In the two weeks I was in ISSA school, I learned a lot of things that I didn’t expect to learn, which I don’t mind because it helped me take that next step in my profession.
The first thing, and in my opinion, the most important thing I learned, is that there are still more than 80% of things I don’t know how to use/ work with on cars. I realized that while I was touring the school, I didn’t even know all the machines they had. Students there explained to me that even though they have access to all those machines, each one specializes in one thing and has other knowledge to support that main thing.
The first thing they taught me was how to use a paint gun. It didn’t take long since I had sprayed with paint cans before, and it is similar, so they let me spray a fender after ten minutes of showing me how it works. The results were good, sadly, I didn’t take a picture.
Next, I was really interested in TIG welding, which took a while to explain, but after they explained how it works, I didn’t take long to get the hang of it. The picture you see was my third try, and the teachers also said I learned it very fast and that they were impressed. But that was only TIG welding without adding the wire. Adding the wire is harder and a much more complicated process, which I also learned took me more tries to get it, but after I started to understand how the welds behave, it didn’t take me long to learn a “butterfly walking” which is a style of TIG welding that is commonly used.
Thankfully, the next thing I learned was a simple one, and it was sandblasting car parts, which is a very relaxing but time consuming job. It is time consuming because it needs to be sandblasted to perfection, or there is no reason to sandblast.
I also learned how to properly bend, shape, and cut metal with specialized machines, which made life a lot easier with all that knowledge. I replaced a rusted fender part on an old car. If I can say so myself, it turned out amazing for my first time doing something like that.
