Welding_ConnectsLP

Welding
connects
You‘ll Never Work Alone
Stephan Thiemonds
Across
the globe
359°

Welding connects! Metals and people. Professionally and privately.
Locally and globally.
The author, an educated coppersmith and welder, discovers and
experiences this welding phenomenon again and again during his
professional world travels. Written in the style of Magical Realism
and based on technical and factual knowledge, he tells the story
of welding technology in an entertaining conversational tone. How
and why welding connects; why the healing power of singing while
welding in the middle of a narrow copper pipe brought him as far as
Singapore; from an Antarctic storm night aboard a krill fishing vessel
that was separated, lengthened and welded back together; why
ten little sewage sludge dryers and the archangel Raphael have a
welding connection; and why the return of the Jedi Knights is critical
to the future of welding technology. Surprised by the phenomenon
associated with his profession, that welding not only connects, but
can even fulfill children‘s dreams: through the magic of the welding
industry!
Exceptional reading for industry insiders. Fascinating insights into
the world of welding technology for all industry outsiders.

This book is written by HW (Human Welder), without
the help of AI (Artificial Intelligence).
“Welding connects.
Metal and people.
Locally and globally.
Simply phenomenal!”
Internationally valid welding wisdom

Stephan Thiemonds
Welding connects
You’ll never work alone

Bibliografic information published
by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in
the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliografic
data are available on the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
Lectorate Welding Technology:
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerd Kuscher, GSI SLV Hannover,
Achim Hauspurg (SFM), Üdingen
Cover Design by DVS Media, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Inspired by Christian Banpao, Chonburi, Thailand
Copyright Cover: anek.soowannaphoom/Shutterstock
Nuamfolio – stock.adobe.com
robert – stock.adobe.com
TechSolution – stock.adobe.com
ISBN 978-3-96144-197-6
All rights reserved.
© DVS Media GmbH, Düsseldorf 2023
Production: SDL - Digitaler Buchdruck,
Schaltungsdienst Lange oHG, Berlin

Table of Contents
Foreword: Welding Technology –
a Field for Creative Minds ............................................ 1
Foreword by the Gesellschaft für Schweißtechnik
International – Schweißtechnische- Lehrund
Versuchsanstalt Hannover, Germany....................... 3
Welding connects ........................................................... 5
The healing Power of Singing while Welding ............. 14
In Seventh Heaven ..................................................... 120
Mr. Smith and the Thing about Experience ............... 129
The Return of the Jedi Knights .................................. 134
Quick and painless ..................................................... 177
We love the Storms, the roaring Waves ..................... 226
What would the World be without Steel? .................. 280
The Magic of Industry ............................................... 293
Ten small sewage Sludge Dryers and
the Archangel Raphael ............................................... 315
The stainless Steel Thing ........................................... 338
Welding connects –
and fulfils Children’s Dreams .................................... 364
You’ll Never Work Alone! ......................................... 382
Take Me Home, Country Roads ................................ 384
The Story Behind 359° .............................................. 389
Sincere Thanks! ......................................................... 391
List of References ...................................................... 395

Foreword: Welding Technology – a Field for
Creative Minds
The author acquired his knowledge in Germany. His
professional career is a striking example in the welding
branch: A solid foundation through vocational basics and
advanced training by a dual training system, followed
by international projects worldwide. Exactly like the
DVS – Deutscher Verband für Schweißen und verwandte
Verfahren e. V. (German Welding Society) offers with its
training facilities and vocational variants as one of the
great career options.
DVS Media as a subsidiary of DVS – Deutscher Verband
für Schweißen und verwandte Verfahren e. V. is particularly
delighted to publish Mr. Thiemonds’ stories now
also in English.
In his book the author tells in his very personal and unique
way about former projects and his personal encounters
around the world.
His narrative style is inspired by popular culture, like
comics and movies, develops an irresistible suggestive
pull within the professional reader as well as in those
without welding experience, who learn as a pleasant side
effect something about welding and its methods. The
author shares his inner and exterior experience with the
reader. The literary ʻwelding fillerʼ is a good sense of
ʻMagic Realismʼ, interweaving and joining the individual
chapters. Imaginations running wild, but always with the
heartbeat in welding, and furthermore, in engagement in
humanitarian projects like the construction of a school in
Southeast Asia.
1

