Don’t Weld at Home…

fishing rod holdersI’ve just had an AWFUL idea for a book, so bad it’s just SO good. It’s 2016, people love a bit of satire that’s actually just disguised failure. What’s the law? Godwin’s? Maybe. Questions for later.

My idea was Welds Gone Wrong, with amateur welders in their garages taking on all kinds of giant projects that really require a professional. Then they take pictures of how much they failed, send them in and people think we’ve compiled this hilarious fail compilation, when actually…um, no, that’s exactly what we’ve done. I couldn’t sworn there was satire in my original pitch somewhere…

Um, anyway, I think there are companies that do marine welding in Melbourne that could partner with us, so we could have an ‘idiot at home’ page contrasting a ‘professional on the job’ page. Yeah, that’s the way we do it. Welding gone wrong, except when it goes right. Out of all the DIY tasks, I feel like welding is one of the few that you should never just pick up and give a try. That’s real fire right there, hot enough to melt metal (that’s what it does), and not something to just play around with. That people use blowtorches for cooking still astounds me. Oh, we can include cooking in the book! Here’s how MY terrible meringue became utterly terrible after I applied a cooking blowtorch, and here’s a smiling, perfect-toothed professional chef with their amazing baking creation. Blowtorches for cooking, phew…

Yep, it’s a solid plan alright. I just need to get down to the docks and see how the marine welders do their thing, so that we can start spreading the word for pictures and stories of people doing it badly. We can leave out the injuries, perhaps, but there should be plenty of material without any of that. Welding can just go do very wrong, I’m surprised that no one has yet thought of this. Like, ‘here’s my fishing rod holder that I really should’ve had professionally made, because now all it’s good for is being a museum exhibit in an exhibition of charred metal!’. That sort of thing.

-Jenkins