Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

If you're a gearhead and tool enthusiast like I am you will be happy to know that there is now solid intellectual support for our passions. Matthew Crawford has a PHD in philosophy from the University of Chicago, but he's also been a Porsche mechanic and a motorcycle repairman. He quit a prestigious job at a Washington DC think tank to start an unassuming motorcycle repair shop on the seedy side of Richmond, Virginia.


By all means get your hands on a copy of this book.  I'm in the middle of reading the book right now and couldn't wait to blog about it. I'll do a more extensive review in the coming days. Buy the book using this link to help support the Shop Kulture blog.

"It's appropriate that [Shop Class as Soulcraft] arrives in May, the month when college seniors commence real life. Skip Dr. Seuss, or a tie from Vineyard Vines, and give them a copy for graduation.... It's not an insult to say that Shop Class is the best self-help book that I've ever read. Almost all works in the genre skip the "self" part and jump straight to the "help." Crawford rightly asks whether today's cubicle dweller even has a respectable self....It's kind of like Heidegger and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."
-Slate

Report #1 From Welding Class

I originally wanted to post after every class, but it has been a little hard to keep up. Along with writing for this blog and going to welding school, I've been try to manage my photos better, be my own webmaster and hold down a job. In any case, I've had five welding class sessions so far!! We are welding aluminum with the TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas) process , also know as GTAW (Gas Tungsten Arc Welding). I have played around with welding for nearly 30 years and I must say that welding school is a humbling experience! And just when I thought I was catching on the instructor switched us from welding on a flat surface to welding on vertical.

Below is an example of my work in the flat position (welded while the material was lying flat on my welding table). Not great, but not too bad for a guy with only a couple of hours experience with the GTAW process. I should also mention that both of these examples are on pretty thin aluminum stock (0.062"/1.575mm).




But then I started working in the vertical up position (material held in a vertical orientation while welding from bottom to top). Ooops! Looks like a chicken pooped on my metal.







I think there are about ten more weeks, so twenty (20) more class sessions, left in this Fall 2009 semester. Im sure that I will need to take classes at least through the Spring 2010 semester to have made good progress on both the TIG/GTAW and stick/SMAW welding processes. There might be a summer semester available too, but beyond that I will have to move on to other areas of the metal working arts and sciences ;-)