Category: Flux Metals

Week 27

I have been feeling satisfied with the quality of my work. I particularly enjoy welding aluminium. I’m an Aly Princess! I like the repepivnes… Just like embroidery. 

Week 28 

I just moved flats, I have been ill, and I overslept for work twice. 

Through the week, I have been welding BRAS! Finally!!! It is very particular. The amps range is small. Brass likes a specific temperature. With steel, the worst that can happen is that I burn the weld. Brass gives me a small window to add the filler rod (we use bronze), and if I’m too late or heat it up too much, it disappears in a white cloud of zinc. Like a magician hehe 

I think I have been doing well. 

During the week, Will has been setting up for a big pour. He asked me for help so on Thursday we choreographed the steps of the pour. Will was the star of the show. First he tool out the ceramic shells out of the kiln and placed them in a big container with sand. Then Stella and I covered the funnels of the shells with tin foil and topped up the container with more sand to stabilise them. Then Will took out the crucible out of the furnace.  Stella scrapped the flux out of the surface of the melted metal  

Week 29-33

So I did some more work with brass. I like it… it’s heavy, solid! Then I fell in love with copper! I just love how it changes colours. Life is great because is bright and warm. Also we had a photographer coming taking photos of us! I was a great model. 

Week 34

The photos were posted on IG… In caption I was called a Metal polisher from Poland Ha, ha… :\ Polish polisher. Evidently I am a welder! Holding my welding mask with my name on it!!!! Rude. 

Also I learned that welding without jacket can give you a sun burn. Ouch! I didnt do that much welding too! The global worming is going to destroy us. 

The workload has picked up a bit since Christmas. James says there’s a lot of bullshit work—people asking for comparison quotes or for artists without really knowing what they actually want us to do. I’ve been feeling generally anxious about work as a whole—labour, getting paid for something. A lot of my friends have been looking for jobs, any jobs, and people have been coming by or calling to ask if Flux is hiring.

There was a man, an artist, whose work was absolutely beautiful. James gave him an aluminium project to weld, since he said he could weld. He wasn’t very good, so he stayed with us for only a week. :/ Then there was a girl, who was also an artist and worked for a company that was making more commercial stuff, like retail or kitchen stuff. She said it is very boring and repetitive. I believe her. She could weld! James wanted my opinion :O And I hope she didn’t stay not because I didn’t like her. 😐 She was not considerate. Really annoyed me. First of all, she made me tea in a very dirty mug. Then she came to the table I was working at to weld in front of me (wtf?? Trying to blind me??), and she was grinding onto me, with all the sparks and metal dust falling at me. I had to put a lot of effort into not being a bitch to her and staying civil or professional.

There hasn’t been loads of work otherwise, so James let me organise the workshop—which I love! I started with the kitchen area. There was a 2m-long cuboid frame left over from an art project, and a U-shaped bar being used to hang our work jackets and boiler suits. It was messy and inefficient, taking up space and making it harder to get to tools and parts.

Now we have SPACE!

After that, I’ve been going off just organising! I cleared out a lot of space and assigned various objects to their places, so now nobody has to look for anything. I love it! AND all of it has been made out of scrap OBVIOUSLY!

I also started to weld more aluminium, which James and I describe as fastidious. As straining it can be on my eyes, bc of how much focus it requires, I am enjoying it.

I am also doing stuff for myself. Some of the things I have made:

At the beginning of December, I went to Poland. I went to different museums in Poznań and Gdańsk. It was pretty inspiring.

I feel like I need to abandon myself in a way. I worry too much about WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?! It was so calm to just watch other people’s work.

Maybe that is why I like working on theatre props. Not working on my things.

I Ufff…. I do not like breaks… December was hard. Not only was my beloved James not there, due to personal reasons, but it was also pretty quiet. Not much work as theatres are not working on new shows before Christmas. So! there was just Charlie and I! We cleaned, organised. I made a rack for our hammers… I also got a new welding mask! It used to belong to a man who was Charlie’s favourite. (He did not say that out of his own will. I asked him who his favourite is.Tom left for Australia ages ago, and now his name has been wiped off just so I can put MY name on it.

