Ever wonder how they did it?  Well, here’s your chance to find out.

(The following is copied from the January 2009 edition of the Lincoln Electric Newsletter.)

How I Did It: Handrail

From: Bryan Doig of Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada

I have been using Lincoln products for many years. My Dad taught me the basics of welding on the farm using a tractor powered generator welder many years ago.

I built this handrail using 1 x 1 inch square tubing, 3/8 inch solid square bar and 112 circles cut from 3-1/2 inch (diameter) x 3/16 inch pipe. My daughter designed the project.

I used a Lincoln MIG-Pak® 15 (current model is Easy-MIG™ 180) wire feeder welder and a Lincoln AC-225C (current model is AC-225) stick welder — both fine products — for the project.

The handrail receives many oohs and aahs when guests arrive at the door.

These project images and descriptions have been published to show how individuals used their ingenuity for their own needs, convenience and enjoyment. Only limited details are available and the projects have NOT been engineered by the Lincoln Electric® Company. Therefore, when you use the ideas for projects of your own, you must develop your own details and plans and the safety and performance of your work is your responsibility.

Look for Jesse James on the upcoming Celebrity Apprentice! That’s right The Welder from Long Beach California is going to be on the show. Check out this preview:

It is true what he is saying: not everyone has the skills to be an engineer, and not everybody needs to (or wants to) go to college. But kids do need the educational opportunities to help them succeed with good job skills. Many kids have the ability to build things from metal that require thinking, planning, measuring, testing etc. Metal fabrication involves hands on learning of metallurgy, electricity, and geometry to name just a few.

I bought my first TIG welder when I was 19 and immediately started building accessories for motorcycles and cars out of my parents garage. It wasn’t long before the big guys began to ask if I could do work for them. I was shocked and had no idea how – or – what to charge them!

Welders– especially if you’re good– can make really good coin. And if you specialize in welding titanium, or pipe welding you can really do well for yourself.

Good welding. In Nascar, and all forms of racing, it’s essential, especially if you want to walk out of a crash with your limbs intact. At Kevin Harvink Inc. (KHI) the Team Fabricators make sure of that by using MIG and TIG welding techniques to reinforce the cars’ roll cages, wheel spindles, and sheet metal bodies to make sure that the drivers (and cars) don’t take too much of a beating in a collision.

WELDING ESSENTIALS FOR RACING
Beefed up spindles, roll cages & precision bodywork

Punishment. At 200 mph, it’s the best way to describe the beating that multiple left-handed turns can put on a car or truck. Then there’s the competition to keep a close eye on as drivers aggressively fight for the lead. Team Fabricators with Kevin Harvick Inc. (KHI) know a thing or two about punishment as they teardown, and rebuild the trucks and cars that Harvick races in NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series and Nationwide Series. The speed and g-forces placed on these cars and trucks is tremendous – but they’re nothing when compared to the energy the vehicles must absorb if they collide with the wall or take a 180 mph (unintentional) shot from another racer. In these cases, NASCAR drivers place their safety, even their lives, on their vehicles’ integrated safety measures and also on the structural toughness of their cars and trucks. Since no metal-to-metal bond is stronger than fusion, MIG and TIG welding techniques are essential among NASCAR team fabricators.
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EDITORS NOTE: Joe Welder highly recommends these TIG torches if you’re in the business of welding race cars and related parts.  Check out Arc-Zone.com’s selection of WP-125 Micro TIG torches and WP-225 and WP-150 Modular TIG torch packages.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Don’t worry, this is not a post about Annie Proulx ’s novel, or even the movie with Kevin Spacey….

Arc-Zone.com is located in Carlsbad, California which is just a few miles north of San Diego. Our office and warehouse is in an active and vibrant business park. In fact, when I located the business here a few years ago we chose it for that very reason. Plus it’s close to the service centers for UPS, FedEx and DHL.

Last night I was in the Shipping Department. It was late and the guys were jamming to get the late day orders out. Dennis, our UPS driver, was there waiting.

It used to be the UPS guy would come early and not wait. He’d come back if he had time… but more likely we’d have to drive our “after pickup” load over to the UPS Office.

“How’s your load count?” I asked.

“Way down,” he said. “It’s sad.”

Then Dennis told me that Arc-Zone is the only company on his route that is consistent… As he picked up the last boxes to load onto his truck he said, “Man, you really do a nice job of packaging your orders. I bet your customers are happy to get a package for Arc-Zone.com.”

And we didn’t even tell him about the M&Ms that we include with every order!

Yes we do have a lot of raving fans and that’s why I’m proud to say Sales and Profits are up.
Arc-Zone.com closed out 2008 with a modest increase in sales and a huge improvement in our bottom line.

We’re looking forward to continuing the upward trend in 2009, because despite the current economic crisis, we see that the trend is steady. We’ll be here to serve the fabricators doing important repair work, and when the economy improves we’ll be serving fabricators working in construction and innovative areas like alternative energy laying the foundation for the future.

