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Gotta respect you brother. That hood is probably as old as I am.. My grandpa had one like it. My dad was also a welder/mechanic and Navy Seabee. I just built ocean going oil barges, grain barges, dry docks, and tug boats..


Also repair work, structural and even ornamental schidt:



Here's a wheelhouse I designed and built for an old tug:



You are right. Young kids don't know jack schidt, but it was our job to teach them. The bad thing is kids are different now days. They don't have the drive. They give up too easy when schidt gets too hard. We always had quota's we had to meet, but management let a lot of the younger guys slide. Up until a point, then when things were not getting done fast enough, they would sick me on them. An example, our quota for fitting angle (lets say 6x4 or 7x4x1/2" angle or bulb flat) on flat plate was 190 feet/day. The young guys were slacking off so much that they were only doing 65 feet/day. That schidt had to come to a stop and fast. So to show the younger guys how much you could actually get done, some of the older guys (all of us in our mid 30's) that could fit pretty decent had a race to see how much angle a guy could get done in a day. My buddy (an ex Airborne Ranger and 6th degree black belt) fit 450 feet. The next guy a huge colored guy that was an ex felon got 350 feet fit up, the next guy was a bomb expert, ex special forces marine (typical bad azz), fit up 300 feet, next guy down on the list was a slow meticulous guy, a little older than the rest of us, in his early 40's, fit up 250 feet. A lot of those guys slowed way down after lunch, where as I don't work that way. I pace myself and build up steam. You don't want to get in my way when I'm swinging a hammer: I fit 608 feet of angle that day. All perfectly on the layout line and nice and tight, ready for the doudle bug to come behind and start welding.. After that day, if the newbies didn't meet quota, the were issued warnings and a couple were even fired.. I don't mind teaching a young guy new tricks, but if they are unwilling to learn I have no use for them...