Anything welding

Welding by hand will never work. We have an ancient vertical band saw that welds, anneals and grind blades. Our blades come in 100’ roll and we make them as needed.
Its one of the neatest pieces of equipment in our shops. Will snap a pic of it if I remember.

 

Our blade making bandsaw. I do maintinance on all our equipment. Found the original manual in plastic under 1/2” of dust in the machine, good as new. Never knew it had an oil bath transmission until I found it so changed the oil and lubed all the points as per manual. Says its from 1974.
Second pic is of the blade making part of the show.

 

We had pretty much the same machine at one of the shops I was at. Worked like a dream!

 

Ya she’s a beaut!

 

Pretty happy with my welds recently, much more consistent. Still need a lot of practice on overhead mig welding tho. Also got this bandsaw for $30 off Facebook. Works great!

 

They sure don't make them like they used to

 

Someone correct me if I’m wrong but it looks like you could use a little more heat in the weld in the first pic. Looks a little cold.

 

I agree.

A little less wire speed and a slower weld speed might get you a little better penetration.

Regardless, they are good looking welds.

 

Weld looks pretty good but yes I agree it looks cold

 

Squares and rectangles in a larger rectangle.
A lot of the stuff I build is strictly a stage prop for 3 hours, then to the trash heap.
There is a shit ton if 45 degree cuts into each of these worthless objects

 

I'm not sure it matters...

I find it depressing that your hard work has a shelf life similar to a med fruit fly.

I'm happy that you have a job making money, but you go home thinking no one gives a shit after 2 weeks.

Nothing is worse than laying down a perfect weld and it means absolutely shit.

Sorry if I seem dark, but I know I could never do what you do.

Again, my opologies.

 

Unless your satisfaction comes from the process....
I get where you're coming from and would probably feel the same way, but I've heard of a lot of artist types who destroy most of their work. Their justification is that the "art", or the reason they do what they do, is in the process and not in the end result.
Some people are wired that way.

 

The weld at the top of the pic or the longer one in the middle? The top one was an older weld I did awhile back

 

Yeah put a blanket on it, that'll do it.

 

Scotchman cold saw

 

Entertainment industry, that's the way it rolls.
I have some permanent install stuff at the Bellagio, Cesar's, MGM, Palm's, red rock, green valley ranch etc. I would call my company 3 hour event.
What's worse, is that some stuff has weeks if hard labor into it, then off to powdercoat, etc, then a event that runs for 3 or 5 hours.
It's still way better then tradeshow work.

The good and bad if my job is I can do as many hours as I want. Averaging 120 hours every 2 weeks. This Monday is double time being labor day. But I am getting burnt out and it's not really about the money at this point.

 

Besides, you pay me to build it, it's yours, you can toss it in the trash when your done with it .
I still got paid to build it.

I got props for my wooly mammoth tusks at burning man via a email yesterday. Waiting for pics

 

Back to Koditten.

I don't mind my job, I work with a lot of artistic type people in this industry, what I notice is that there really isn't any ego in my shop, everyone is a specialist at what they do.
Compared to when I was a industrial knucklehead, my work environment is pretty good, inside a nice shop with swamp coolers ( been 110 everyday for 2 weeks ) compared to being in a refinery outside in the sun doing some structural weld repair around a bunch of union pricks, or working on heavy machinery that has been abused and band aided to the point that it should be shoved out to pasture.
Shop fabrication work beats field work anyday.
I have zero interest in doing that kind if work ever again, done my time covered in grease, working outside in some shitty industrial setting in hot and cold weather.
I may go off on my own soon, I have all the tools and machines, just need to upgrade my Tig machine to something in the 300 amp range, and I want a Ellis 1600 band saw, then I have everything I need to do just about anything fab and machining type job shop jobs .

 

Interesting you feel that way I have several customers that all they do is weld up things to break.

Testing Labs that test really neat things . You really need to know everyone that works there to get your application looked at.

I also have customers that build stage sets as well Gotta love Heat in the Winter AC in the summer better then most other welding jobs

As long as your getting paid much more fun then welding widgets coming down a line at least to me

Not much different then taking any weld test it gets cut apart or pulled apart

To each there own

 

Some pics of my setup that let's me build all the crap that leaves the building daily.
Cheers