Guy in a beat up Civic taught me how to weld at the Pick-N-Pull

I was stuck trying to pull a control arm off a junkyard Accord in Phoenix last summer, and this random dude walked over, handed me his flux core welder, and showed me how to tack a nut onto a stripped bolt. He said 'you're overthinking it, just melt some metal on there and twist.' Has anyone else gotten a random lesson from a stranger that saved you more than a few bucks?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugos676d ago

Went from thinking welding was some high skill trade only pros could do to realizing it's basically just a hot glue gun for metal after watching a guy fix a cracked exhaust hanger on a minivan in a parking lot. He gave me his spare mask and let me burn through a few practice beads on an old bumper. Honestly, that ten minute lesson saved me like four hundred bucks when my truck's frame bracket rusted off a year later. Tbh I still mess up grinds and blow holes sometimes but now I know the basics well enough to patch up anything that rattles. Ngl it changed my whole view on what kind of stuff you can learn from random strangers if you just shut up and watch.

jason_kelly86d ago

Hot glue gun comparison is way too generous. A hot glue gun doesn't leave you with a pool of molten metal that can burn through your boot if you sneeze wrong. I watched a buddy weld a trailer hitch in his driveway, and he spent the next hour grinding out all the slag and pitted spots he made because his angle was off. One bad weld on a frame bracket can crack under load and turn a parking lot fix into a highway disaster. You got lucky with that minivan guy, but that's not a skill you can fake your way through with ten minutes and a spare mask.