materials fee of $11 or something ridiculous like that. I signed up at once, and also registered for a class in First Class Radiotelephone Licensing, with the expectation that this might make it possible for me to apply for a job at one of the local radio stations.

At the first welding class, along with about a dozen other students, I was given the "safety rap", an orientation of the welding tech shop, was issued a small handful of 6011 welding rod, and after picking some small pieces of steel out of the scrap bin was shown into a welding booth in the far end of the shop. No classroom instruction, no book reading, no real direction, just "Here's the materials, now go weld".

By this time, I had purchased my own welding hood and a pair of gloves, so I started burning rod on the scraps of steel, getting familiar with the routine of putting the hood up and down, becoming comfortable with the smell of hot flux, and trying to not flinch with every small spark that worked it's way into my clothing.

After about an hour, an instructor popped his head into the booth to see how I was doing. Not all that well, considering the goal of producing good, clean, strong welds it turns out. A few minutes of having him weld while I watched, some explanation of what to watch for, and having him guide my gloved hand while I welded, showing correct technique produced a lot of understanding, and gave me the direction I needed to start practicing for real.

By the end of the first class, I could lay a bead well enough to join two pieces of metal. On the way out after class, I stopped into the tool crib and asked if it was possible to bring in projects to work on. I was told that this was fine, but they had to be small enough to carry into the shop and get into a booth. Vehicles were NOT allowed inside the welding tech building, due to the hazardous combination of liquid motor fuels and welding sparks.

Every class after that, I had some kind of project to work on, either something brought in from home, or a fabrication job made from odds and ends found in the scrap bins. I took my wood stove in to weld feet to the legs so that it could be bolted to the floor of the truck. A few scavenged car parts from the old Citroën in the Schoolhouse yard were welded to my stove to make a forced-air plenum that gathered cold drafts from the floor and exhausted them as a super-heated column of air. I made a poker for the stove, and a custom grate to burn on. I modified the stove top to be more air tight, and cradle a cooking pan better. An old hot water heater tank I found under the Schoolhouse was recruited to be my fresh water tank, and a mount was welded up to hold it under the truck. Woodley designed some custom latches for an opening skylight that he was building for his truck, which I fabricated using other tools in the welding shop before doing the actual welding on them. I learned to braze and discovered the joy of wire feed welding (MIG process). The gas welding area of the shop had long benches lined with fire brick, where oxy-acetylene welding was accomplished. A motorized line cutter with adjustable flame cutting heads could cut long, straight lines in metal. The whole shop was filled with all of these amazing, expensive tools, and they were all mine for four hours every Saturday.

I quickly became the two instructor's favorite student. Each week they would ask what I had brought them to work on. The rest of the students were all practicing to be certified welders. This was back when the Alaska Pipeline was being built, and welders were needed to work on it. There would be 20 guys in booths, welding together 6" sections of 6" steel pipe, then cutting the pipe assemblies lengthwise into "coupons", and trying to break the coupons in the hydraulic press to test their welds. For the most part, the instructors were bored stiff with the rest of the class, most of whom didn't need any attention from them anyway.

I took the adult ed version of "Basic Welding" over and over, just to have access to the shop, the tools and the instructors, who would help me design and build projects, making suggestions and offering ideas and introducing me to new techniques of fabrication.

In all, the whole experience was summed up by some graffiti that someone had burned into one of the portable welding screens in the shop:

"LOVE TO WELD"

it said.