Outline of welding class at i3 Detroit?
Timothy Massey
Hello!
tl;dr: If you are an experienced welder who would be willing to spend a morning to teach a small group of interested students, please get in touch with me, even if you don’t know exactly what you would teach or how you would do it. And if you are a person who would like to learn how to weld over a couple of days please get in touch with me! Read below for all of the details of what I am trying to put together.
With all of your help, I’ve been able to do a little more planning. So here is the concept I have come up with. An evening safety class, followed by two days of welding training and exploration. In the morning, instructor-led training and guidance; in the afternoon, independent work on a specific project. Something like this:
FRIDAY
Evening: Welding safety class (standard i3 offering)
SATURDAY
Morning: Instructor guided Basic/Practical welding techniques
Afternoon: Student independent work
SUNDAY
Morning: Instructor guided Expanded/Artistic welding techniques
Afternoon: Student independent work
In order to put this together, I need two things:
- Experienced welders who want to teach others
- People who want to learn from experienced welders!
I think the hardest thing to find will be experienced welders who want to teach others. Even very experienced welders might be intimidated by the idea of teaching an hours-long session of random strangers. So, to help with that, I’ve thrown together a *very* rough idea of what that might look like. Remember, I know nothing about welding, so this might not make that much sense. But it might give you enough of an idea of what I’m thinking of to make it easy for you to figure out what I actually need. And more importantly, that you will have no problem giving it to us! :-)
BASIC/PRACTICAL WELDING
Instructor led:
Overview of welding techniques: arc, inert gas, torch, etc.
Filler material choices
Temperature, current, voltage, etc. choices
Surface preparation, surface preparation and more surface preparation!
Instructor guided, student performed:
Weld a box (with different techniques?)
Student independent project:
Weld a stool/table/barbecue/third hands/desk organizer
(or maybe all of that is too much, and we simply need to finish welding our box)
EXPANDED/ARTISTIC WELDING
Instructor led:
Dissimilar metals
Overly thin/thick materials
Torch welding/cutting/brazing
Issues with found/scrounged/recycled material
Creative ways of using material
Techniques for attractive (not just functional) welds
Instructor guided, student performed:
Weld a small sculpture: dog/turtle/bicycle
Student independent project:
Weld a lamp stand / sign / birdhouse (or another sculpture!)
If you are an experienced welder, what do you have to do? Let’s say 2 hours telling and showing what you already know, and 2 hours helping us to do what you just showed us. 4 hours total. (If you *want* to stick around for the afternoon after a very fun and tasty lunch, that’s great, but all you have to do is the morning!) That’s it! Hopefully, I can find two people: all you need is one weekend morning. And I will *absolutely* help you to figure out how to put together a plan for that morning if you aren’t quite sure.
If that sounds interesting to you, please get in touch. Let me know what such a session would cost, and any ideas you might have for what it looks like or what projects you would recommend. I am excited to hear your ideas!
And now, for those of us who don’t know how to weld but would like to learn how, what do you need to do? Your job is simple: get in touch with me! I’d like to have an idea of whether a weekend long session like this would work for you, and what you would reasonably be willing to pay for such a session. Obviously there will need to be a cost to pay for the instructors’ time, the materials we will need, as well as any fees that I three will need to host us.
Again, please get in touch. Any feedback is appreciated. And in order to keep the traffic down for those who aren’t interested, please get in touch with me directly. Feel free to reply to me directly via email, or feel free to text: 586-945-8796. I look forward to hearing from you.
Tim Massey
Rachel Falls
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Juuni
On Jul 6, 2026, at 21:32, Timothy Massey <tma...@modernmerchant.com> wrote:
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Brett Guay
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Bryan Williams
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