Welding Tips and Tricks

So I just sold some old fitness equipment to a guy after finding a killer deal on a new barbell, and we ended up talking, come to find out he recently got a new tig machine, yet did not know how to set it up let alone have any welding experience and asked to pay me for lessons, I just told him I'd get him started the first day without worrying about money or expenses etc and if he found it valuable we could discuss formal lessons and pay from then on out. He mentioned he had a couple extra of these around

https://www.homedepot.com/p/MetalTech-6 ... /307352778

and he thought they'd be excellent to convert to a welding table, with a load limit of 1100lbs they seem to fit the bill perfectly, and we discussed either replacing the wood top with steel, or simply adding a layer of cement board and a thick enough plate to distribute heat far before it reached the wood, perhaps with an aluminum sheet directly over the weld area.

However I looked online at the price of steel, and although they're always higher than local, what I found was absolutely nauseating. I can find out an exact price locally with a phone call tomorrow and I know they'll gladly cut it to the irregular dimensions specified, but when last I looked they wanted less local for a thick AR 400 plate that would cover a substantial portion of my 3x4 welding table than they're wanting for a 48x48 1/4" piece of a36 online.

I suppose I'll find out for sure tomorrow but if the rest of you guys are getting quoted well over $400-500 if not far more for a plate 1/4"-3/8" of similar dimensions locally, I might as well either give him my some of my prized pieces of aluminum plate out of mercy, or tell him to buy a dewalt 60v grinder, cut off wheels and a lot of batteries then hit the asheville scrapyard with me in the hope of getting lucky. Because it would be absolutely insane to tell him he has to spend that much to have the bare minimum thickness of a welding table top. Hell, if metal is so inflated that even my table top would cost in the 500-600 range now, I'd almost rather sell it to him for an actual fair price clearing up room for a squat rack and just build a tig station out of my aluminum collections, as tig is all I do anyway these days.

The price of metal has indeed sky rocketed. Not just locally, but “online” as well. The cost of large scale scrap to foundries has also jumped over the moon. And there’s been a massive shortage of material from foundries and mills further pushing the price up.

Recently though mills have settled their increases, so prices will stabilize, but they’re still sky high compared to 18 months ago.

For a while it was almost cost equivalent to buy metal versus wood, but wood has come back down a fair bit. It’s all still very, very expensive since Covid.

My eldest sells industrial beams, tubes and plate. A year ago they paid $0.38/# for particular material and it is now $1.35/#. Fcuk it might as well be made from precious gems at that price

I have not even purchased shapes of raw material in over a year. I'm almost scared to ask the supplier what steel flats and rounds cost now. I do buy a fair amount of aluminum, and yesterday I just paid $1 a pound more than I did 2 months ago. Now, part of that is due to my normal supplier not being able to supply enough, and part of it is the distance across the country from which it's coming, and this supplier simply has higher pricing due to lower volume in general, so the 3 together add up to a trainload more money for the raw material. With any luck, I'll be buying more locally again soon and it won't be quite so bad.

Crazy part I find about the price of steel going up. I work in a town that has a steel mill owned by one the largest steel companies in the world (to my understanding)


And if I'm not mistaken on my last drive around town out on deliveries. The storage yards are just as full as I've ever seen them. Hell I bet some coils and slabs haven't moved for some time with the amount of rust on them.


It makes me wonder if this is truly a demand exceeding supply in materials or if it's just a manufactured event to justify increased costs to consumers.

I even heard the same thing through the grapevine with lumber people that they can't understand the shortage since the mills still had a laaaarge stack of wood to process with more on the way.

I don't know for sure but my guess is it's just a excuse to hike prices for a while and then bring them back down to just a tad higher than they started at.

Just my 2 cents with alot of assumptions

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i think the big issue is transport.
all around the world transport is screwed.
UK is running out of fuel due to lack of tanker drivers. i know usa has issues with aviation fuel being delivered due to lack of drivers.
i had some gear from usa held up due to rail yards.
we have big issues in nz as boats are not stopping here as often. delays in ports.

a lot of disruption around the world.

