Now, although I learnt to make nice beads with stick welding on flat surfaces, I still struggle with various things. Much of the welding I want to do is on thin metal, so I need to run the welder at a very low current, creating a feeble arc and with a tendency to stick, and still burning through if I'm not quick. I still can't do inside joint welds (the arc sticks to one side, or the other, and rarely both).
Is it my poor technique, or am I being limited by the fact I'm using a ten-year-old arc welder that cost £50 from B&Q? When I borrow a friend's MIG welder, I do much better work, and tinkering with my technique over the past decade has failed to make a huge improvement...
Whether it's me or the welder, I know that stick welding isn't perfect for what I want to do. As well as the issue with thin materials, it can't weld aluminium. I had a stick welder because it was all I could afford at the time, and living in a small flat, I didn't want to be storing compressed gas cylinders!
TIG is widely regarded as hard to learn, because there's so many variables to control - those ten complicated-looking knobs on the welder, the movement of the torch, the fine control of current with a foot pedal, the way you feed the filler metal in. However, when I tried it, I found that I liked all that control. With a MIG, you set the power level and the wire feed speed on the machine, and then pull the trigger to weld - which is great if the settings are all correct and you're doing a long straight uniform bead. But if you're having to change position as you weld, or dealing with varying thickness of metal so the rate of conduction away from the weld varies, it's trickier to have those settings correct. And to get them right, you need to do test welds, adjust, and do more test welds.
With a TIG welder, you can vary the speed at which you move the torch (and the current, with a pedal) and the rate you dab filler metal as you work, based on feedback from how the weld looks. Although there's more to vary, there's less need for trial and error. That suits me better! Back when I did the welding course, I'd really enjoyed TIG, and found it easy to do great welds, but a MIG machine looked a lot more likely to be affordable. So I was slowly saving up for a MIG machine.
And then I found that R-Tech, a local company on the outskirts of Gloucester that make welders and are widely lauded for their quality and good customer service, offered twelve months' interest free credit.
Suddenly, rather than saving up for many months for a MIG welder, I could afford a TIG welder (and quite a good one, too), with the money I'd saved as a deposit and then sixty pounds a month for the next year. THIS CHANGES THINGS...
So, today, my new TIG welder arrived. It can go up to 160 amps, it can do AC or DC (so it can be used for aluminium), it can do pulsed power control, and it has a foot pedal for precise work. So it'll be great for thin stuff. Also, it can do stick welding, but "nicely"; DC, with good current regulation, as opposed to my old AC transformer. That should make it produce much more steady arcs, so I'm looking forward to seeing if I can also improve my stick welding with it - stick welding is worse than TIG in most respects, except that it's faster and doesn't use up shielding gas. I still have a lot of stick welding electrodes to use up, so when I'm doing work on heavier bits of metal, it'd be nice to use them if I can do so and still produce good welds!
This evening, I unpacked it, ground a tungsten, put everything together, and rearranged some shelves in the workshop to set it up. I made a hook to hang the torch on by my welding bench, checked that the right things appear on the display when I turn it on, and then sadly bade it goodnight, as I'm not getting the shielding gas cylinder for it until tomorrow.
My plan is to start running test beads along a bit of scrap steel until I seem to have got the hang of it, then do a few easy jobs - such as re-doing some of the shoddy welds I messed up with the stick welder, and adding a steering stop to the festival trolley, and fixing a bit of my welding bench that snapped off after the bottom rusted.
Once I'm confident, I'm going to finish my current big project - a custom server case for love.warhead.org.uk, which hosts this site and many others! I've been taking it to my friend's workshop to use his MIG on it, which only happens when we're both free (less than once a month), and involves folding all the seats down in the car and lugging a significant weight of steel through the house. Did I mention that this thing's 1.2 meters high, and made of 1.6mm thick steel plate?
But I'm so incredibly stoked I'm going to have a TIG welder. I'd all but given up on the dream!
I'm relearning stuff at the moment due to the old whack on the head - so this mainly means I am colouring in but the girls want to learn the recorder and I have a hang up about the recorder...
Anyway to cut a long story short there is a Frozen recorder book on it's way to us and we have received a rather disappointing Elsa/Frozen "recorder" which is a crap plastic all in one moulded toy that is pretty useless but Mary loves it and it was stupid cheap so hey you get what you pay for (I was still narked if it says recorder - I expect an actual recorder!).
With panic I realised the book would probably be all music notation even though it says easy on it. I can't read music, I have a stab at learning it every few years but nope doesn't work. I normally just work things out by sound etc... this is actually what got me chucked out of my recorder class in school.
