Hello world!

by lewishillier | Jun 26, 2022 | Spotlight

Lewis here, writing to you from a (surprisingly) sunny London summer’s day. Welcome to my website!

It’s all very new and over time I hope to continue writing to share with you on matters related to our trade and the steel industry.

beginnings

Heavy steel fabrication is where I started out my career. Though if you asked my dad he’d probably tell you that I’ve been gifted with a curiosity that went from my head to my hands, as soon as I was able to take apart my toys, because I was more interested in how things worked than how they ‘played’.

After leaving school I found myself persuading a fabrication company in Auckland to take me on as an apprentice while I studied applied engineering. I didn’t know how much I’d come to love the work and honing the skills I saw on a daily basis with master tradesmen whom I’d come to admire and respect dearly.

apprenticeship

It took four and a half years to go from apprentice, to graduating top of my class in heavy fabrication, to completing my diploma in applied engineering. From there my heart was set on steel fabrication, except I ran into so many issues in the workshop that I had to do something about it.

Drawings would arrive into the workshop with incomplete information. It’s as if the draughtsman ran a program, put a few details in, hit the button to run the drawings and that’s what we had to work with.

switching gears

Eager to put my education and knowledge to practise, these stalls in the workflow made it necessary for me to leave the fabrication side of steelwork fairly early on to join the design team as a draughtsman.

Having managed to convince the boss to let me have a go, I set out to create better drawings that the fabricators would have no problem understanding, and would therefore make the projects coming in run smoothly with less time wasted looking for the missing information.

skilled perspectives

I knew my apprenticeship would serve me well, to interpret from both sides of steelwork. This came in very handy especially when I’d need to roll up my sleeves and demonstrate how pieces would need to come together.

Sometimes I was required to produce my own interpretation of designs from an idea that an architect would have. The in depth knowledge and practice I gained throughout my early career made these requests easy and enjoyable, and delighted clients.

Having empathy for various levels of skilled labour has made designing projects easy since it’s where I came up in steel work. Some draughtsmen lack understanding of how their work will be interpreted in the workshop and this has at times compromised projects.

adapting to changes

Life, as you know, tends to take so many twists and turns, and learning to adapt to changes during lulls in my career has challenged me in ways I needed to grow. It also allowed me to spend more time with family, help my wife with her handmade business, be a part of my children’s childhood, and work in different roles to support them during these downturns.

the way forward

And now in my 40s I’m burgeoning on a new path to build a business and grow a team of talented people who form various arms in steel work. Together, we’ll influence the steel industry for the better and leave a legacy of work we can all be proud of.

The steel industry is past due for an upgrade on developing better ways to support youngsters or anyone who is interested in furthering their career in steelwork. With such high turnover rates for roles, and not enough real talent trained by masters from fabrication to draughting, we are at the mercy of unrealistic expectations affecting budgets and the overall delivery of projects being unnecessarily problematic. Not to mention the quality of life that is the greatest casualty of steel industry workers.

In time I hope to distil my experiences and knowledge through producing quality content on my blog (and other places you can find me online) to help juniors who are up and coming draughtspeople or fabricators to raise the standard of their work and in turn give people the confidence to command more from themselves and employers.

Thanks for being here and looking forward to sharing more soon!