One thing I never really got around to learning in high school or in university was how to do a decent job with an arc welder. It's about time to change that- Sunset Chaser's trailer needs work, our weird new Starwind 860 will need a custom trailer, and there's always plenty of stuff that needs fixing.

It's one thing to read about how to do it- friendly old Google offers up 1.58 million pages on the subject. And, having been through engineering school, I have a pretty good idea how a weld works, what a good one should look like, and how the stresses are transferred across it.

Friends who know, though, always respond with "Well, you can read all you want, but the only real way to learn it is to lay down dozens of really bad welds until you start to get the hang of it."

So, for anyone else who's thinking of learning how to weld and is a bit intimidated by the idea, here's my "Day 1" report- complete with terrifying photos of beginner screw-ups.

"Let's put carbon fibre in there," says the marketing director. "That stuff's stronger. And I can sell it as a high-end feature."

"Yup, yup," replies the shop foreman. "We can do that. It's a bit pricey though, maybe we could use just a bit of it mixed with the fibreglass."

Fast forward three years, and both men are scratching their heads over why the component- which was, according to the designer, more than strong enough in fibreglass alone- has failed catastrophically even though they added a "better" material.

TL;DR: Mixing different fibres in the same load path can lead to a component being weaker than it would be if only one type of fibre had been used.