As far back as I can remember, Burtdad's always been welding things up, making storage, trailers and towing gear, folding beds, and all manner of other gizmos. And it's long been in the back of my head to get into the same lark. But welding's a proper thing. It's not like you just grab yourself a welder and start bashing out motorbikes and play parks. There's a bunch of gear, techniques and expense that make it a serious decision. Well, all that aside, I took the plunge. But as with everything, there's cheap gear and there's good gear. As a beginner, I've obviously gone for the cheapest crap I could find, and that, as always, was an excellent idea.

Being a manifester, I put it out there and waited patiently for my neighbor to throw out a pair of welding gloves, a roll of steel and a thick iron plate, so I could get to experimenting without having to spend any more money (have you seen the price of steel?). A week later, his garage door flew open and all his junk fell out onto the street, free to any tatters who might want it (true story). Delighted at my finds, today was the day.

First, I cut a few little scraps off of one of the steel sheets, using my tin snips.

A little awkward, but they work well.

Then, using the angle grinder and a medium grit flap disc, I removed the metal coating.

You can't weld galvanized steel. Not a good idea. Bench vice provided by Toys-Я-Us*.

With the metal bare, I was ready to have a go at this game, once and for all.
Safety, first, kids.

Ironman helmet. Check.

Aunt Eileen's driving gloves. Check.

That's enough of that business. Let's get welding.

As you can see, my first weld was a thing of beauty, burning right through the metal and leaving the place stinky. Tweak the voltage, if you can. My cheap-o welder only has MIN and MAX. Dammit, that's lame. I'm gonna have to return it. That's embarrassing.

After burning through a few test pieces, I concluded that my MIG welder is probably not going to be an easy toy to work with, when it comes to delicate and important jobs, like finally repairing that gaping hole in my floor. I'll have to get to that later. It's waited six years. It can wait a bit longer. The wire feed speed was a bit tricky to get right, but I remembered to cut the excess wire with the pliers before starting again, which helped to stay on track.

The drama that goes on around here, eh?

Eager to practice the technique, and not to spend all day fiddling with the settings, I broke out that sheet of iron I found and cleaned it up. There was no way I was going to burn through that.

This time, a regular grinding disc, not one of those flimsy flap discs. Those are for girls.

A clean spot and a few beads that border on acceptable. Not terrible for a n00b.

After a bit more drama of the orange-and-teal grade, my day's work was done.

It's not my fault every movie has this color scheme.

What more could you ask for?

* Other mass-importers of toxic plastic crap are available.