DIY injuries on rise amid home renovation TV boom, Brisbane doctors say

[bueller]

There are still some short courses available, I've been looking at doing some of the welding and machining classes at Polytechnic West over the last few months. Probably varies from state to state though.

[Mobyturns]

Very true, but you notice that the DIY projects shown on TV are often accompanied by poor technique on behalf of the presenter. I saw a a segment on BHG recently where the presenter who is supposedly a qualified chippie was using a chisel in a manner that left me dumbstruck, and wondering what happened to apprenticeship training. I have no doubt that an inexperienced person could injure themselves copying the technique displayed on TV.

That's why I don't watch them. They could easily be categorized as "comedy" or "parody" rather than "reality" TV. Same goes for many of the 4WD shows. At least Russell Coight gets it as right as they do and makes no claim to being an expert.

[BobL]

It's been interesting to watch two "20 something" friends of ours go through some self discovery wood working.
Neither of them had done much or any before but both had a reasonable sense of taste and were not prepared to accept that 3 pieces of MDF tek screwed together represents quality wood working and longevity.

They both ended up purchasing some old weather worn timber slabs from me and discovered "Real wood grain" and started out using cheap power tools and quickly realised were not going to cut the mustard.
I gave them a few tips and loaned them a few tools which resulted in a string of SMS messages asking how to solve this and that problem and eventually proudly showing off their efforts at extracting the grain from the wood.

One of these young blokes lives close by and had to work in their drive way due to space restrictions and every time I went past I was pleased to see him using all the necessary PPE

Both of them have put a lot of time into their projects and now seem to have got the wood bug and have since asked me lots of questions.

[bryn23]

TAFE got rid of its ACE short course up here in QLD a while back. It was cheap and for everyone.

It was a shame as they had cheap courses covering most of the trade basics (panel beating, car painting, upholstery eta). people tend to learn quick from being taught by a skilled teacher than giving a go, without knowing the safety pitfalls

Although you got no real certificates, you got knowledge, and it was cheap.

Not much of that left now, mostly private now,

Ive booked myself in to a SKILLTECH TAFE Welding course modules, just the basic Arc, Mig and Tig over 6 weeks.

Not as cheap as ACE, but i'll rather learn Mig and Tig than learn bad habits and work safety as i go along.