Not fairy tales told by a welder, not a prank, the stories
are well-founded experience reports, told in a thrilling
way and spiced-up with a good sense of positive thinking
about the world, connecting with people with the same
technical and human mindset. In one of the vividly told
stories about copper tube welding you’ll get to know
about the connection between welding and the healing
power of singing! Showing how to approach and realize
awesome projects together and to grow personally from
this challenge.
For sure, this entertaining and illuminating book by our
ʻmetallograph-philosopherʼ will find a lot of avid readers
around the world. You highly value technique, adventure,
and creativity speeded-up by imagination? – Then you
will love every page of this book!
Uta Tschakert
DVS Media GmbH
2

Foreword by the Gesellschaft für
Schweißtechnik International – Schweißtechnische-
Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt Hannover
(GSI SLV), Germany
Anyone whose mind was once captured by welding technology,
especially laser welding, you can’t get away from
it.
This also happened to the author of this book. His basics
come from conventional welding technology with a solid
education. In his stories he explains in a generally understandable
way what steel is in all its configurations and
how welding technology joins steel. It was deliberately
not intended to be a purely scientific treatise, although all
the statements are technically sound. In addition to all his
practical experience through his worldwide use, the laser,
which joins steel by means of light, plays a major role,
whereby the steel reacts differently in laser beam welding
than is generally known.
Fascinated by this technology, I got to know Stephan
Thiemonds through the company DSI Laserservice
(Thailand), as well as its owner, Mrs. Thongplew Banpao
and the Technical Director, Mr. Thanapol Pradissun. For
many years, I have been auditing DSI Laserservice (Thailand)
for certification according to DIN EN ISO 3834-2.
Through my visits and our cooperation on site, I can
very positively evaluate and recommend the professional
skills of this company. Their qualification and knowledge
benefits all customers of DSI Laserservice (Thailand).
Both at their main location in Chonburi and in the branch
offices. And furthermore, also during mobile laser beam
welding operations on site at the customer’s premises,
3

which is easily possible thanks to the modular, easy-totransport
laser welding systems.
Stephan Thiemonds and the DSI Laserservice (Thailand)
laser specialists know that the possibilities and applications
of a laser beam are far from exhausted. Which in
turn spurs them on to work on innovative further developments
that will ultimately benefit all users of laser
technology, accompanied by the phenomenon of the parttime
welder writing being inspired by his everyday work
to continue to report entertainingly on welding technology
and beyond the industry in future publications.
Based on the industry-related fact that welding connects.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerd Kuscher
Auditor and Accredited Certification
GSI SLV Hannover
4

Welding connects!
This simple fact is based on countless proofs. One is
this book that you are holding in your hands right
now. Admittedly, the cover and the pages in between
were not joined together by welding, but by the joining
method ʹgluingʹ described in DIN 8593-8. However, this
book and the stories it contains would simply not exist
without the ʹweldingʹ process described in DIN 1910-
100. Which would not be tragic. But a pity. After all,
this book stands as proof of the fascination associated
with welding. Because welding – attention! – connects
in a double sense: steel and people. Locally and globally.
Isn’t that fantastically!
But before I tell you about the big world of welding
technology out there, I would like to tell you something
small, from inside me: how this book came about.
Even if it should give the impression, there is no wellthought-out
concept behind it. Based on the economically
threatening shortage of skilled workers in Germany, to
increase the attractiveness of welding professions in
an entertaining way. Nor did this book originate from
a beer-social whim with my colleagues in a smoky bar
in Bombay, Bangkok or Butzbach. Inspired by chatting
about old times and deeds done, while someone in the
group euphorically exclaims, Hey, guys, let’s write a history
book about this! This idea excites me, but it doesn’t
hit the real trigger. It merely proves my talent for imagination.
Rather, the trigger I am getting at came very suddenly:
in the form of an emotion popping up. Triggered by an
external circumstance. Detached in a split second. As if
someone had pulled the plug, the emotion – whoosh! –
triggered a flood of inspiration that swept me away, my
body and soul. I experienced a full-body rush of feelings,
ideas, memories and constructs. Coupled with a portion
of digressive fantasy. Based on a solid foundation of factual
and technical knowledge.
5