Apparently according to the then music teacher you can't be a musician without reading music. You can't play music. This crushed me. What had happened was that she hadn't noticed I couldn't read music, I was watching her and the other kids and working it out by ear and progressing nicely. Even when they started setting homeworks it wasn't too bad as it was nursery rhymes and I just worked them out but then... then they wanted us to do "proper music" story pieces as backing for singers or as part of the orchester. I did not know these songs, my parents were not into classical music - BAM a glass ceiling.
They were complex with different sized recorders - everyone else would turn up knowing the piece, after three weeks of this I knew that something had to happen for me to continue with recorder. So I asked my mum if I could have extra music lessons, she said yes and wrote a letter explaining the situation and that I could not actually read the music - could I have extra lessons (paid for) or did they know who to ask etc... to sort this out.
The letter was the death nell - in front of the enter wind section I was castigated - told that if I hadn't picked up reading music by now then there was no hope - I simply could not be a musician.
I left angry, and confused and crying, a hot mist of shame clouding my vision. I clutched my two recorders, one of which was basically shiny knew and the classic dark brown and cream, my nan had bought it for me as I'd moved up a group.
Being me I became kind of resigned and militant about this. I didn't really want to be playing the recorder anyway - I wanted to play the flute. Being a glutton for punishment I went along to the flute try outs. From my prospective it seemed to be going quiet well, I could get a sound out of the damn thing unlike the others in the room. But then the teacher took the flutist aside and hard the mutterings about not being able to read music, or writing for that matter and so on - I would like to add that I was also not the only child in the room at this point but I think the teacher had forgotten I could now hear properly as it was just after the second lot of grommets had been put in.
I doubt my pitch was perfect (I'm pretty sure it wasn't), I don't do sound as just a hearing thing anyway, I like to feel it, if I can't feel it I can't know if it will fit properly.
Anyway they came over to me and I looked up, "I'm afraid your arms are too short for the flute," he said.
"What about the picalo?" I asked - I was desperate to play the flute - this was because a blue telepathic animated character out of a cartoon series called Ulysses 31 played an epic flute made of gold and lights that she vanquished monsters with. Also I had curly hair - somehow I felt that meant I was destined for the flute.
He hesitated, "you have to learn the flute first before the picalo." He said gravely and I left the music room once more with the angry confused mist of shame and tears and snot.
My mother was furious but we could not afford flute stuff outside of the special schools programme.
Then because you know I never know when to quit I went for the choir in the final year of juniors with the same woman. But I was sick on the day the auditions were supposed to happen. When I got back there were four people out of the entire year who were too bad to go in the choir - they were the people I had extra reading lessons with in the special room.
I am a shy person. I was still determined, I was made to stand in the school hall in front of the entire year and given a piece of sheet music that the teacher knew I could not read. I didn't even know what the song was going to be. I was petrified, everyone knew I wanted to be an opera singer (it was down as part of my three fold dream which involved being a spaceman and archeologist so I could look at rocks - I thought as an opera singing I would get to design the costumes, write the stories and build the sets as well as doing singing, dancing and acting).
I recognised the song, I tried to sing, my voice stuck but then it unstuck and I started to sing.
The teacher loomed in putting her ear right in front of my mouth making comments. But I wanted to be in the choir so much I kept going.
She stopped the music, and announced I was in tune but too quiet and there was no place in the choir for people who couldn't pull their weight. Everyone knew how much I wanted to be in the choir. I don't know if I imagined it but at this point I was sure they were all laughing at me. My form tutor came and rescued me and sat on the stairs with me whilst I cried.
"Hey we can't all be good at everything, what if I told you you hadn't gotten onto the football team? You wouldn't be crying then would you?" we both knew I would never have gone for it as I was still learning to run without falling over at this point.
"I would." I said and she looked at me sitting there in her sports outfit she never took off - she knew me and sports, "if I'd tried out for the football team it would be because I wanted to play football so of course I'd be upset if I didn't get it especially if I was then told I was rubbish and would never be able to do it, in front of EVERYBODY."
She smiled and laughed, "Sarah you are amazing, you'll find away, it will be your own way, now come and see the stuff I've got planned for you lot, you're going to be so glad you aren't in the choir."
And I was - we made things and explored things, including creating our own papier mache puppets and sets. I am also still friends with two of the people who were in that group with me.
Of course I also then went and joined lots of choirs, and learnt the guitar and have sundry instruments in my house. Now I know I am not brilliant at music and I know I panic when ever technical stuff is mentioned but I love music.
These events did mar music for me though and looking at it now from where I am as an adult I feel that, that music teacher was most definately in the wrong. She was also my second year class teacher so I would have been 8? She was my least favourite of the junior school. I did revisit the school once before my work experience (which was in the infant school anyway), I made a special trip to her classroom to tell her how I'd been excepted into the choral society as well as having performed in a local performance of Joseph and his Dream Coat and so on - what I didn't mention was that I still wasn't having any school music or drama classes as I was still having to go to a special room to learn to read and write properly - I did however mention that I had been given a solo without being able to read music. I am glad I didn't know the term passive aggression as I would not have done this and I feel that in all honesty it needed to be done.
