{"id":157,"date":"2018-09-24T12:40:26","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T12:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.djcorprod.wpengine.com\/skilledmag\/?p=8"},"modified":"2021-08-24T15:45:21","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T15:45:21","slug":"revving-up-interest-in-metal-trades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/2018\/09\/24\/revving-up-interest-in-metal-trades\/","title":{"rendered":"Revving Up Interest in Metal Trades"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minibike building classes give students hands-on experience in construction<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"Volunteer

Volunteer Aaron Williams, left, shows Centennial High sophomore Roman Grebelnik the finer points of placing the chain onto the main sprocket of his minibike.<\/p><\/div>\n

It has no formal affiliation with any trade group, company or organization, but a fabrication and manufacturing class created last year by a pair of retired high school teachers in east\u00a0Multnomah County\u00a0is giving students a real-world look at machining, welding and other potential career paths.<\/p>\n

Dubbed the minibike club, the class is a joint effort of teachers Mark Watts and Tim Gutfleisch, as well as a handful of parent volunteers. Students who already are taking part in metal shop classes at either\u00a0Centennial High School\u00a0or\u00a0Reynolds High School\u00a0are eligible for the course, which allows participants to build their own minibike from the ground up. Once up and running, the functional minibikes, each complete with a 3.5 horsepower engine, can be used by the students recreationally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s an important thing that these kids have input into,\u201d said Aaron Williams, a volunteer whose son graduated from Centennial more than 20 years ago. \u201cWe used to make electric go-carts here and that program was dying, so it was like, let\u2019s see what else we can do then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years ago, the switch to gasoline-powered minibikes was made.<\/p>\n

\"Centennial

Centennial High School sophomore Roman Grebelnik uses a grinder while working on the frame of a minibike he built as part of a welding and fabrication night course. (Photos by Josh Kulla\/91ÊÓƵ)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cLast year we had about 10 kids,\u201d Gutfleisch said. \u201cWe combined forces and started making the minibikes and it took us quite a bit longer. This year we got our act together a little bit more, and I think we\u2019re going to do it another year. There are a lot of students who are very interested.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students in east Multnomah County suffered from the closure in 2016 of\u00a0ACE Academy, a charter high school that provided training and education in architecture, construction and other trades. The school was a joint venture between the Centennial, Reynolds and Gresham-Barlow school districts.<\/p>\n

Now, more modest efforts are filling in the gaps in the area. The minibike club is just one way of providing automotive and metalworking instruction \u2013 something that hasn\u2019t existed at Centennial since the 1980s at least.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the idea,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThe schools have run off the vocational tech classes, so this is what little I can do to have the kids learn real-life stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once youths realize they enjoy metalworking, Gutfleisch said, the odds of making a career out of it increase markedly.
\n\u201cOnce they realize they like doing it, they change a hobby into a career,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s our goal, is to get students interested in this more as a career than as a weekend hobby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"story1b\"

Brothers and Centennial High School students James and Yair Barrera took a fabrication and manufacturing course to improve their metalworking skills and build their own minibikes.<\/p><\/div>\n

The opportunities are there in the workforce. Oregon right now imports about 30 percent of its welders, even for union jobs that require in-state labor.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven with that we\u2019re still hiring 30 percent out of the state,\u201d Gutfleisch said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things when they talk about increasing the number of products built in the U.S., it sounds good, but if we don\u2019t have the workers, we can\u2019t increase the products they make. It\u2019s great to bring jobs back, but nobody knows how to do them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The minibikes created by students are crafted from one-inch steel tubing. Watts explained that while he creates some of the parts from metal tubing, students learn to bend the tubing to specification, and then machine and weld the entire frame together.<\/p>\n

Then a Predator two-stroke gasoline engine is installed, and the transmission, brakes and throttle are hooked up. Students are even required to sew together the upholstery for the seats, as well as powder-coat the frames in the color of their choosing.<\/p>\n

As a result, students get valuable lessons in a host of skill areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an evening thing for our metal shop students,\u201d Watts said. \u201cAnd when they\u2019re done they get a minibike out of it. For $200 they have an old-school minibike with brakes and everything. That\u2019s the motivation \u2013 to say they have a minibike.\u201d
\nIt\u2019s also competitive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the first to finish my bike,\u201d Centennial sophomore Roman Grebelnik said during a spring session as he watched his friend and fellow student, Dennis Cherchenko, give his bike a test ride around a rainy school parking lot.<\/p>\n

That came after Grebelnik discovered he would have to grind off the edge of a bracket that had been impacting the drive chain. A few minutes and plenty of sparks later, his minibike was operational again.<\/p>\n

While Grebelnik said he has learned plenty from the class about problem-solving, machining and metal inert gas welding, he actually is more interested in software programming as a possible career. Nonetheless, he will take away valuable experience from the course \u2013 and, of course, an operational minibike.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year as a freshman, I saw the older kids building minibikes, and I wanted to do it too,\u201d Grebelnik said. \u201cI joined the class last year and I took it again this year just to build a minibike. That\u2019s all I wanted to do. I eventually want to be a programmer, but this is just a hobby for now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reynolds student Josh Blegen said he heard about the course in summer 2017 after chatting with Gutfleisch. It immediately drew his interest and his father\u2019s \u2013 Jim Blegen is a motorcycle enthusiast. Eventually, both started attending the weekly sessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started going to the class, but then he started coming more and got really involved with it too,\u201d Josh Blegen said. \u201cAnd I learned that he knew a lot more about bikes in general than I thought, so that was good.\u201d
\nJim Blegen said they even pursued opportunities to tackle homework.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve taken it home, we\u2019ve taken it to his uncle\u2019s trailer repair shop, where (Josh) welded it and painted it and did the upholstery work,\u201d Jim Blegen said. \u201cJust watching him put it together and helping oversee it, it\u2019s been fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Josh Blegen said the experience has motivated him to look to welding for a future career. It\u2019s the part of the building process he\u2019s found most agreeable. Getting the engine to work properly \u2013 well, that\u2019s another can of worms.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably learning about how the engine and the throttle and how that works,\u201d he said when asked which part of the process was the most difficult. \u201cWith the welding and stuff, I like that stuff and I\u2019m alright with it, but with the throttle, he (Jim) helped me a lot with that and I didn\u2019t know he knew so much about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gutfleisch laments the loss of once-ubiquitous vocational programs at both the middle and high school levels. Despite students\u2019 enthusiasm, he said, they often lack basic knowledge of tools and other fundamentals that used to be taught even prior to high school. That is what he\u2019s working to change, one student at a time.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the kids I found don\u2019t even know what a lot of the tools are, much less the skills involved,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople say you can teach this stuff at college, and it\u2019s true. But what used to happen is the middle schools used to teach what I\u2019m teaching now \u2013 and the product and end result was a lot better. Now the colleges are getting kids with a light knowledge compared to where they would be if they had the middle school programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on the minibike course for the 2018-19 school year,
\ncontact Centennial High School, 503-762-6180.<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Minibike building classes give students hands-on experience in construction It has no formal affiliation with any trade group, company or organization, but a fabrication and manufacturing class created last year by a pair of retired high school teachers in east\u00a0Multnomah County\u00a0is giving students a real-world look at machining, welding and other potential career paths. Dubbed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5138,"featured_media":207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18615],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}