Learning welding #2

During our conversations on welding, I have taken the role of absolute beginner while Flip explains the intricacies of welding to me. Apart from the need to learn welding skills along with the skills to be an independent learner, I was interested to find out what nuances are of importance in welding.

One important nuance is the role of sound in welding. A point which I did not pick up on in any of the workbooks or text books I have been reading on welding. As with much tacit knowledge, the importance of sound in developing skill in welding is so well known to experts that they neglect to mention the role of sound in learning how to weld. For instance, Flip told me about the importance of sound almost as an aside as he explains how he detects whether students are completing welds correctly as each student works in their individual welding booths. He uses the sound of welding as a way to pinpoint students who are experiencing difficulties with a weld.

This video contains good pointers to what to listen out for when accomplishing a weld. Here is another one, covering the setting up of the arc welding machine with a tip about listening to the sounds produced by the electric arc to be able to work out how well the weld is progressing.

A google scholar search reveals a few papers from the academic engineering community on the relationships between the sound of a weld and how it is progressing.  A Japanese technical paper studying arc welding sound & its relation to various aspects of the welding action plus a Chinese paper on gas tungsten argon welding are examples of research carried out in this area.

So one focus of our project will be to try to find out how long it takes students to acquire the auditory cues important in indentifying stages in the welding process and how sound may assist with trouble shooting when undertaking a weld. We meet with students this week and begin the collection of video & audio evidence of student learning activities so this project is moving along to plan.