6
This horny mix of emotions that lasted far longer
than the orgasm experienced in the wildest dreams of
my youth with Brooke Shields (* 1965), – Aahhh! –
together in The Blue Lagoon of Nanuya Levu, – Aahhh!
– damn! What was I trying to tell, anyway? Oh, right.
I was overcome by this very book emotion in a similarly
paradisiacal place in spring 2014: in Thailand.
But unfortunately, not during an erotic bath in front of
a lagoon waterfall. But during working hours. When I
was commissioned by my boss to supervise the repair
of two thin-film evaporator rotors with the experienced
eye of a European welding expert. When the customer
informed me during the initial meeting that the cracks
would not be repaired by the conventional TIG welding
process, as I had originally thought of on the outward
flight above the clouds. Instead, by a laser! That was
the emotion-triggering signal word, whereupon my fantastic
journey into the world of laser welding technology
began. Musically accompanied by the unmistakable Star
Wars opening melody.
“Ta Ta, Ta-da-da Ta, Ta-da-da-da Ta, Tadadada ...”
The rest is history. To be read, in the laser story told
in this book, The Return of the Jedi Knights. I wrote it
while I was still at the DSI in Thailand. After my return
home, this same laser story led me to the Jedi Knight for
further research, Attention! – Welding connects – to the
Jedi Knight C. F., at Maulbronn, Baden-Württemberg.
To the Master Yoda of laser welding technology at that
time. To the managing director of the DSI Laserservice
Germany. To his lovely assistant Mrs. Kuzma, to the
bright Mr. Hocke and to other colleagues of his team.
To the, in my eyes, Laser masters of the Universe, who
are fighting for the Good Force. Do laser welding with
courage, discipline and know-how all possible and all
impossible types of steel. Using the fantastic technology
of pulse laser welding, which inspires me to write about
it. With all its unbeatable advantages over conventional
welding processes. Almost without welding distortion

and without changes of microstructure. Narrated in the
story of the same name: Quick and painless.
Another proof that welding connects in a double sense
is my professional boat trip to Antarctica. From Uruguay
to the place where I thought I had fallen out of the world.
Back then, in 2009, on the Norwegian krill trawler Juvel.
On board: two horizontal dryers, each weighing 70 tons.
Designed and built by my colleagues at Buss-SMS-Canzler
workshop in Butzbach. To dry the krill caught in the
Antarctic Ocean, which is immediately processed into
powder on the high seas: into krill flavor. For frozen
pizzas, for example.
For the purpose of plant commissioning, I went
on board with my SMS colleague Ralf in Montevideo.
With him, I moved into a – Attention! – Welding connects
especially in the smallest of spaces – a tiny, yet
very cozy cabin with even a porthole. Right at the front
of the ship. Knowing well that a few months earlier the
original boat named Perangi had become the Juvel: in a
colossal transformation at the MWB shipyard in Bremerhaven.
In their dry dock, the Perangi was cut and pushed
apart. After the two krill dryers and other krill processing
machines had been brought below deck and pre-installed,
a nearly 40 meters long, newly manufactured hull section
was placed precisely in the gap. Whereupon all three
hull sections, bow, middle section and stern were pushed
together and, watch out! – Welding connects! – were
united in a material bonded manner. By means of two
circular welds running all around the fuselage. Voila! The
transformation of the 60 meters short Perangi into the
99 meters long Juvel was complete.
With this background knowledge, plus my further education
as a European welding expert, who knows from
his own welding experience what undiscovered weld
defects lie dormant in weld seams and what they can do
under alternating stress, we got caught in an Antarctic
storm one night. For hours, the Juvel fought against ten
meters high killer waves. Bow first. Together with my
7