So back to the here and now as I am sure I've blogged about this story a couple of times before!
I have a recorder that I play merrily we row along to get children to sit down at readings and workshops. It turns out to be the only song I can remember since hitting my head though Jean says I could play lots of hymns (makes sense they are songs I would have known well enough from church to work out by ear).
Anyway she doesn't get recorder lessons at the school - she's had a bit of uke but they are not a big school and the teacher who could play, left... so I taught her merrily we row along. It took her about half an hour to master and remember and now she is playing it CONTINOUSLY!
Then I was struck by the panic - she was asking for other tunes and I can't remember any and I don't think I was particularly good anyway. That and the realisation that the book though saying EASY recorder would no doubt expect music reading skills... I turned to youtube.
I found this vid of Happy Birthday.
My dad was coming down the next day - it was his birthday - it took me 15 mins to get it down pat and I then remembered it in the morning for the kids to sing along to.
I was so proud of myself.
Jean is keen to learn and Mary has always loved the recorder 🙂
(She is now 4 and not the little thing in this video!)
The first thing that happened was my mum mentioned the teacher and we both had the same thought, if I can teach myself using youtube videos whilst suffering with the tail end of a head injury then how the hell did a qualified teacher stuff it up?
I realise I was a "special needs" kid but still... also there were like over 60 kids in my year - that is a 60 strong choir that was not a super duper choir so would 5 "bad voices" have made that much of a difference espcially if they were far away from the mics? And was it coincidence that we were all the "special needs" kids? I'd never thought on that connection before but it is there.
Anyway - I think I need to rest and then learn another song... well actually I am also setting up a section on here of educational stuff so Jean can find it when she wants to learn without me. It should also be useful to others and I may include links to good education workshop leaders etc... not really decided yet.
One last thing - it turns out I know random stuff about the recorder and sizes and stuff and got very defensive when Alaric suggested that only kids play them and that you never see adults playing them!
Ok. My days are usually pretty stressful. I'm supposed to work from 9am to 5:30pm with an hour's lunch break, but most days, I can't; with the school run I rarely get into work before 9am, and with picking Mary up from nursery (Mon+Fri), or getting Jean to Cubs (Wed), or getting Jean to Ju Jutsu (Tue), I tend to have to leave at 5pm at the latest. So I eat at my desk and work through the "lunch hour" to fit my working day into 9:30am to 5:00pm. Except on Tuesdays, I need to leave at 4pm to get Jean to Ju Jutsu for 4:30pm, so I make up for that by also skipping lunch on Thursday, despite staying until 5:30pm then (I manage to get in for 9am on Thursdays, as I can drop off at school slightly earlier on that day, and Tuesdays too). So it all balances out and I fit my contracted hours in each week, but with zero leeway and no lunch breaks.
Ten years ago today Alaric got to the train station and thought "you know what I don't want to go to work today, my pregnant wife is very sick and in that hospital just there, I'll go and see her instead". This was an unusual thought for him, as it was he mostly worked from home and only went in once a week for meetings.
It was bizar behaviour on his part but something I am so glad he did. He held my hand as I sat on machines that monitored my vitals and then he went to get my breakfast. I think I fell asleep, something was going on, nurses were running past the door, Alaric came and with a nurse helped get me to the breakfast room with it's TV.
He explained a bomb had gone off, we watched the news as it unfolded with a sickening sense of relief, Alaric could have, should have been on that train. Then the panic as we realised that it wasn't one attack but several - that it was hitting routes we knew. I tried to phone my friends and family who worked in London. Unsurprisingly the networks were jammed - in hindsight we should have been leaving the phones for emergency stuff but we weren't thinking we just wanted to check everyone was safe.
Our Drs started to disappear as they left to help or be medical stand by, my parents turned up thinking they were going to have to tell their very ill very pregnant daughter that her husband was missing on one of the blown up routes. They had been trying to phone him, none of the phones were working.
They were angry with him in that way you get angry when a child didn't come when you called, and you imagine the worst. Then he got hugged. And then the maternity ward began to break down. They say there is no stress induced pregnancy but woman after woman came in with blood pressure problems or in labour or both. The ward filled, there were women on trollies in the corridor - we were not on the labour ward but one woman ended up in the advance stages of having her baby in the maternity ward with me. They pulled the curtains round her bed, she was calling for her husband - her parents didn't know where he was, he had not done an Alaric, he was either dead, injuried or stranded in a motionaless London.
There was not enough beds or staff and bloody foot prints appeared and stayed on the floor. I was bewildered.