Congress has just introduced a new bill that will strictly regulate interactions between sellers and buyers of scrap metal.  The bill is designed to deter scrap metal thieves from selling stolen items, but the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries protests that the real outcome will just be more hassle for the law-abiding scrap metal dealers.  Where do you stand?  Read on to find out:

U.S. Congress Introduces Metal Theft Bill
2/14/2009

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and U.S. Representative Erik Paulsen (R-MN) have introduced bipartisan federal legislation that addresses metal theft. The bill was introduced Feb. 12 in the Senate by Senators Klobuchar and Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Paulsen introduced the legislation with Representatives Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Lee Terry (R-NE).

The Secondary Metal Theft Prevention Act of 2009 is aimed at thieves who steal metal from a variety of vulnerable targets and sell it as a scrap for a quick profit.

“The vast majority of scrap metal dealers are perfectly legitimate and law abiding,” said Klobuchar. “This law is designed to deter the thieves. The harder it is for them to sell the stolen goods, the less likely it is they’ll steal in the first place.”"This common sense legislation will reduce crime and drug use and address the growing epidemic of metal theft in our area,” said Paulsen. “The thefts of these materials have important economic and homeland security implications and we need to do everything we can to help ensure this problem is solved.”

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This post may be especially important for you if you happen to live in Alabama, specifically, in Pike County, AL, and hopefully, near Troy.  If so, I am envious.  DNW United Services Group is headquartered there and they are the multi-taskers extraordinaire when it comes to any kind of help you need, whether it be with your computer, gutters, air conditioning, or just shipping packages.  They boast expertise in each of these areas and more.  Take a look.

DNW Opens Second Location

After more than a year and a half in business, DNW United Services Group, LLC has expanded to two locations.

The company, which offers a wide variety of services, including IT services, concrete construction, transportation, property management, janitorial services, heating and cooling services and sheet metal fabrication, has opened its administrative, trucking and tin shop location on Elm Street right past Swindall Road.

CONTINUE READING THE ARTICLE ONLINE ->

CHECK OUT THEIR WEBSITE ->

Diversification COULD mean the difference between making it through these economic times or not. How diversified is your business?

Low on cash?

Something you may not have thought of: selling scrap metal. In the 40’s, it was a requirement, in the 2000’s, it became cool, and now, it just might be a necessity.

NBSJ: More people selling scrap metal to make ends meet

A dealer in scrap metal says more people are turning to recycling, some out of desperation. Metal recycling has been encouraged in recent years as a “green” initiative.  Recycling saves energy – 95 percent for aluminum, 85 percent for copper, and 74 percent for iron scrap – over using virgin ore and saves landfill space and greenhouse emissions.  But it has been around much longer because it makes good business sense: Scrap metal makes money.

A plaque on the front lobby wall at Goldman Metals on Neuse Boulevard in New Bern honors it as one of the city’s oldest continually operating businesses. It was started by present owner Dale Goldman’s grandfather Max Goldman, and then owned by his father Raymond Goldman. It has been operated as a family business for more than 100 years and in this tight economy finds itself in the business of helping families get by. “I am more determined than ever to do everything within my power to help people through these difficult economic times,” Goldman said.
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What are YOU doing to get through this economy?

I can’t believe the number of calls we get from fabricators complaining about how their torch is bad, or the tungsten is junk, or….

Last week a Master Custom Motorcycle builder called me and said “man my welder is acting up can you set me up with a new Miller machine?” I jumped on the chance to tell him about the performance advantages of the New Miller Dynasty 350 DX — we sold four of them last month to a large customer and we don’t even sell welding machines! (but that’s for another post)

When I gave him the price he realized hoped there might be more to the issue than the fact that he had an older model TIG machine.

What he described was an uncontrollable weld puddle with porosity, sparks and smoke. That’s fine for MIG welding but not TIG!

I asked him the usual questions:

Is the material a cheap import?
Do you know what the mill specs are?
Is it coated with mill scale, did you clean it well?
Did you use your tungsten grinder to prepare your electrode?

After he’d checked it out, he called me back.

“Dude, I am so frustrated. It still is not working.”

When I asked him to check his gas bottle to verify that it is pure argon he told me, “I just had my supplier deliver some new bottles.”

“Check the Teflon insulating gaskets and back cap o-ring to insure they’re sealing properly,” I said.

He told me, “I gotta confess I need a new torch. You know the complete set-up like you sold me last time.”

I asked why and he told me “I got so mad I threw in on the shop floor and bent the body”

He said it wasn’t leaking water out the gas cup so I told him he didn’t need a new torch.

Turns out — and this is hard for me to believe — his gas supplier sold him and delivered Argon/Co2 mixed bottles. That is something I rarely ask because it’s so basic. But apparently it’s more common than I realized (Carmen Electrode tells me she hears this all the time on the welding forums).

My advice– save yourself time and money and ALWAYS verify the contents. “Gas type” should be clearly marked on the label of the cylinder. For TIG welding use Argon or in some cases Argon and Helium.

I know I’m adding this question to my checklist and you should too!