Keith Rider

Don Geary's welding book is pretty good. He suggests starting with O/A brazing first then O/A welding. There are a bunch of good exercises in there to teach puddle control and other good stuff. There is a link to the book on my website: http://tinyurl.com/littlebluetractor I got pretty good at O/A welding by the time I used up my 3rd tank of acetylene. For light gauge steel it is a very efficent process and way more controllable than stick or mig on sheet metal. I've welded 3/8 thick steel with O/A, but it isn't the best way. Big torch tips use up a lot of gas and the whole workpiece tends to get hot, not just the area around the weld.

bicycle-powered machines make me think of 1) demented hippies and 2) Gilligan's Island could go either way depending on the lighting fixtures you choose lava lamps for the hippie look, coconut lamps for the Gilligans Island look