Shea Johnson of Traip Academy sends sparks flying as she works on a project in the Welding-Fabrication program at the Sanford Regional Technical Center.
Teacher Adam Hartford (kneeling) discusses part of a drum smoker that will be used for smoking meats in an upcoming collaboration with the Culinary program.
Sarah VanSickle of Marshwood (seated) and Isabella Deshales of Massabesic collaborate on a project in the Welding-Fabrication program at the SRTC.
Photos: Kat Szmit
By Kat Szmit
Sparks are flying at the Sanford Regional Technical Center, but it’s all good. It’s part of an average day in the Welding/Fabrication program, where projects range from work on loader buckets and flatbeds, to the fabrication of a massive drum smoker that will be as impressive to look at as it will be to cook with.
According to Welding and Metal Fabrication teacher Adam Hartford, the smoker project started with Culinary Arts teacher Jethro Loichle.
“He started doing lunch for staff members,” Hartford said. “I started chit-chatting with the new teammate. He always loved the open flame, wood fire cooking. I’d been wanting to build a smoker with the welding class for years. But we could never get our hands on a tank or big piece of pipe.”
Then, they did. A local company provided the materials necessary to get started, and the students were off and, well, welding. The smoker is made from a large barrel that’s been halved. Hartford’s students have been fabricating hinges, the firebox, and all the necessary parts to ensure that it will produce tasty smoked meats when it’s finished.
“If you look for this size smoker on the internet, it’s about six to eight thousand dollars. We’re in it for materials, which is less than two grand right now,” Hartford said. “It’s pretty awesome. It’s going to sit out front by the café and it’s going to showcase what these students do.”
When the project is finished, the students from Welding/Fabrication will position it outside the SRTC restaurant, where Loichle is planning some kind of delicious celebration come spring. Meanwhile, Hartford’s students still have work to do.
“It’s extremely involved,” Hartford said of the smoker. “It’s welding, but it’s also fabrication, tape measure reading, using different shop tools and equipment. They’ve used all of them. The shear, the ironworker, the plasma table.”
The latter, a new addition to the program, has been utilized frequently during the process of building the smoker to help make everything fit, to create prototypes, and more. Hartford said he’s also been using the scientific method with his students.
“Observe, question, hypothesize, experiment, test. It’s kind of how you can tackle any problem you run into, right? So, I’ve been bringing that up a lot,” he said. “The doors are a great example. The doors were cut out and built and warped with the heat, so we had to fix that, so they sealed up and fit better. That’s the third try on the hinges that we’ve designed and made, too. There’s a lot of trial and error. That’s how you know you’re learning.”
Failing upward is a theme in Hartford’s classroom. Having worked many years as a professional welder, Hartford knows well that mistakes are made.
“I tell them all the time that we’re not going to celebrate failure, but we are going to learn from it and learn how to fix it,” Hartford said. “That’s what is great about working with metal. I always relate it to building trades. If they cut a board too short, they need a new board. We can add on. We can build things that most people can’t.”
Hartford also emphasizes that welding teaches important skills that relate not only to welding and fabrication, but also to real life.
“Problem-solving skills, self-reliance, self-motivation, and confidence are huge with young people right now,” Hartford said. “I think a lot of them lack the self-confidence to go try, to go fail, go fall down, land on your face and look stupid in front of everybody, but be confident enough to know that one day, you won’t.”
Hartford said that learning how to move on from a failure is a critical skill students will take into the professional world.
“This is the setting where they need to be OK with that so that when they leave here and go to work for somebody, they can go with confidence and know ‘I’m going to screw up, but I’m going to learn it and I’m going to be better for it,’” Hartford said.
Senior Anderson White has already had his experiences in Hartford’s class translate into an internship at a local fabrication shop.
“Three days a week I miss this class to be there,” White said. “At work, we make metal buildings, hangar style. So day-to-day I make buildings.”
Anderson said what appeals to him is the act of creating.
“I think it’s just the sparks flying, the heat, and knowing what you’re doing. It’s sort of mind-blowing,” he said. “It makes you think, ‘That’s going somewhere. That’s going to be put up. That’s going to be used.’”
Larkin Michniewicz is Hartford’s teaching assistant and appreciates the program.
“There are so many different opportunities,” she said. “We make a lot of cool projects in here. I’m allowed to learn by myself with the aid of someone else without them being right by my side holding my hand. Hartford lets me do as I please and if I have questions I can ask.”
Hartford said taking a hands-off approach was challenging, but necessary.
“As a trade person who has come in to teach, I’ve had a learning curve myself, to step back, not put my welding hood on, not put my gloves on and get in there and do it with them, because then I end up doing it for them,” he said. “I have slowed that down for myself to hopefully benefit them.”
Michniewicz said that when she first entered the program, she had no idea what it was about.
“I didn’t know what welding was. I didn’t know how it worked,” she said. “Now I’m the TA for this class and I get to learn how to teach other kids how to do this, which I think is fascinating.”
Ideally, Michniewicz would like to find work with pipe welding or what’s known as TIG (tungsten inert gas). Her advice to other young women considering welding is blunt.
“You have to have thick skin,” she said. “You can’t get upset over little comments. We pick on each other in the shop; that’s how we are. It’s not all butterflies and rainbows. It’s tough. It’s not your traditional school day. You come and you go to work. We have things to do, things to build, things that need to be done that are on somebody else’s timeline and not ours. You learn responsibility for everything. If you break something you get to fix it now.”
Hartford is impressed by his students.
“Their willingness to try something that’s completely alien to them,” he said. “A lot of the students in here have never stood next to a welder, never mind seen one run. They come in here and they try it because they want to do it. That old school mentality that kids don’t want to work these days, that they’re lazy? It’s not that. They’re not given the opportunity to try it beforehand.”
His goal is to set his students up for success when they do enter the working world.
“When they leave school, nobody’s cheerleading them. Nobody’s pushing them to better themselves. It’s all on them,” Hartford said. “And it’s never been on them. There’s that, ‘I’m gonna throw you off the dock. Hope you can swim.’”
In Hartford’s classes, everyone learns to swim.
“We’re gonna teach you how to doggy paddle and get to the dock before you drown,” he said. “Once you’re there though, by then you should have some confidence to get across the lake.”
He would love to see all his students become welder-fabricators. Sadly, they won’t.
“The majority of the time, three to five students go into the welding trade,” Hartford said. “This is not a glamorous trade. We don’t smell good at the end of the day, we’re sore at the end of the day. Even with all the safety stuff in place, things happen. You have to want this. Imagine doing this in July. It’s 80 degrees out, sun’s glaring on you and you still have to weld. You’re hot, you’re uncomfortable, you’re in a tight spot. It’s not easy, so you have to want it.”
“For me it’s always been really cool,” White said of welding. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve never touched a welder, don’t know anything about it. If you’re interested in it, sign up. Try it out.”
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