Cultural Artifact Speech DRAFT Essay

Submitted By fire1995
Words: 1045
Pages: 5

I. Introduction
A. Attention Getter: Does anyone know what this is? Has anyone seen a blacksmith in action? Well this is a welding rod and a stick.
B. Revealed Object: This is an electric arc welding rod used in electric welding. This particular one is used to weld iron together to build a joint between the two metals.
C. Thesis Statement: I strongly believe that learning the basics about basic electric welding will go a long way, and you will not have to look for a professional welder which by the way costs a ton of money for a little household job or even a little repair in your car.
D. Preview of Main Points: First of all I’ll talk a little bit about the science behind the Arc welding process and how welding in general changed the world we live in today. Second, I will explain how I am involved in this.

II. Body
Main Point 1: In the construction or as a matter of fact any civil engineering sector, steel which is an alloy of iron and carbon, is very important mainly because of their high strength and low cost. But when you are working with steel, welding is a very important aspect of it. Point A. Let me now explain how the welding rod actually work. This is connected to an electrical power source as a positive connection and the base metal or the one you are actually welding is connected to the ground as a negative connection. So by tapping this on to the base metal completes the circuit and creates the spark which is super hot and ends up melts the iron and connecting them together. Let me use a simpler example to explain the process. The circuit or the way things are plugged in is kinda the same way as you wire up to jump start a car cause you use the earth as the negative point so that electricity flows. A much more simple example is lightning, which is why trees struck by lightning looks like it was caught on fire. Sub Point B. Let me talk a little bit about the history of joining metals together. Arc welding was first introduced to the world by the British and the French don’t know who exactly around the early 1800s. A man named C.L.Coffin registered the first US patent for an arc welding method in 1890. He used an electrode to melt metal and carry it across an arc to fill a joint between metal plates. Since then welding was used mainly in the World Wars I & II to build ships. But later the technology advanced to point now where we don’t really melt the metals which can be a loss in certain precious metals so we use friction welding which generates heat using mechanical friction. Because of these new developments we are fortunate enough to be able to build submarines, oil rigs deep in the ocean and super tall building like the Burj Khalifa.

Transition: Now that I have talked about how welding work and how it changed the world let me now explain how I am involved in this.

Main Point 2: Although I pursue computer science more specifically computer programming as my professional career, my family for a couple of generations were blacksmiths in Sri Lanka.

Sub Point A. My background in Welding: Having grown up around people who make dull materials like iron and carbon into beautiful house hold material, I always wanted to learn how to do it. When I was 15 I got my first welding lesson that summer, its then I realized how hard it was to weld. After couple of weeks of sleepless nights because of UV poisoning I finally managed to get the hang of holding a welding rod and not wasting a stick or the metal but to actually join them together. I made a little chair and a little holder to keep my