Have you ever tried "rivet nuts"? They work exceptionally well on sheet material. You can get them in small metric or SAE sizes and then choose a fastener head type (like stainless button head torx) that suits your fancy. Yea they are awesome. I actually have one of the tools at home that...

Welcome to the forum! As to your questions, (not that I'm a big union guy) but have you thought about a local union apprenticeship? I can say that my experience in another trade showed me that training and job placement were a priority.

Welcome to the forum. A lot of guys here are in to bikes as well.

Sorry but my youth and inexperience have just kicked in. What the he'll is hemostats? Again just young and dumb.[/quote]

Just think small surgical grade locking needle-nose pliers......

I forget who the manufacturer is, but we had a sales rep in with a "new steel cutting saw blade that will cut through steel like butter".... He asked if he could demonstrate it and our purchasing manager said go ahead, here's some 1" bar stock. He put it in a standard Makita circular ...

At work we use Boelube on all of our abrasives for aluminum and all aluminum drill bits and burrs. It's hard at first but melts as the tools heat up. You can also apply it to the surface.

Welcome to the forum! I used to live in the east bay and the wife and I would go hang out on the Embarcadero about once a month. Been on that ship, the Pompanito, Balclutha and hung out watching tourists go by while drinking Anchor Steam. Good times!

I like to joke that if I haven't drawn blood by nine AM, I'm having a bad day. Little nicks and burns are part of the game. It's not actually a daily thing, but anymore I don't even notice the small stuff until someone asks me why I'm bleeding. I should point out that with the medication I'm on a p...

16ga stainless, E3 1/8" tungsten, #12 cup, 45 amps, 75/25 gas, sw250 with foot control, 3/32 308 rod.

Good to have you here. Plenty of good stuff to check out!

Perhaps a daisy chain setup with a separate storage tank? Cfms are key, so to have a large capacity tank with a combination of smaller volume compressors (two maybe?) might be a solution. We did something similar in a woodshop where I used to work to handle multiple air sanders, nail guns and the f...

Perhaps a daisy chain setup with a separate storage tank? Cfms are key, so to have a large capacity tank with a combination of smaller volume compressors (two maybe?) might be a solution. We did something similar in a woodshop where I used to work to handle multiple air sanders, nail guns and the fi...

Poland308 wrote:If your going to go that far you might as well solder a tube system to the bottom of your table and run a pump cooler.

Or dissect a cheap yard - sale window a/c and slide the evaporator coil into an aluminum box....

That's a good looking piece. (Would those be John Deere colors? )
Any idea how many cfm at what pressure it would take to run it?

No robot will take my job. In eight years, I haven't been able to program another HUMAN to do it. Steve S Ability-wise or attitude-wise? Seems today that most just do enough to not get fired and all they do when not working is play with their phone. Maybe cell phones were invented to occupy humans ...

Thanks for the advice guys. Will check out the AL plate. And wear sleeves!

I'm not welding anything specific, just practicing flat welds between two AL plates (1/8th, 3/16th, 1/4) & fillet welds on the same. Also been told to practice on stainless 1/16th inch sheets cut into squares and corner welded, tees, etc. As I have a scrap pile to pull from, I could get 1/8th in...

Can you describe "big"? Like plate or heavy wall tube? How thick? What I am limited by is what I can find in the offcut pile.

Just wondering what a good metal would be to use for keeping aluminum from getting too hot while TIG welding and warping. I fused a couple of 4x12 pieces of 1/8th inch brass together with that intent and am wondering if that would work.

One is gravity fed and one generally pulls from a tube. They both have their own benefits and drawbacks. Are you going to painting flat and horizontal or doing tube frames that require manipulation of the gun in odd angles? It may be a matter of personal preference and which one "feels" ri...

I used to have a part time job sandblasting.. The guy had an IR tow behind unit that used a 460 Ford big block that used 4 cylinders to run and 4 for compression. It was a handful at the nozzle and loud, but it would take anything down to bare metal in a hurry. It made the little cabinet jobs that I...

Maybe a New York class, BB35 comes to mind.

Woodpecker, I reach in my bag of failures and successes everytime I start a new project, nothing is lost if I fail, nothing is gained if I don't try. :)[/quote] I think some of my best successes have come from me not knowing that something was supposed to be difficult and thus, not being scared to j...

When you pulled the tungsten, did you check the gas lens? Sometimes it gets splatter on it and screws up the gas flow.

I don't even want to discuss things that I have seen in chicken processing plants. Places that make the high dollar name brand chicken. My retirement plan is for someone to give me a quarter for every chicken in a 5 mile radius from my house. They can put a LOT of chickens in one house and there ar...