I spent a large part of the weekend taking a class at The Crucible, a cool, local non-profit that focuses on the more industrial parts of arts. I was taking a general welding class that exposed us to all four main types of welding - arc/stick, MIG, TIG and oxyacetylene.

It was a very interesting class and once I decide what I want to do with it, I will probably take some follow on in-depth classes. One surprising thing to me was the quality of the teachers. Having taking a number of classes in different things, I've found that people who are good at doing something aren't always good at teaching it. In this case, each of the different types of welding was taught by a different teacher and they were all excellent.

Out of the four types, oxyacetylene was the most fun and MIG seemed the most practical. TIG would also be useful, but I'm not sure if the extra cost, and difficulty, would be worth it unless I was going to do something that required it like working with aluminum. Arc/stick welding seemed nicely affordable but was by far the most difficult and the most work.