My first job was as a factory labourer, but during my lunch hours taught myself to weld and ended up on the bench. Mostly furniture, balustrading, shop fittings and so on, oxy and stick. I worked at this for five years, then off and on for the next five years before joining the RAAF. I ended up a damn good welder, could weld pretty well anything but never tried aluminium until a couple of years ago. Sadly lack of practice and health problems have seen my skills deteriorate, I very rarely weld now, just the odd job here and there, but I can still stick weld 1.5mm thick steel. The trade has changed a lot since I left it 50 years ago, back then mig and tig were unheard of, everything was welded with oxy or stick.
