In the early years of this publication, readers often wrote letters to the editors to describe a use they had found for their welding equipment other than welding.

In the November 2005 historical column we told how E.A. Hobart wrote a story for a 1934 issue about the safe use of arc welding equipment to thaw frozen pipes.

In the March 1936 issue, the editors provided a story about Harry Hooper's business of thawing pipes in the Cleveland, Ohio, area by using his Lincoln Electric "welder-on-wheels." Hooper had to turn a crank, move the polarity switch out of the "neutral" position and wait until the meter read "300" while answering some questions posed by onlookers about the generator leads until his customer yelled out the door that the water was running.

Also in the March 1936 issue, A.C. Gell of Michigan wrote about the use of a welding machine developed by "six job shop people in this city." When a car had a weak battery, they used the welding machine to 'jump start' the car. They attached the welding machine leads terminals to the battery — positive to positive and negative to negative — and brought up the voltage slowly before starting the automobile.

In what may have been one of the more spectacular uses of a welding unit, G.L. Motter of New York described in February, 1936 the use of a welding torch for the launch of a new destroyer for the U.S. Navy. As is traditional, the destroyer had its bow toward the dock, but this ship was held to the dock by two plates that measured approximately 3-ft. long by 11-in. wide by 0.375-in. thick with evenly spaced holes. To launch the ship, four welders used their torches to cut the plates between the holes. Cutting the plate took about 30 seconds. Motter said he thought the men deserved the traditional champagne that goes along with the launch of a ship more than the ship's bow did.