Chris Santistevan and John Hams (left to right)

At Arc-Zone.com we get some interesting customers, and Chris Santistevan is no exception. He not only a trapeze artist he is a welder too!

At night he dazzles visitors at the Las Vegas Ultimate Variety Show (see video below).

By day, however, he can be seen fabricating stainless steel above-ground pools for high rise hotels in the city.

Chris called us up looking for a good tungsten grinding solution– Arc-Zone.com offers the industry’s most comprehensive line up of tungsten sharpeners.

He was concerned that his newer employees were wasting a lot of time dressing tungsten on side grinders, and they were getting inconsistent welds.  We got him hooked up with a Sharpie DX-K pro-kit, and he told us a little bit about his work.

Chris fabricates stainless steel custom pool liners as well as  supply pipes, flanges, and tubes.  I didn’t know this, but evidently it’s a requirement that hotels with pools above the twelfth floor have the pool made entirely from TIG welded stainless steel!

Once completed, the pool is then sprayed with gunite to look like  a traditional pool.   As Chris points out, no one ever actually gets to see his work, but it is critical to the safety of the hotel nonetheless!

Check out this  welder/sculptor Kevin Caron.  He works primarily in stainless steel to create free-standing kinetic sculptures, like the ones below.  The following video shows how he creates one of his railroad tie sculptures (like this one), from beginning to end.  Enjoy!

The following are two of my favorites:  an unfinished staircase reaching up into the heavens, and a hand tree– literally, a tree with hands for leaves.
For videos of Kevin making these and other sculptures, you can go to his YouTube account here –>

Hands On -- commission, City of Avondale Avondale, Arizona -- steel, powder-coated steel 168" x 145" x 146" -- created 2009

Aspire -- steel 102" x 21" x 21" -- created 2004

This has to be my favorite topic post ever from the Miller Discussion Boards. It started three years ago, and amazingly, continues up until, probably whenever you’re reading this! From the over five hundred responses I picked out twenty of my favorites – see if you recognize any!

You Might Be a Welder If…

Got any more YMBAWI quotes?  Let’s start another marathon thread here!

At the beginning of September this year, way up north in Calgary, Alberta, hundreds of young professionals from all over the world competed in WorldSkills 2009.  Participants competed in areas ranging anywhere from bricklaying and hairdressing to robotics and floristry.

However, since this is a welding blog, you’ll probably be leaning toward the construction metal works, welding, and sheet metal technology categories.

This is what WorldSkills International has to say about it:

Power. Passion. Precision. Craftsmanship. Camaraderie. Competition!

These six words represent the thrill, excitement and spirit of WorldSkills International.

Every two years, hundreds of the best young professionals from trades, service and technical programs around the world gather to showcase their talents and abilities.  This thrilling, high-performance, four day WorldSkills Competition is the biggest event of its kind in the world.

WorldSkills International was established in 1950. Today it is made up of 51 Member countries/regions worldwide. Participants compete for gold, silver, and bronze medals – striving to excel in world-class standards in 45 skill categories, ranging from cabinetmaking to web design.

Yet WorldSkills International is more than just a head-to-head challenge between aspiring professionals. It is a unique, not-for-profit, non-political, non-denominational association whose Members are responsible for promoting vocational education and training in their respective countries/regions.

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For more information, you can go to the WorldSkills Calgary website HERE.

As only the second Canadian host of this event in its 59-year history, WorldSkills Calgary 2009 is proudly hosting The 40th WorldSkills Competition from September 1 – 7, 2009. Over 900 international Competitors will compete simultaneously in 45 skill categories during four days of intense Competition on Stampede Park in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Hailed as the pinnacle of global skills, trades, and technology competition, this biennial event promotesWelding, construction metal works, and sheet metal technology excellence and international competency industry standardsCONTINUE READING ONLINE -

“Leave your lighters in the locker rooom.”  That’s the advice of the folks from Mythbusters on welding with a lighter in your pocket.  Don’t believe them (or your coworkers)?  Check out this video:

100 miles.  1 gallon.  Go! That’s the premise behind the upcoming One Gallon Challenge – a contest for alternative fuel vehicles to see who can get to Boston from Greenfield the fastest on one gallon of gas, if at all.

