This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure for more information.
Welding Becky Sue stops for no man—and no pandemic. Each day I trudge out to my welding “shop” and add at least five sections of rebar to Becky Sue. As of today, her body is starting to take shape. Take a gander.
My goal is to have Becky Sue’s frame/skeleton finished by the end of May. Then I can spend the summer welding scrap metal to form her hide and hair.
Thoughts on the Bison Build
No self-respecting blogger—especially one of my esteem—would dare publish a post with less than a hundred words. So I’ve decided to augment this post with my thoughts on the bison build to date. Here we go.
Welding is hard. Each day I wake up and say to myself that I’m going to weld for four or five hours. But I never come close to that audacious goal. Welding is freakin’ hard. I’m good for about two hours—on a good day. Professionals who can weld eight hours a day, five days a week are gods to me.
No-shower days are out of the question. Prior to my welding avocation, I would occasionally declare—much to the chagrin of Mrs. Groovy—a no-shower day. But since I’ve dedicated myself to welding every day, this guilty pleasure is no longer a possibility. You take the flecks of metal spit out from the angle grinder and combine them with the splatter and heat generated from stick welding and you wind up a sweaty, blackened mess.
The humble sharpie is indispensable to welding. In the welding course I took at my local community college, we used a soapstone marker to mark our metal for cutting. That was a perfectly adequate way to mark metal, of course, but I always had a little trouble finding the soapstone mark. White blended in too closely with the color of metal, especially in the glare of overhead lighting. Happily, I came across a YouTube welder who marked his metal with a sharpie. Below is a picture of a sharpie mark on rebar. It makes lining up my cuts super easy.
You literally play with fire, you will literally get burned. I have yet to have a welding session in which a spark from the angle grinder or a tiny glob of molten metal from the welding rod hasn’t penetrated some portion of my protective gear and singed my flesh. The worst is when I’m crouched down doing an overhead weld and a tiny glob of molten metal lands on my knee or thigh. Ouch!
Becky Sue is a very ambitious project for a novice welder. Who in his or her right mind would begin his or her welding career by attempting to weld a life-sized bison? What was I thinking? Couldn’t I have found a more reasonable welding project to profess my undying love for Mrs. Groovy? Well, there’s no turning back now. The good news is that I’m becoming expert in the intricacies of the bison anatomy. The bad news is that my searches for images of bison butts have surely put me on the radar of Google and our national intelligence agencies.
Final Thoughts
Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. I hope you and your loved ones are safe and in good health. And I hope you and loved ones are doing all you can to hasten the end of this wretched pandemic. Peace.
Great stuff. Its true, we play with fire :p and that’s why welding is more fun and I think a career at welding will be more effective after Corona.
Nice content. I appreciate the time and effort.
Yuri Vaneik recently posted…COVID-19 Crisis Poses Threat to Financial Stability
Hi Mr. Groovy
You’re a great person. You’re not sitting on your duff. You’re pushing forward with your project regardless of the coronavirus mayhem. So far the bison looks great. I look forward to seeing this masterpiece when it’s done.
David Smith recently posted…Types of Joints in Welding Explained
Wow! What an idea! Anyway, Stay at your home!
James Johnson recently posted…Hobart Handler 140 Review – Is It The Best Welder For Beginners?
Keep up the good work Mr Groovy! You’ve chosen an excellent stay at home art project for these Corona times
She’s looking great and it’s good to have such a project during these corona times!
Ambitious yes, yet the old saying “no pain – no gain” makes it worth it. I’m impressed with all you’ve done and certain Becky Sue will be amazing!
Shannon@RetiresGreat recently posted…How to Maintain a Positive Attitude in Retirement to Improve Happiness
If you and Fritz have run afoul of the Google Police or the Bison Protective Society and need to be bailed out, let me know.
Looks great! I can’t wait to see the finished product. Glad to see you have the time and skill to create this masterpiece and then share it with us.
“The bad news is that my searches for images of bison butts have surely put me on the radar of Google and our national intelligence agencies.”
Ok, I took the bait and just Googled bison butts. Amazing, the results that query brings. I’m on the radar with you, my friend. We’ll go down together.
Better hurry up and get Becky Sue done before the men in black arrive…