I am familiar with perlite as a soil conditioner in it's expanded state. At a glance, it looks like something a bean bag chair might be filled with.

I never thought about how much these tanks would expand and contract.

Welcome to the forum, Norman.

The reason I thought it was spam is because I had mentioned "carpeted" bunks on a trailer. Data miners seem to find such random key words and inject their solicitations accordingly and at random which is often the case of users with single random posts. "Foam baller". . .could be...

Otto's looked well done too. MIG almost killed (literally) me in welding school. I remember a time when it was the smooth beads that looked cool. Like 7024 (Jet rod?) stick or smooth mig beads. I wish I had a nickel for every time someone mentioned stack of dimes. That's the one term every old man t...

Nice welds, ZTfab. It's obvious you like your job. It's the same way with aluminum TIG. If you come up with a certain pattern, someone thinks you cheated, even though it's obvious you are doing well enough to make a living at it. It's also the difference between custom work and production. In the cu...

I would be haunted by those holes every time I went for the 2nd plate at dinner and especially holidays. I guess at some point if your pants still fit like they should, all is well.

Thank you, Goat. I have had a lot of fun doing them.

Well, my apologies to the poster. I thought it was a known spammer or something.

Carry on.

We go by a competitive shop rate (plus materials) as a base at 90/hr for custom fab, which entails design work, then work backwards from there. We primarily do marine fabrication. Most small jobs start with an hr minimum. That may sound like a lot for a 20 dollar weld until you figure in consultatio...

Welcome to the forum. Yes, it really is a skill that very few have come naturally. I was one who was good at just about everything I ever tried. Welding school humbled me quickly. Also, a lot of us started out with notions of just fixing our own things or as a side skill and ended up making a good l...

carpet yawn SPAM Twits like that really underline the importance of young men needing physical labor by way of a 'real' job. Must really suck to exist in such a parasitic realm of existential mediocrity. To new parents, that roughly translates to. . . ."fire the lawn guy." Junior needs mo...

Vertical up on aluminum lap is difficult to make for even the pros if they don't do it every day. Your heat has to be 'just so', that you have enough time to shape the puddle and the amount of penetration. It's an erroneous weld, that is best suited for downhill, reverse travel. The problem is that ...

I don't like amber at all for aluminum and like either the traditional green or blue. There is an amber shade in my hood now and I find it a little too sharp with regard to the glare.

Hey, My current Kryptonite is the lifting lugs we have to weld on the corners of our military vehicles. 20 mm plate welded to 9mm plate in a lap joint. The lugs have a sort of fish mouth shape to increase the length of the weld. It s 309 fluxcor 8mm fillet. I always struggle to get the very fluid p...

Nice work. Have refurb'd a few jon boats in my day. Fished out of them for many years. Have a friend who had a 16' double wide with a 60hp tiller motor on it. He kept breaking rivets and welds loose so we doubled up the gunwales and put larger gussets on the stern. I have certainly welded up enough ...

Otto Nobedder wrote:I was impressed these two fat phukers could squeeze through the baffles...

Steve S

LOL. . .My boss is rather portly. He takes a joke well about it tho.

There certainly is harder welds than others but none that are intimidating by now. I remember when I broke into marine fab. I went for the interview and welded a tee joint. My next one was actually a piece of 1/4" x 4" x 17", overhead, with a continuous weld, while the owner and the s...

looks great! Looks like Lots of thought went into them. I want to see them on the jeep. I meant to but didn't get out there in time. We were supposed to be waiting on fancy stainless/knurled hinge pins was the last I heard. All I had in there was 5/16" SS bolts sanded and then polished on the ...

They should react to it fine, just for the fact that it's not an inadequate, imported knock off that is pretending to be something else. Anybody that looks for these items, should be able to know what makes it worth the money. Especially if it retains essentially the same service, or perhaps even ex...

Baja Boss

Add a prerunner style skid plate under the engine and it would look the part.

I built these via a customer supplied drawing. The biggest challenge was that the door openings were beveled. I didn't like the idea of just plastering them over the opening, but opted instead to have them sink halfway into the beveled opening. The second largest challenge was that the top and botto...

Man, your story sounds enough like mine to be scary. I'm about to head down that path of uncertainty again here real soon. And people wonder why I never lose track of my drywall tools. I was worried initially, until it occurs to me that at least my kids are grown and on their own now. I am always cu...

That would work. If someone had the notion to do it. It would take a good bit of time welding to recycle through 55 gallons.

Mike, When I first got my machine, I didn't have extra money to be buying a water cooler. Initially, I was put off with just running good water through the machine. After using it, though, it's one of the best ways to cool a torch just for the simplicity of it. What would be nicer would be a solenoi...

I can see why you likely enjoy job security with these tasks. I never would have guessed that this happens with as much frequency as you have shown here. A good look at a totally different aspect of unique specialization in the welding trade. I try to imagine the road that takes someone to a skill l...