I hope one day I will be as good as Tom.

At Christmas, I was sick. I also fell in love! So the beginning of January was so exciting. SO much work to do! I was in the best mood! That didn’t last long bc the love didn’t last… tough

I realised that the mood affects the quality of my work a lot. It seems like it doesn’t matter how many times I have TIG-welded stainless steel before. A new project with a shitty mood is going to come out like the first time. I feel like all the practice that I am getting is going nowhere… but it is not super discouraging. Welding is ZEN! It is about getting comfortable. Less is more, and quick and swift is better.

After a chat with Chole, I think I will do a bunch of research for my SIP. My perception was that if I’m doing craft, it is already better than mass production + metal is recyclable, so I’m in the “safe” area. NO! Processing metal uses a LOT of energy, which is often not green. If we want to go green, we would have to mine and process a lot of copper, which would produce a lot of emissions and disrupt the environment it is excavated from. All of it is very curious, and I’m left with a lot of questions. Philosophical and practical. Is the most sustainable thing to do NOTHING, not produce, not process? Possibly… but I would be really fucking miserable. Does that make me selfish and a hypocrite? Then there are more practical questions about the properties of metal. (I like to think all of them have personality and character… I feel like I’m really getting to know them as I’m working on them.) Steel is the popular girl of the bunch; everyone likes them! Everyone likes to work with them. They are easy going, sometimes they like to joke (like when you weld it and don’t clamp it, it will move a lot! And stand funny, wonky, because she’s goofy like that) Aluminium is a total bitch, she’s flaky. Will disappear on you, literally! Also with too much heat she swells up and gets mushy :/ LAME! Bras is like a mum. Soft and warm, I love it! But it is also toxic it will make you cry. Like a mum would.

January was a BITCH! so glad it is over.

On Monday, I visited a foundry on Mare Street in Hackney. I showed up at 6.30am in rain! The dedication!! As I plead my case the first question I am asked is: You know it is very physical job? EW! The prejudice. But it is fine, because I also judged them! I didn’t like it there. The men in the workshops were stereotypically manly. I assume they wouldn’t have the care and patience that James has.

I do tell James about visiting other workshops. However, he wants me to stay at Flux. It feels nice. I think I will hold on and stay. I love it there.

A quick job of plasma cutting oil barrels! I had to add an internal structure and wheels. They will put fake fire in them. COOL! The drawings they sent us were drawn with a finger on a phone! CRAZY! So again, there was miscommunication and I had to edit it :/

I finished them all on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, James showed me how to weld aluminium! It is FUCKING HARD and annoying! The process is quite different. The welding machines have different settings specifically for aluminium! On that day, I had to make an A-board café sign. I cut the sheets of metal and bent them, but I wasn’t ready to weld it. James welded the hinges I made for it myself!

The next day, I had another aluminium job and I worked on it completely alone! WOW! I fucked up a couple of times, but I fixed all my mistakes, so the job took me forever and I couldn’t finish it! Damn it!
Next week I’ll be in Poland for my grandma’s 75th birthday! WEEEE!
I will only see a picture of it :c

It was a cross — like the one Jesus was crucified on. It gave me an idea for silly pictures, which James took of me at the end of the shift.

Another person I appreciate there is Charlie! He is very technical and proper. I like it. He seems to care that I do well. He teaches me a lot, too. Dude is only one year older than me! Shocking! I aspire to be like him as well!

First week working Monday to Friday! No more restaurant job!
On Tuesday, I finished the bench for Dracula! It is gothic and it was fun! I love welding! Watching the metal melt and then breaking the surface tension. I’m so obsessed I often overdo it. With welding, less is more — I know it, but the obsession is stronger. I want to keep melting and keep adding more metal. It makes me think of bees for some reason — how they puke and build with their little blobs of puke. I’m Maja the Bee! Puke, puke, puke with shiny, silver metal! It suits me — I wear only silver.

With that bench, I could go off! I was doing decorative welds. Little beads, hihi.