Contestants hope to drive the future into Boston

By Laura A. Bennett, Globe Correspondent

(Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe)

Roo Trimble has been holed up in his backyard shed for months. Hunched amid whirring saws and jagged metal scraps, he has been welding the aluminum skeleton of a small car, smoothing the joints between the latticed pipes, aligning the wheels, and climbing in and out of the metal hull to make sure he can fit snugly – but not too snugly – inside.

Trimble hopes the three-wheeled, almond-shaped contraption will carry him to victory Thursday in a first-time event called the One Gallon Challenge. As part of the second Boston GreenFest, Trimble and six others will attempt to drive their homemade cars from Greenfield to Boston City Hall Plaza, a distance of 100 miles, using just 1 gallon of gasoline.

“These days,’’ Trimble said, wiping his brow with the back of one hand, “we need to think about taking the snail shells off our cars – not dragging our house with us everywhere we go.’’

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“Home, home on the range… where the deer and iron triceratops play…”

Wait, that’s not how you heard that song growing up?  Hmm…  Well, perhaps John Lopez heard a different version, and you’ll see what I mean, once you view this video:

Ok, so I lied, it’s not all about dinosaurs (althought that was my favorite part).  For more information about John Lopez and his work, you can visit his website here.

It was a lucky day for Arc-Zone, when John Schroepfer of Ramona set foot in our building.

John had originally called us up saying that he was having a tough time getting the answers that he needed for one of his technical stainless steel TIG welding applications.  Scott helped him out, made a few suggestions, and before you knew it, John had decided to come by and pay us a visit!

So, when John stopped by, (with his truck, trailer, and welding equipment in tow), we gave him the grand ol’ welcome, and got him dialed in with a new superflex rubber power cable, gas lens collet body, and our ArcTime™ hybrid tungsten electrodes for his WP-17-12-R TIG torch.  When he said that he needed a new extension adapter for his Miller Maxstar 150, why, we hooked him up with one of those too!

The thing was, I don’t think that John wanted to leave!  By the time we saw him off, he had also bought not only a flow meter, a couple gas hoses, and several packages of tungsten, but also two of our exclusive Arc-Zone Weld-Like-A-Pro™ TIG Accessory parts kits as well!

Remember what I said about John not wanting to leave?  Well, that very next day, he called us back!  He wanted to thank us for hooking him up with the new parts for his TIG torch which was now running “sweet” and asked if we might know where he could find himself a new foot control?

Needless to say, John is now our on our list of highly valued customers (I’m kidding — there is no such list, but if there was, every single one of our customers would be on it, because we value every single one of you!), or at least, our list of customers-who-are-welcome-to-drop-buy-anytime-they-are-in-the-neighborhood.  (Wait, that includes all of you too — now I’m stumped.)

But because John did us the nice favor of stopping on by, we felt that we should do something in turn for him!

While he was here, John showed us some pictures of his work, and I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that we were impressed.  John builds high-end custom stainless steel and glass stairway, hand rails and much more.  We were completely blown away by his knowledge and creative ways of working out engineered solutions to difficult custom fabrication projects.

And if you’re ever in the Ramona area, be sure to stop by Sun Valley Glass, Inc. and say hi — ask for a John Schroepfer — we know he’ll give you a red carpet welcome!

You can check out some of his custom work here:

If you’re afraid of heights then this is not the job for you… but check out this video clip of fabricators high atop a skyscraper…

…and this video clip features Lincoln Electric’s flux-cored welding technology. Pretty impressive stuff!

A true creative soul, Andrew Smith welded his latest art work without planning. The water work sculpture is both interactive and grand in scale, towering 15 feet above the ground. The piece is cleverly composed of steel pipes, joints, pumps and levers. Andrew’s work has been publicly displayed in several places including Provo, Orem, and Salt Lake City but the Park City Kimball Arts Festival is his first festival. His work is often a tense fusion of intricacy and spontaneity.

Arts fest 2009: Welding industry and art
Andrew Smith’s massive sculpture
Greg Marshall

An immense 15-foot waterworks sculpture composed of steel pipes, joints, pumps and levers is one of the centerpieces of the Park City Kimball Arts Festival, which began Friday with a locals preview and continues through Sunday.

Even amid the bustle of more than 200 artist booths and hundreds of visitors, Andrew Smith’s sculpture, as yet untitled, promises to catch the attention of spectators in the Kimball Art Center’s makeshift wonderland, the so-called Family Creativity Center, in front of the building on Heber Avenue.

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