8
colleague and me in our bunks. Steeply we went up the
wave crest. Feet first. High up, at the crest of the wave,
the Juvel paused for a split second. As if she was delaying
the unstoppable on the tipping edge. It took courage –
and then, as a mass of several thousand tons of steel,
plunged into the wave canyon. To fall after ten meters
of free fa- Ahhhh! -ll hit the concrete-hard surface of the
water, Wroommm! – while I stayed in my bunk, frozen
stiff with fear. I clung with both hands to the boards on
the side of my thin mattress, while I pursued only one
thought for hours.
I hope the welds withstand!
Wroommm! –
I hope the welds withstand!
Wroommm! –
Which weld defects lay dormant in the hull joints of the
Juvel, how they got in there and how they were covered
up by the quality department just to meet the deadline for
the hull extension, and whether the welds even held back
to the safe harbor of Montevideo, is revealed in the sailor’s
story, We love the Storms, contained in this book. By
the way, I also sang the pirate song of the same name
of the Bündische youth movement 1 , which I learned as a
little scout at the campfire, on that stormy night. I sang
for hours. While outside, in the pitch dark and surrounded
by icebergs, the sea raged, the waves reared up – to sink
the Juvel with its 52 men strong crew. To avenge the billion-fold
death of the defenseless inhabitants of the Arctic
Ocean, to avenge the krill we had caught and pulverized.
Wroommm! –
To be honest, I wasn’t singing because I enjoyed the
ship-like up-and-down movements. No, no. On the contrary!
I sang to drown out the dark voice of my fear. And
to banish the film of revenge and weld failure haunting
my mind:
“We love the storms, the roaring billows
of the ice-cold winds rough face.

We have sailed so many seas
and yet our flag has not sunk.”
Both as a scout and as a temporary sailor, singing the
chorus loudly gave me the greatest joy. It gave me the
greatest feeling of happiness and thus the least fear of the
big, wide, dark and freezing world outside:
“Heio, heio, heio, heioheioheioho, heiho, heioho,
heiho.”
Just by writing that one line of song, I feel that
pleasant euphoric tingle again. Which leads me recklessly
to reveal to you already that the Juvel did not sink
due to the revenge of the White Krill, nor due to covered-up
welding defects. I’m sure you’ve already figured
that out for yourself, because you have the proof in your
hand right now. If the Juvel had broken apart on the night
of the storm, five days’ voyage from the nearest coast,
the idea I had for the We love the Storms story, which
was born in my bunk when the Juvel hit the surface of
the water, would certainly be lying at the bottom of the
sea now.
Wroommm! –
I would like to use the depth of the last sentence to
advance to the basis of all human and metallic welded
joints. To the material necessary for this: steel. To this
extremely important material that we can no longer
imagine life without today: these miracle-performing
metal alloys of which there are more than 2,500 types
and whose main component is always iron. Before I go
into rapture, which is rather frowned upon in our industry
because it is neither masculine nor standardized, I’ll
quickly come to the worst-case scenario: if there were no
steel, welding would not be able to connect. Neither the
material nor us humans. Which would not only be a pity
in a double sense, but very tragic.
Wroommm! –
Because in a world without steel, my colleagues and
I would be out of a job. We would not only have nothing
9

