Teaching Welding Merit Badge

[GoMangoBoys]

I have been absent from the forum for a while now.  I have been swamped with everything from being on the road helping relatives move to painting rental apartments.  Lately, I have been consumed with teaching scouts to weld.  For 10 years I have been teaching the Welding Merit Badge for the Boy Scouts.   I did a class this spring and the scouts have been coming to weld.  I spend 3-4 hours for 2 scouts at a time to weld, not counting prep time.  I also spend about 3 hours for all the scouts at once in 2 different lecture sessions with power point slides and videos.  I had a class of about 15 scouts this time from 2 different troops.  I also just taught a friend's 20 year old daughter to weld who is considering going into that as a career.
The attached pictures are from the 20-year-old girl.  I do not do this with the scouts, but since she did really well with the MIG, I let her do some TIG also. 

The 20-year-old girl who is not a scout makes a total of 64 kids that I have taught since I started doing this in 2012.  3 of the scouts were girls and they were some of the better welders.  The 20-year-old girl can now weld better than me, which isn't saying much.  This is what it is to have good hand-eye coordination which I do not. Currently, 2 young men that I taught are doing it professionally.

Here are some videos of the 20 year old girl welding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgCMgV5KWhE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxMPZuaDaZk

[Mr Lee]

That's excellent.  Not many kids, or adults get introduced to welding.  It's fun and it's a very useful skill.  If you can weld, you can fix almost anything - even a loose handle on a spaghetti pot (one of the last things I fixed with my tig welder, hehe). 
Anyway, that must be a good feeling knowing that the ones doing it professionally got their start with you.  Kudos.  Most kids today are mechanically inept. 

[jimynick]

Good on you for passing on your knowledge and spending your time to do so! Great to see some of the younger generation learn a useful skill that doesn't involve a computer, as well! 

[73440]

Good to see the kids learning and good for teaching them.

Last year my 9 year old nephew took a welding class in the summer. Also made a wood chair.
One of his 1st comments to his dad was that he wanted to be a welder.

Will try to find one of his 1st welds.

As you said @GoMangoBoys , the hand eye dynamic when young is better.
And they are having fun , not realizing 'it's fun and it's real but not real fun after 45 years at times as with all jobs.

[anlauto]

Around here welders are always in demand, so you're giving these kids a great career path too if they want to work, welding is a good paying job as well, try welding under water

[Katfish]

Is there an age limit to join the scouts?   

I bought a welder a couple of years ago and just couldn't teach myself.

Congrats on doing something so valuable and rewarding!

[71vert340]

 @GoMangoBoys.  I noticed you had not been on here in a while and was wondering how you were doing on the Challenger. Seems hard to believe it was over a year ago when I visited you. I too work with scouts and am an Automotive merit badge counselor. I hope to at least give them enough knowledge, so they don't get ripped off when they need car repairs. It's fun. Take care and enjoy the time working with them.
Terry W.

[70vert]

That is awesome, great work!
I am an Eagle Scout and learned a lot earning badges, camping, working & leading others, etc. I wish I had the opportunity to get a welding merit badge! Scouting had a big impact on my ability to live life (:

[GoMangoBoys]

@Katfish   I have taught many grownups too.  Again, I am totally self-taught and not very good IMHO, but I have been able to give people the basics.  Here is the video that I used to teach myself to MIG weld.  I found it to be very informative.  I bought the DVD many years ago but have found the full-length version of it on Youtube.  I use clips of this to show when I teach the scouts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNp8H5yHkME
If you were closer, I would invite you over.

[GoMangoBoys]

@71vert340   The car is coming slowly.  I have been too distracted by other things  My boy will be home for a semester working a co-op job nearby, so I am hoping with him here for 15 weeks, we can push the project over the finish line.  Automotive Merit Badge is one that I gave a lot of consideration to teaching.  Sadly, it is NOT one that either of my boys earned.  One son earned 38, and the other earned 68, but not Automotive Merit Badge.  I think they have learned plenty of Automotive stuff despite not earning the badge.  I also taught the Electricity, Electronics, Programming, and Robotics merit badges and as a result, my younger son who is doing the Challenger project learned that programming was for him.  He is now in his 2nd year as a Software Engineering major.

[Filthy Filbert]

Awesome!

Pre-Covid, we used to do that here at EWI in columbus.    an all day long event on a saturday.  we'd bring in 20-30 kids and do the merit badge in one shot. 

By the end of their hands-on portion, we had them doing fillet welds, and writing their name with bead on plate.    Also gave them a shop tour of all things welding and additive manufacturing, and a healthy dose of welding careers, from hands-on welder working oil fields and pipe lines to welding engineering figuring out what metals to alloy together for different chemistries/strength properties, etc.

[YellowThumper]

So great to read all of this.
The simple basics of understanding and seeing will open so many mental doors that typical peer knowledge never brings.
Openening potential doors to lifelong careers.
One step at a time.