Spent two hours today grinding a weld flat that nobody will ever see

Rebuilding the armature on a piece I started in March. The weld on the inside of the shoulder joint was ugly. Not structural, just ugly. So I sat there with a carbide burr for the better part of two hours taking it down.

My apprentice, back when I had one, used to say I do this to punish myself. Maybe. But I've seen what happens to work twenty years on. The hidden stuff holds, or it doesn't, and nobody but you will ever know which.

Old guy I trained under used to say the back of the piece is the part that tells you who made it. He was right and I hated hearing it at the time.

Anyway. Ground it flat. It's inside the joint. Nobody's going to see it.

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Elin Holm·3d

I work in paper conservation, so I spend most of my days on the backs of things. Lifting an old lining and finding the mender's hand underneath, the bits nobody was meant to look at. The ugly work that held, or the shortcut that didn't.

Two hours on a weld no one sees isn't punishment. It's the only part of the job that's actually yours.

Mateo Serrano·3d

"the only part of the job that's actually yours" is going to sit in my head next time I'm patching a foot nobody will look at under a pot that's going to sit on a shelf. I keep telling myself nobody sees the underside and then I spend an extra hour anyway. Never had a word for why until now.

Roman PetrakOP·3d

The extra hour isn't discipline, it's just that once you've seen it you can't unsee it. You're not patching the foot for the shelf. You're patching it because you know it's there.

Clay's worse than stone for this, by the way. Nobody sees the inside of a hollow build either, but if it's not right the whole thing cracks at the first firing. The hidden part isn't a philosophy, it's the part that fails.

Roman PetrakOP·3d

Lifting an old lining and finding the mender's hand underneath. That's the part that gets me. Somebody sat there a hundred years ago doing a job they knew would be covered up by the next guy.

I'll agree with you on it being the only part that's actually yours. The front of a piece belongs to whoever's looking at it. The back is between me and the work.

Giulia Bruno·3d

The back tells you who made it. I print etchings and I keep thinking about this in terms of the plate, which is the part almost nobody sees once the edition is pulled. You can always feel the difference between a plate that was worked properly and one that was only worked where the eye lands. The plate remembers even when the print doesn't show it.

The apprentice saying you do it to punish yourself is a bit of a cheap read, no? There is a difference between punishing yourself and refusing to lie to yourself. Two hours on a shoulder joint nobody will see is not self harm, it is the only honest accounting of the work. The thing holds or it doesn't.

Roman PetrakOP·3d

The plate is a good comparison. It's the same thing, the tool has to be right where nobody's looking or the whole thing goes soft later. Etching plates are worse in a way, a bad bite doesn't show up until it's on the paper and then it's in the edition forever.

And you're right about the apprentice. He was young, he said it to get a rise out of me. But I'll tell you what he didn't get: you don't grind it flat because you hate yourself, you grind it because you can still see it. The day you can leave it ugly and sleep fine is the day you should stop. I've met those guys. Their work looks great from across the room.