Welding_ConnectsLP

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