Chapter 14: Learning Curves

“Ow! Fuck! Shit!”

I straightened up from spraying the primer coat on the buggy frame. I looked through the open door of the shop and found Trinity dancing around her weld-up station, patting frantically at her neck and lower back. I smirked, recognizing the nooby welder ‘macarena’. She was working on her overhead butt welds. Overhead welding was difficult at best, but essential to master for the 4G certification test she hoped to take soon.

She stumbled out the door pulling her leather coat off and cursing under her breath. I could smell burning material and reached over to turn her around. She had a black line running down her shirt with small holes burnt along it. “Fuck! That hurts like a Bitch!” she snarled as I grabbed the Alocaine gel and applied a few globs to the red marks on her skin.

“Lucky it didn’t go down your britches,” I replied grinning.

“Why is it so hard?” she whined, pulling her hood off and stomping her foot angrily.

“Let’s go take a look.”

I looked over the ruined plate and showed her how to correct it. “Why don’t you grind that one out and practice on it again and I think you will have it good enough to try a test run.” My phone dinged alerting me to a visitor at the top of the rim. I tapped the pop-up window and saw Randy with my 40-foot unmodified ISO container, heading down the ravine slowly. I had already prepared the site and he would have no problem moving it into place and dropping it off.

I quickly finished the primer coat and wandered over to the mine entrance site. There was a wide double doorway marked on the face of the cliff where I planned to begin blasting. The holes were already drilled and ready for the dynamite charges. I had cleared the ground outward from it and added a layer of packed gravel for the metal container to lay on. I had also dug a ditch and buried a 6-inch PVC conduit pipe that I ran the power cables through, from my big generator. Eventually, they would supply electricity for the lighting and ventilation as the tunnel progressed.

It took him about 40 minutes to navigate the winding road down to the clearing. He already knew where the unit was going so, I stood by and watched as he turned his rig precisely where he needed to, to back the trailer into the exact spot he intended. 20 minutes later it was in place and I offered him a cup of coffee along with his payment. We walked over to the shop and carport where Trinity’s buggy project sat in various stages of completion.

“Looks like y’all are doing a bang-up job rebuilding it,” he commented as he stepped around the body and inspected the new fiberglass shell that would cover it when completed. It was still flat gray from the factory.

“Trin has been putting in a lot of hours on it,” I agreed, “I have to say she is focused and determined when she sets her mind to something.” As if on cue she stepped out of the shop wearing her welding hood with the visor up. She was holding a flat black piece of steel in vice grips and heavy leather gloves. When she saw Randy she smiled brightly, her face smudged with black soot and dirt.

“Hi Randy!” she chirped excitedly, waving the coupon at me, “check it out! I did it!” she almost squealed excitedly. The coupon was essentially a 5-inch square piece of 3/8” thick steel that was cut in half, beveled on two edges, and then welded back together. To test the weld the piece was ground down to its original appearance and then cut in half. Each piece was then placed into a press and bent into a U shape. Bad welds typically crack, snap, or split apart during the bend.

I took the vice grip from her and looked over her welds closely. They were spot on. “Good,” I told her receiving a giddy grin in return, “remember though, when you are testing at the school, the instructor will want to see your root pass before you fill it. Same with your cover.” I handed it back to her, “This is good work. Go grind it down and cut your coupons and we’ll see how it does.”

She turned and dashed back into the container. A second later loud grinding could be heard from within.

“SMAW?” Randy asked and I nodded.

I nodded and pointed to an old 55-gallon barrel nearly full of cast-off pieces of welded-up iron, including angle iron, square and round tubes, and countless chunks of bar stock. “She’s picked it up pretty well.”

“You have her doing any wire feed yet?” he asked and I nodded again.

“More to get a feel for it than anything else,” I replied, “I think she will master GMAW and flux core even faster than stick. I did anyways.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “You think she is up for a little side work?” he asked, “I have a couple of projects at the wrecking yard that might be just the thing for her.” He pulled out his phone and scrolled through several pictures until he found one of a large boxy-looking frame fabricated out of a 2-inch angle.

I studied it for a moment and nodded. “Are these recycling bins or something?”

He nodded. “I need a couple more made up. And I can use her for other odd jobs too.”