10
to weld, but also nothing to laugh about. There would be
no thin film evaporators and no krill fishing ship Juvel.
(Which should make the krill very happy, at least.)
There would be no DSI at Thailand, no MWB shipyard
in Bremerhaven, and not even a single, last – oops!
I almost wrote Mohican instead of – which leads me to
the inspiring thought: The last steel worker. – Doesn’t
sound so bad after all. I’ll keep it in mind as a novel
idea. The core of the plot: the long-term preservation
of Germany’s steel industry base in the face of rapidly
emerging, underground competition from Russia, India
and China, which are forming themselves into modern
economical powers.
Back to the facts: Steel is of elementary importance.
Not only for Germany or Europe. For the entire
world. Especially for that of men. Because in a man’s
world without steel, we could neither steel ourselves nor
become as hard as the steel cast at Friedrich Krupp AG
in Essen. Instead of such personality development – from
youth to iron man – we would have to find our way in
the classic male role: as a real German oak. Which, however,
is female by its word type, i.e., its gender word in
traditional German grammar: the oak. Moreover, it has
34 fewer chromosomes than a human being. So why
become a real German oak? To regress in the course of
becoming a man? From 46 chromosomes back to 12? –
Anyway, doesn’t matter.
The main thing is to be a guy like a typical German
heraldic tree. Single-sex, with a strong, towering trunk
and rough bark; a wide-spreading crown that defies
every storm; bearing pendulous inflorescences in spring
and dense deciduous foliage in the middle of the year;
easily recognizable by its fruit: the acorn. Throughout
its long life, the German oak remains faithful to its
God-ordained place in life. With increasing age, it
reverently bends its branches down to its roots. To the
place from which the crown once sprouted. What a real
German oak has to do until someone comes along, cuts

down the indomitable, chops it up and burns in the stove
what has grown slowly over many decades. –
Whoever as a man cannot or does not want to withstand
this classic symbol for eternity, that of the genuine
German oak, could take up residence in Munich’s
motherhouse: the hotel Deutsche Eiche. To warm up
there in the sauna from the cold-metal world of steel.
Thinking of this alternative makes me glad that Mother
nature made a coppersmith out of me! A real metal guy,
an ironman, albeit with an occasional tendency towards
melancholy. Which is not so bad. Because it passes.
Sometimes it’s even productive! Like, for example, my
melancholic streak in combination with a professional
trip to China. When I asked myself the philosophical
question there in 2009: What would the World be without
Steel? Which in turn gave rise to the story of the same
name, also told in this book.
Joy, beautiful spark of Divinity 2 : fortunately for all
of us (but unfortunately for the poor krill) there is steel.
This we welders join together by welding. Which in turn,
as we know, results in human relationships. Because
welding connects. Sometimes consciously, sometimes
surprisingly. Anyone can get caught. And anywhere. You
just have to get involved. To the person. To the welding.
To the steel. Whether local or global. It doesn’t matter.
But always phenomenal.
Having pretty much reached the end of this introductory
narrative, I am once again left with nothing but
hope. Similar to that time, the Antarctic storm night. But
this time my hope is not directed at Zeus and his brother
Poseidon; not at the patron saint of welders and the
patron saint of the sea. No, this time my hope is for you,
dear reader. In the sense that I hope you will immerse
yourself body and soul, whole-body and holistically, in
the following welding stories. Which I would be particularly
pleased about if you do not, I repeat and put it
in capital letters for the sake of importance, if you are
NOT a native of welding. But nevertheless, let yourself
11

e infected by the subject matter and carried away by the
pull of the stories.
And maybe even, not to say hopefully, you will fall
for the fascination of welding while reading. – From
one moment to the next you feel fantastic. Included in a
global community. Closely connected in harmony. You
will feel a pleasantly tingling, aphrodisiac feeling of
connection that will stay with you for a long time. Long
after you have gently closed this book at its end in serene
composure. –
If that’s the case, then hooray! Then my very first emotion
that overcame me back then in Thailand, at the signal
words laser welding, was not only doubly but triply
worthwhile. Because this book, thanks to your added
sense of connection, takes on a hitherto undreamed-of
dimension: a third! Because it is proof that welding also
creates interdisciplinary connections. The best example
is: Welding even fulfils children’s dreams! This fantastic
story is also told in this book.
Welding connects! You, and me, and somehow all of
us. That’s how Mother Nature intended it for us. And this
is how the poet of the German Enlightenment, the mastermind
of the new self-confidence of the bourgeoisie,
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1759 – 1805), wrote it.
“In nature everything is connected with everything
else; everything crosses itself, everything changes
with everything else, everything changes, one into the
other.”
Wroommm! –
Across the world somewhere on the way,
in spring 2023
12

