20 May 2016 – Practice makes perfect

Throughout this week I have been doing the same things as usual in terms of lagging and metaling the pipework. I have been working with all of the team around the site, as well as working on my own.

As the weeks have gone on the work has become tougher and more complicated.

I’ve been cutting out for brackets and tracing wires; things which I have done before and been taught how to do, but this week I have been tested to see if I could do more of them.

I’ve also been working closely with other apprentices and getting on well as we’ve had to share jobs and get them finished on time. I spent time working with Will Mumby-Croft, another Humbertherm apprentice. He is also in my college class; we get on well and have a good time working with one another, as we usually get the work done and get it done well. It’s satisfying that this is no longer a surprise to the other lads on site! We got given some very tricky work with numerous cut outs of all different shapes and sizes, and fitted flange boxes and valve mats to pipework. Our supervisor had given us two days to complete it and we finished it in good time to a neat finish.

He also challenged me to correct some mistakes another apprentice had made, so I got on and did that.

Another day we had to fit a ducting-like sleeve around the insulated pipes. This is because they were too close together to get separate casing around the pipe. This job is something that neither of us had done before so it was a challenge. There were some extra parts that needed making as the original had not been measured correctly. I made a plate-like fitting that was able to fit the gap so that we managed to get the fitting looking correct.

I can definitely see that practice makes perfect. I am really enjoying this time in my apprenticeship. A lot of what I am doing now, I have done before, but through repetition I am improving, cutting out the mistakes I was making at the beginning, finishing the job more quickly and to a better standard. As my work is on show, it’s very important to me that I get it spot on.