10 May, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

Welding for Beginners

All the gear we needed for welding

Tonight I continued my nine week workshop practice course at AUT. We completed the lathe machine work last week so it was time for another rotation, and this time we were introduced to welding. Our teaching assistant’s name was Makirai Henry and he gave us a prep talk before we started. He emphasised the importance of wearing our eye protection helmets to prevent us from getting “arc eyes”, a painful eye condition caused by exposure to bright light. We were sent to our booths to set up our welding machines and make sure all the settings were set correctly. When we gathered around in a group again, Makirai told us that we would be beginning with arc welding and demonstrated how to make a simple weld. At first it looked pretty scary because of all the sparks flying around everywhere, but he reassured us that it was simple to ignite the stick once we got used to it. We took turns striking the metal to start the weld and I was pretty nervous when it was my turn. I wasn’t so much worried about the sparks by that time, but just the fact that I was effectively blindfolded when I had my helmet on since the lens was so dark. That meant that I couldn’t even see where I was striking the arc and I didn’t want to miss the metal obviously!

This was the welding machine we used to do arc welding

Our first task with our welding machines was just to make simple lines of welds keeping them even and straight. My first couple of welds were quite terrible to be honest; they probably wouldn’t hold anything together! But after a while I started getting the hang of it, and by the time I was up to my 6th weld, things were looking a whole lot better. I was even complimented by Makirai, the welding man. At the end of the session, we were told to dump our pieces of metal in the rubbish but I decided to hang on to mine, since it was my first welding experience. It doesn’t really have any use though, perhaps maybe just a paper-weight.

I’ve only got another two weeks left of my workshop practice at AUT and then it will be all over. Despite initially feeling a little apprehensive about spending 3 hours every week in a workshop, I think I’m actually going to miss it when it’s all over. Next week we’ll be finishing off arc welding before moving on to mig welding. I wonder what that will be like.

22 March, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

My Drill Gauge

I started the week by attending a Class Rep training session in the Musgrove Studio at the Maidment Theatre today. It was my first time in the Maidment Theatre and it reminded me of the old Performing Arts room we used to have at Rutherford College. There were quite a few Class Reps who showed up but I don’t think there were any others from the Engineering Faculty. The purpose of the training was just to get a general idea about what Class Reps actually do. We were given a few scenarios where students had problems (either with the course or the lecturer or something else) and we had to suggest different ways we could try to solve their problem. The whole training only lasted an hour so it wasn’t too strenuous. Rose invited me to play squash with her and Angie at 11am so after the Class Rep training I went over to the Engineering building to get the squash racquets from my locker. The underpass to the Engineering building was dark because the lights hadn’t been turned on yet, and as I was entering the underpass I took a photo because it looked somewhat inspirational, analogous to the phrase “light at the end of the tunnel”.

There's always light at the end of a tunnel

When I arrived at the gym Rose was already waiting for me. I also saw another familiar face too – Si-Yu (I don’t know if that’s the right spelling). I hadn’t seen that guy since the junior years at Rutherford because he moved to Auckland Grammar Boys’ after a couple of years. He joined us down on the squash court and for a supposed first-time player, he was actually pretty good! I don’t know how he managed to play for so long in jeans and a dress shirt though! When we finished playing squash at 12pm, I went to have lunch with Rose and Annette. Coincidentally we bumped into Caleb Moses and Sue Hur at one of the cafes in the quad, so we joined them at their table.

The hacksaws were really loud

Tonight I had my second workshop at AUT. We spent tonight’s session finishing off our drill gauges from last week. I had two more holes left to drill before I could hack-saw the edges. The hack-saws were irritatingly loud, especially with 15 people screeching at the same time. I was worried for the welfare of my ears, though thankfully it didn’t last for too long. After the sawing it was back to the good ol’ file from last week to smooth down the remaining edges. We also had to file the corners with a 6mm radius at each corner. Finally after polishing the whole gauge with sandpaper, the last thing to do was to hammer in some markings. We punched in the size of each hole and also named our drill gauges at the top with lettered punch bits. Yay for my first workshop project being completed!

Me with my drill gauge and teaching assistant Paul Elliot

Since there were no buses left that went to Te Atatu after I finished my workshop, I had to catch a bus that went through New Lynn. I took the next bus that arrived at Sky City and it happened to be the 113; the bus that goes down every side street there is! Before long, I was already having a nap on the bus but I was woken by a loud thud half-way through the trip. When I woke up most of the people had already gotten off the bus but there was one Asian lady sitting behind me. I turned to her after I heard the loud thud and she started talking to me in Mandarin. I couldn’t understand some of what she was saying but I picked out a few familiar phrases about what I was studying and about my family. I tried to reply with my broken Mandarin and I think she could understand the general gist of what I was trying to say. After she got off the bus at the Glendene BP station, I realised how much Mandarin I had forgotten since High School! I really should keep up my Chinese or else I’ll start forgetting everything else too!

15 March, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

The Art of Filing

Fire drill at the gym

When I got to Uni, I met up with Rose and Angie at the gym to play squash. It was the first time I had played squash for the year so I was understandably a little rusty. Not long into our squash sesh, we heard a continuous alarm ringing. Initially we just ignored it but after ringing for more than ten seconds, we assumed it was a fire drill. Sure enough, all the people down in the gym were also heading up the stairs as we shuffled outside in a big mob of sweat. It was a relief to get some fresh air once we made it outside; I’m sure the others felt like they could do with a bit of a cool-down too. Luckily we didn’t have to wait too long before we were allowed back in, and we continued playing squash until nearly half-past eleven. 

I played squash with Rose and Angie at the Uni gym

The workshop is located on St Pauls Street

There wasn’t much time to get ready after my last lecture finished at 5pm. I had to go upstairs to my locker to get my gear before making my way across the road to find out where this workshop was being held at AUT. It wasn’t that much of a mission to find actually; the small lecture room was nearly full by the time I arrived. We were introduced to the University before being given an outline of what we’re going to do over the 9-week course. We were then split into three groups and sent to different workshops. I was put into Group 1 with our teaching assistant being Paul, this guy who looks a lot like the main character in the Eddie Murphy film The Nutty Professor. For the first three weeks our group is going to be doing “bench” work. Our project is to contruct a drill gauge with a piece of metal. The first task we were assigned to do was to file the edge of the piece of metal. You’d think it’s simple but as I found out, it’s actually really hard to get the surface completely flat. I spent the better part of 40 minutes just filing this darn piece of metal trying to even out the surface.

My first workshop was spent filing a piece of metal

Even when I thought it was straight enough, the flatness test we used didn’t agree with my judgement! I should probably explain what I mean by the “flatness test”. There was this metal table with ink on its surface and we had to rub the edge of our piece of metal we were filing on to this table. If the edge of the metal was flat, the whole edge would be painted blue by the ink, otherwise the gaps indicated where the lower sections were on the piece of metal. 

Finally when I managed to get the edge straight, I had to do the same for the adjacent side and file it flat… at right angles! I thought it would take forever, but surprising it didn’t take too long; maybe I was beginning to master the technique of filing. Next thing to do was mark out where to drill the different sized holes on piece of metal. We had space to drill holes ranging from 3-10mm with 1mm increments. I got all my holes drilled by the end of the workshop so next week I’ll only have to do a few finishing touches before I’ll have my very own drill gauge!