A few minutes later we heard a raucous cry of victory from inside the shop. Trinity came dancing outside with a U-shaped coupon gripped in her heavy leather gauntlet. She began dancing the Running Man and Gangnam style, while she belted out, “I did it! I did it! uh huh, uh huh, uh huh!” Even in heavy leather welding duds, she had a way of moving her hips in a suggestive way that captured the attention and held it.

Ryan Applegate was surprisingly young for being the Director of the Welding and Fabrication Division at the local community college. I figured him to be in his late 20’s or early 30’s at most. He stood and came out from behind his desk when we entered his office. He was solidly built with no trace of fat on his 6’3” frame and kept his brown hair cropped short. He sported a pair of prescription safety glasses and had orange foam pillows stuffed in his ears for protection.

He eyed Trinity appreciatively for a moment before nodding to me and shaking my hand. “You must be Mr. Davis,” he said by way of greeting, “we spoke yesterday afternoon.” He turned and held out his hand for Trin to shake, “And you must be his daughter Trinity.” She nodded shyly. She wore a well-used backpack that contained her leather coat, gauntlets, and several pre-cut coupons. She carried her bright green and pink welding hood in its protective bag.

He handed us each a pair of safety glasses and earplugs and then led us through a heavy door into the welding area. The room was huge with one side devoted to several rows of segregated welding stations. There were multiple round kiosks in the center of the room devoted to Oxy/acetylene welding and brazing. The remainder of the area contained several large bench brakes, a massive table shear, and a metal lathe. The noise of many grinders, hammers, welders, and powerful exhaust fans, competed for a near-deafening orchestra of chaos. Students of various ages (all male) stopped whatever they were doing to ogle the small but solidly stacked young lady with her bright green framed glasses. She diffidently ignored them all as we followed Ryan to a SMAW station. Perhaps it was intentional that he put her up front and on display.

“This is our primary workshop where we work on stick, MIG, and TIG. There is another fabrication area over there with the grinding shop and pipe fitting areas. The classroom is back behind these cubicles,” he said absently as he indicated her work area. A Miller Multimatic welder sat beneath the workbench. She placed her blanks and hood on the bench and hung her bag on a nearby hook. We followed him over to the rod oven where she selected a handful of rods. “Go ahead and set up your welder how you want it and run a few test beads to make sure you’re happy with it,” he instructed, “then you can tack your coupons together.”

I stayed back as he instructed her on the conditions of her testing criteria. Once she acknowledged her understanding he led me back to the office. He provided me with a folder of admissions paperwork and the billing slip that I had to take to the registrar’s office to pay for the test. As I filled out the forms he required, Trinity returned with her tacked-up coupons. He approved them with a glance and went to follow her back out to set up her 4G test.

“Come find me in the cafeteria when you’re done,” I told her. She gave me a gauntleted thumbs up and followed Mr. Applegate back to her station. Every pair of eyes in the shop was glued to the curves of her tight body as she sauntered by. I smirked at the thought of her enrolling in the fabrication program here.

I was sitting outside the commons area drinking a mediocre cup of coffee when I spotted her making her way across the large open patio area. She carried her gear over her shoulder and held two yellow and pink papers possessively against her chest. She was gazing around herself curiously at the crowds of young people going to and fro. I could tell she was trying to adjust to the idea of so much humanity confined to one area. Many eyes were openly staring back at her as she approached the building that housed the cafeteria, library, and various assembly halls.

Her expression changed subtly and she swept her gaze evenly across the umbrella-covered tables until she spotted me grinning back at her. Her face became brighter and she got a skip in her step as she made directly for me. She was waving the papers excitedly as she bounced forward until she stopped in front of me and jumped excitedly up and down a few times before thrusting them at me. There was never any doubt in my mind that she would pass the test. But I made a point of reviewing each form to give her the reward she was due.

I stood and let her jump me and hug me tightly, unmindful of her bag and helmet that stabbed me painfully. “I did it!” she squealed, making a scene around her. I felt my neck warm as she released her death grip from my neck.

“One down kiddo,” I grinned back at her. I pointed to the large bag on the table and she abruptly dropped all her things and sat before it.

“What’s this?” she asked excitedly as she began pawing through the various textbooks.

“I wandered through the library and found several of the texts and workbooks they use for their fabrication and welding programs, so I bought them.” I pulled a thick soft cover manual out and showed it to her. It was the GED course guide. She was less than two months away from her set goal of challenging the equivalency test.