Anything welding

@koditten My Dad is 87 and still brags about the Indian Motorcycle he had when he was 18. Indian was as big/popular as Harley at that time.

I made him a wall hanger for his garage. Cut it Sunday with only one wasted run. Dummy me put my ground clamp in the wrong spot and it got caught on the X-axis cross member and shoved the sheet of metal out of position during the cut.

He has a pic of himself (at 18) and his little brother on the bike. He is going to hang them together in his garage. He still hangs out there every day.

 

Absolutely beautiful! Hang that with pride!

 

That is when I look at them and say If it is so easy Why did you come to me rather then do the job yourself.

Then go off on a tangent talking about completely different things.

 

Yeah.

Fortunately one guy is learning the hard (and correct) way.

He came to me wanting to get a custom bed rack made, a modular setup that is, some months ago on Facebook.

He was quick to provide me all the details of this perfect bed rack, and when I told him a few key parts will take a little bit to hand cut/make, he got on the subject of budget. He didn't want it to 'cost too much' so when I asked what he was expecting for this to cost, he threw out the number "about $400 LOL"

Told him it'd cost more than half that in just steel, and that I wasn't going to do this job for $100.

Months later, I see him posting about his first welder (a cheap, harbor freight flux-core welder) and needing help. I offered some advice only to realize it's the same guy from months ago. He messages me how he's now getting into welding and it was the perfect opportunity to explain why welders charge what they charge! Experience is a big part of it obviously, but also the knowledge for fabrication. Then I finally started getting into the tools needed, and his response was "that's too expensive"

SOMEONE THAT FINALLY UNDERSTOOD WHY I BLEW HIM OFF!

 

Good thing he saved his money to get that flux core! Never know when you’ll need to tac weld one of your kids toys in the living room.

 

It took my a good many years to get that mindset.

I was so easy going in my younger days till I had a good talk with one of my older teachers .

About drawing the line with the clueless He explained the time lost and the money spent was gone !! It would never be possible to get the time back( at this point)

It might look like on paper you recover the money but it comes back to the lost time.

This really factors in when your self employed .

Enough said !

 

A man told me many years ago "just because you have a welder doesn't mean you can weld". I understand now what he was talking about

 

Looking at pre employment weld tests I learned that fact long ago.

How many other welds appear like this one??

The person either could not see the joint. Could not access the joint correctly . Was so uncomfortable a decent weld was impossible . Look likes a very long Arc.

Is the weld toward the bottom yours??

 

It’s easily accessible. It could be stick welded. None of the welds look too good on this.

 

Brackets for a member here.

Getting the table dialed in for cutting heavier iron.

I still need to work on my lead ins and lead outs. I have a very small imperfection that I think I can get rid of with some tweaking.

 

I wish I had used these feet on my own stands and tables



I always put extra effort on jobs for others

 

I use 1/2” carriage bolts as leveling feet for some of my “smaller” projects. Super cheap and easy to replace if I need to. I have a few outdoors and they’ve held up great with a little anti seize on the threads.

 

Oooh I like that idea, thanks!

These legs are for a large, L-shaped shelf setup that'll receive a light countertop.

I'll be cutting angle iron and running that along the top between the legs. Angle will get holes drilled along the top flat side before getting burned in of course. Those holes will be used to run self-tapping screws for attaching said counter top to the angle iron.

Here are the dimensions I measured and brought to my garage for planning and layout.



Shelf will be in a small room in my neighbor's business and it'll sit on laminate flooring hence the soft feet used.

 

You can always weld larger plates to the carriage bolts if you want to spread the load out on more delicate flooring like vinyl and laminate. While it may seem like more work, the cost is pennies compared to buying prefabbed leveling feet. And isn’t making stuff really why we got into welding in the first place?

 

Damn, Skippy!

 

Wish they were pre fabbed



I had to cut, drill, and bevel a handful of tabs.

Least it's better than my old job where the owner was so frugal, he bought galvanized bolts he had an employee blast. Then I'd have to use a jig I made to weld the bolt in place as center as possible cause he didn't want to buy those weld-in capture nuts.

I definitely want to use the carriage bolt idea for the next stand or table I make myself.

 

Love posting stuff though cause you guys just impress me with a cheaper, and/or easier option that I didn't consider.

 

I know! Sometimes I think a face/palm emoticon would really apply.

 

In that spirit… I’m definitely going to practice before I weld up the real parts but any thoughts on this? My knee crank broke eons ago and I am finally getting around to making a new one. Plan is to tig the two ends to some 1/4” bar kind of as shown. Will tack together, check alignment, clamp like crazy and then weld front and back. Depending on what my welds look like, I may blend it all together. Ha ha. This is 1018.

 

Color me stupid.

Can I ask what a knee crank is?