[Swedishfika]

Hello everyone!
Just found this awesome forum and been reading up for the last few days.

After my Laxxon 125 (Esab Miggy 125) gave up a few weeks ago i finally took the step of swapping my old mig for a new combo-machine.
I chose the Migatronic Rally mig 161i, which is a mig, stick and scratch start tig in one. Unpacked it a week ago and been out in my very limited shop space every night since then. I have never learned tig so i now have a big challenge ahead of me. But enough about me, what is really great is that my 9-year old son are taking interest in welding since i let him try the mig. So far he´s been running practice beads, but tonight he did his first real welding project. Took him about 20 minutes to weld together the M10 nuts to this shape.
Kids really do learn fast. Bet he is also going to learn tig way faster then me
Now i just gotta get my daughter interested as well.

Anyone else have a little helper around their shop?

[Gdarc21]

Thats cool mate, it is a great idea to teach em just make sure the helmet lens and safety gear is ok they dont seem to like flash and ray burn much and it probably would be worse for them than us at that age.
I teach a couple of mine, I spent years in industry and they hand me my backside quickly regardless. I must be a great instructor sure thats it
With automated shopping and such these kids are going to find it difficult to find work to work their way through college /uni so trade skills cant hurt.
In anycase, Hi and welcome.

[Oscar]

If it were my child he would be wearing a 3M respirator with 2297 pancake filters.

[Swedishfika]

Thanks guys! Spending time in the shop is an awesome way to hang out with the kids.

Oscar: You´re absolutely right! I wasn´t thinking the whole way there. Never been very careful wearing masks myself so i really appriciate the reminder. A mask is now manditory for him and will be used more often then before for me. Here´s kid V2.0

IMG_9151.JPG (6.37 MiB) Viewed 1809 times

[Gdarc21]

Hey mate, thats a very patient model you have there, he wont need that, at least I dont think so.
Its still gotta be fun, tig is good for not much fumes, stay away from galvanised stuff and some electroplated stuff. Dont spray stuff on metal you intend to weld etc
Otherwise just have a ventilated shed and have fun. The arc ray is the real worry, just cover up and learn stuff together. Other than Oscar's videos(absolultely no offence intended) I can not remember seeing a professional welder wear a respirator except for Galvanised, carbon arc, flux core, poorly ventilated stick welding. Obvoiusly anything will hurt in large doses but I don't think your kids gonna spend that long tigging stainless to get argo-lung or chro mo poisoning, i.e. forgetting where your keys are and failing at crosswords
Smile and melt stuff

[Swedishfika]

Well, sure it may be a bit overkill. BUT...kids learn and accept and if i tell him he needs to wear it to weld it´s not gonna be a problem. An other thing to concider is that kids airways are less capable to handle pollutions so it´s really a no-brainer. I wan´t him to take better care of him self than i´ve done with myself. For instance i grew up racing go-carts. Every time we came home from a training session or a race i cleaned my own cart. This was done by pouring a couple of decilitres of petrol in a cup and then i stood there (inside the garage) with a brush and washed all the oil away from the frame while dizzy from fumes.
It´s crazy really when you think about it...

[Gdarc21]

Yeah thats cool, I get it. The mask Oscar suggested will be a bit more comfortable though, but that one will do.