After much trying we got hold of as many friends and family as we could, checking they were all ok. More than one had had a near miss, were sitting still in London, sitting on steps crying or telling me how eeri it was with all the traffic stopped, with the hush, and with everyone being kind. London is normally a free for all, pushing, rushing, ignoring the press of humanity but that wasn't what was happening. Everyone was milling, quiet and in shock, everyone knew they were the lucky ones.
Everyone had been expecting the attack since 7/11 in the US, in truth London commuters had been being a bit nicer to each other since that point all fearing that this day was coming. If your train was delayed by more than ten minutes and you had no reception but someone else did - they would lend you their phone to phone and say you were alive. This affect multiplied on the day, I did not really register the stories at the time - I was too ill and mainly wanted to know that the people I cared about were fine.
That is not saying that I had no feelings for those who weren't, it was horrific but I needed to know my friends were fine.
When he got home Alaric found we'd been added to shout outs, it was before the days of social media but we did have blogs and mailing lists and everyone was checking that we were ok. People were worried.
My friends and family were lucky, but mum's friend son - not so much. He's alive due to the carriage he got in but bar the shock of the actual explosion and minor injuries he then had to be escorted past the carnage. Last I heard he still hadn't gone back to work, not all the scars were physical ones, not all of them could heal.
Much later on I realised that it had been even more of a close call for our little family, if I had not been ill and in hospital then we could all have been on the train. It's a strange twist of fate and one that wedges inside me, that me almost dying potentially saved all three of our lives. I say potentially because we might have been late or delayed or I might have weed myself on the way to the station or a million other things, but all of those things are nothing but grace as was me being so ill Alaric felt justified in not going to work that morning.
Terrorism is a horrendous thing, life taking for political gain, for power, religion, to make a point, to drive the wedge... murder is the only name for it.
It was muslims that time but it followed a tradition of London bombs. Someone asked me how I could still travel on the tube into London - the answer, "The RIA didn't stop us, oil disputes in the 70's did not stop my mother, hell she even had her bank hijacked, so why let this lot?". They weren't all muslims like the RIA were not all the Irish, the point of the bombings was to divide, to make an us and them, sadly with some people they succeeded and that is sad. Muslims were killed on the trains and buses, muslim doctors came and aided people straight away - before anyone really knew what they were dealing with, weather those drs were putting their own lives at risk or not.
Terrorists don't really care who they kill, who they injure or maim, that's kind of the point of the bombs. Ever wondered why we don't have metal bins anymore?
Anyway that is all besides the point. Today there are people remembering loved ones who should but aren't still here and no amount of photos shown on international TV is going to heal the wholes in those families. Later today I am going to light ten candles - one for each year, for the yawning chasm of pain, for those who were lost and those that still bare the scars.
Gah! This morning, my alerting system texted me to say that love (the primary server) can't talk to ihibehu (the backup server in the USA). A quick looked confirmed that we seemed to have some kind of routing loop in level3's network, which was therefore returning "TTL exceeded" to pings. I could connect to ihibehu OK from another network, confirming that it was just a local routing spat of some kind. I shrugged and moved on with life.
However, people started complaining they couldn't resolve DNS for stuff I host, so I had another look. love and ihibehu are both DNS servers (they go by the name of ns0.warhead.org.uk and ns1.warhead.org.uk in that role), and if one is unreachable, then the other should be contacted, so all should have been fine. However, it turned out that the IP address for ns0.warhead.org.uk was still pointing to its old location (and love don't live there anymore), so ns0.warhead.org.uk wasn't "working"; and so for the people whose route to ihibehu went via the routing problem, ns1.warhead.org.uk wasn't working as well.
Oops! One tricky aspect of distributed fault-tolerant systems is that sometimes part of them fails and you don't realise because all the user-visible stuff silently fails over. Therefore, you need to test things below the failover layer to make sure they work individually. Although I check both DNS servers are up, I wasn't checking that the "glue records" mapping the nameserver names to IPs pointed to the right place...
But I clearly remembered sending in the request to the registrar to change the glue record for ns0.warhead.org.uk when I moved it, didn't I? I checked my emails and, yes, I'd send that request, but with all the other stuff I was dealing with in the migration, I never chased it up. And lo, nestled among my spam emails was a response from the registrar, reminding me that I still had access to the interface to do it myself (The registrar used to be me, but I passed that mantle on to somebody else), and suggesting I do so. So it had never gotten done.
"No time like the present, then," I thought, and set out to send in the request, only to find that I don't still have access to the interface, because it also needs a password which I removed from my password databases when I passed control of the registry interface over. Doh!
So I've re-requested that the registrar does it for me. Thankfully, the routing loop has healed up and all is working again while I wait for that to happen. And I'm going to write a test for my glue records being correct into my monitoring system, because that was just sloppy!
Alaric, Metalworking | alaric | 
Tue 21st Jul 2015 10:17 pm | 
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