Endnotes
1 German elitist youth movement after Word War I with focus on
the male ideal of a knight and the medieval orders of knights,
supporting a lifelong brotherhood of the carefully selected members.
2 Joy, beautiful Spark of Divinity is the first line of Friedrich
Schiller’s (1759 – 1805) most famous poem, Ode to joy. It was
written in the summer of 1785 and was set to music by Ludwig
van Beethoven (1770 – 1827), among others, in the 4th movement
of his 9th Symphony.
13

14
The healing Power of Singing while
Welding
Just two years after completing my vocational training,
I was allowed to fly to Singapore on business at the
tender age of 21. Business class above the clouds to the
other end of the world. To the Southeast Asian island
city-state not far from the equator, where – my self-confidence
could hardly believe it – they needed me and my
skills as a coppersmith. Among all my experienced Canzler
3 colleagues, I was the one who received the plane
ticket from the boss. Including his confidence that I was
exactly the right man for this mission. There were two
simple but travel-decisive reasons for this.
First of all, I was slim and slender, in comparison to
my colleagues, who were also capable of copper welding
and were far more experienced. Physically, I did not
correspond to the classic image of a strong coppersmith
who could easily swing a sledgehammer. At least I was
willing. And I knew that although I didn’t have the
strength of an ironman forged from Krupp steel, I did
have the courage of a dreamer. The second reason was:
I was not only learning to weld, but also to sing while
welding. And I did it without being ashamed of it. Thus,
I had two key qualifications – being lanky and able to
sing – that the training framework did not provide for
teaching. This deficiency was my all-important advantage.
Sounds confusing, I know. Almost like an engineer’s-fairytale
like from the Thousand and One Nights.
So, let me tell it to you.
Once upon a time, more than 100 years ago, there was
a master coppersmith named Carl Canzler (1858–1919).
He operated a coppersmithing bearing his name, which
he founded in 1890 and which was located in the north
of the district town of Düren, in North Rhine-Westphalia.
In his work as an apparatus engineer, the entrepreneur
was confronted with the enormous problems of welding
copper. In his search for a welding solution, he combined

his ambitious enthusiasm for research with the tinkering
talents of his employee and Master craftsman, Richard
Samesreuther (1880 – 1946). This clever ʹYou’ll Never
Work Alone!ʹ-teamwork led them to a groundbreaking
invention in welding technology. Patented by the Imperial
Patent Office on October 01, 1912 with the following
wording:
“Process for autogenous welding of copper, using a
phosphorus-containing copper wire as filler material.”
The Canzler wire, named after Carl Canzler’s family
and company name and soon world-famous for its
welding advantages, was invented. But his wire was not
only suitable for welding copper. In contrast to the previous
brazing, it also made acid-resistant welds possible.
Due to the turmoil of the First World War, the paths of
the two patent holders diverged. While Carl Canzler continued
to build up the coppersmith’s workshop in Düren
with the help of his son Heinrich, Richard Samesreuther
went to Butzbach as a 38-year-old returning war veteran.
There, on April 9, 1919, he had the establishment of the
apparatus construction company Samesreuther & Co.
OHG entered in the Commercial Register at the Hessian
District Court.
What no one could have foreseen at that time: In the
following decades and as a result of economic changes,
what once separated was to be reunited. The Swiss steel
and mechanical engineering company Buss AG and Mr.
Müller and Mr. Schuss played a decisive role in the decades-long
reunification. Incidentally, their initials, M
and S, stand for SMS, following the S for Samesreuther.
They were joined by ʹthe Canzlerʹ from Düren, from
which Buss-SMS-Canzler GmbH was finally formed in
2003. This company celebrated its 100th anniversary
on April 9, 2019, on the origins company premises in
Butzbach, thus miraculously closing the circle. As an
15