Thursday and Friday, I was working on more lanterns — for Hansel and Gretel! Cool, cool, cool!
On Friday morning, the man who ordered them said he didn’t like what I had been making. They didn’t give us proper drawings — more like reference pictures with “I like this… and I like that detail.” We clearly didn’t understand each other.
On Friday, James and I whipped out three new lanterns, which they liked — and the day was saved!

I like working with James! The conversations we have are like therapy. He is like my new dad! We talk about family, about processes, about art, movies, and music. Everything! I admire how much patience he has with us and how much trust he has in me. I want to be like him.

On Tuesday, I was working with James on brass lanterns! It was sheets of brass. Brass is difficult because it is toxic. The fumes burn my eyes and scratch my throat. And it stinks! Ewww… It was more difficult because the sheets of metal would warp and bend :/
But I was brazing it instead of welding — which I LOVE! Because it uses gas! It is lovely on a cold day. Really warms you up!
The lanterns are for A Christmas Carol! Cool!

On Wednesday, I overslept 😐 James was upset. I kept working on the lanterns.

On Thursday, I was given a small job making something that is supposed to hold two things apart. It looks like a very long “H”. Then I started making a small bench — another prop.

I like that I am given more work and that I get to work more and more independently. I am realising how dependent and scared of making mistakes I am.

On Tuesday, I met with Vincent from Ferrum to discuss my next placement. I don’t want to work there. He was lovely, but the workshop is smaller and doesn’t have a foundry, which I was under the impression it did.

On Wednesday, I finally finished painting the mammoth sculpture. Cool.

On Thursday, I made two planters. That was a job I worked on by myself! I asked a lot of questions, and Charlie, one of my coworkers, supervised me closely. But it’s cool! I was using a massive machine that bends sheets of metal. That one is quite tricky to use because it’s old!

Through that process, I taught myself that there is an art to doing things very accurately. Designing and determining measurements and angles is one thing, and being able to fabricate them is another. Thank god for big machines that you can set accurately and repeat the same action many times.
Even though it was an easy project, I still made mistakes… :/ I was the only one mad at myself, though.

This week I felt better because I determined what I want: to quit my restaurant job and learn more about casting and mould making. Now I just need to get myself there.

I continued working on the mammoth. Everyone likes it! I, however, am not impressed… It feels like a small job. I finished building the mammoth on Wednesday and started working on a tree for the background. On that day, I saw my coworker injure himself with a lathe. His hand was pulled in. He said he was okay, but left shortly after. Later, we learned that his wrist was fractured (if I remember correctly).

On Thursday, I needed to paint it. I didn’t manage to finish that job. I don’t like to paint, and I think it would’ve looked better without paint.

That week, we had some extra hands in the workshop. There was James’s son, organising the workshop. I liked chatting to them. They are cool, and just like James, warm, kind, and patient. <3
And there was an intern from Plymouth, Isabel — also a very cool person. She was working on another small sculpture that would be used in the same art walk.

Week 4

I finished off the gurneys with Ben. I didn’t like working with him. He slowed everything down, whereas I wanted it done quickly. He was right to do it slowly.

On Wednesday, James started showing me how to use a gas torch — gas welding and cutting. I enjoyed it a lot. It is relaxing and whimsical! Since I don’t have to wear a full mask to weld, I can wear only welding glasses. All the sparks look green, and they are slower, which is absolutely beautiful.
On that day, I was set to work on a small sculpture to commemorate the excavation of a woolly mammoth in South London (in 1898). It is nice to mark the history.

On Thursday, I continued to practise gas welding. I like working with James the most. We talk about various things. On that day, my coworker was assigned to clean the workshop, and for some reason, he expected me to help him(?). I did help him with things that needed two people to move, but then I went back to James and my mammoth. The coworker was pissy about that. 😐 wtf?

Week 3

On Tuesday, I called in sick. On Wednesday, I made one wheel for the gurneys. It took me ages because I was hesitant, as I had made mistakes in the past. However, I made the remaining wheels (9!) on Thursday. My arms were hurting a lot. On Friday, I decided to visit the V&A to see the Iron Works. I hoped to get inspired. I didn’t…