All I can say, is I checked locally, and even for the 3ft by 4ft 3x8 mild steel plate that I bought to make my table, for I'm effectively 99$ sure was under $300, perhaps by 30-40 dollars or more. Now would cost me $650. Sooo.. not even sure what to think about that.

double post oops

You could make a tighter frame, my welding table is 4mm thick, it doesnt matter cause it has a tight frame. The crossmembers are close together out of rect sections and has no flex.
I only use it for precise kinda work. I have a nice concrete spot larger stuff,
Like trusses and jig making.

I dont do politics or such but seeing as though this directly affects welding, here goes.
When we sacked all those hard working guys cause off shore crap was 'cheaper' and we all were told that we thought it was a good idea and the rest of us got shouted down with words like intolerant and other out of context catch phrases.
Some of us knew that industries and companies that took generations to become what they were, were not going to be replaced so easily. We have since made do with sub standard crap in a lot of areas and while there was a need for healthy competition and thier quality is improving it shouldnt have shut ours down as much.
We are what we tolerate.
So much of our raw stuff in US and very much in Aust. gets sent off shore and comes back as overpriced crap. I.e if youve ever had to mod a household mower to get it to last 5yrs with out falling aprt around the briggs and stratten or honda motor then you know what I mean. Rakes that last 20 mins. Etc.
If its not good they shouldnt sell it, but then we all just 'have' to buy the crap to keep our overheads down to compete..........
Anyways that my 2 cent.

I have bought several thousand feet of steel and copper pipe over the last year. Even though the company I work for buys loads more than just the little portion I buy for my projects. I can tell you the suppliers will only guarantee a price for about 4-7 days. Because things are changing so fast. Copper has gone up 40% at least in the last 6 months. Only in the last week has it started to come back down. Steel pipe and weld fittings are up at least 20-30%. Some fittings are double or triple the price depending on availability. Don’t even get started on availability. Lead times have gone from a week or two to 14- 20 weeks.

Yup I can confirm copper went up. Our core suppliers all had to increase our cost 30-50% due to rising raw material cost across all components of the core.


Was also talking with someone who said they read a article claiming the oceanliners are backed up due to there being a shortage of the specially trained captains that bring the shops into the port from open waters.


Sounds plausible to me since it's probably like most things, the bull of the workforce is older and covid was the push to retirement

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Honestly, while it might sound backwards this whole thing has me considering selling MY welding table, its too big to likely take with me where I'll be going next until I can rent a house with a garage, and it's kind of a awkward size where it's more than enough for practicing welding coupons, or doing anything I might do some sort of tig repair or be able to carry in through the door. but it's too short to fabricate larger longer products like I usually get asked to make for people when I get requests, it'll be a 7 foot tall bottle cage, or I'd wish I could make a proper power cage/squat rack and realize the ends would hang off substantially causing it to be much harder to get things true square.

And the biggest issue that comes up for all of the above, it's not perfectly flat. So again, trying to fabricate long objects that need a very high degree of squareness is practically impossible.

Yet, I do have several sheets of aluminum that are more that enough to provide a small tig table for any sort of practice or jobs that would be done with tig and a small work bench in the corner with a heat resistant top that I practically can't get at now with the table in the way that I could turn into a perfect small tig table while freeing up a lot of space for gym equipment, and some funds. So maybe it's the height of foolishness to sell it now, but I'm also thinking it'd be a good time to sell it while metal is so damned high and I'd have plenty of time to roam the massive steel scrapyards for the perfect plate to make a true full sized, table out of someday when I once again actually need one.

Again, I'm mentioning it just in case there's a consensus I'd be making a grievous mistake despite the flatness issue and wanting to eventually redo it perfect later on, But I feel like it was a great amateur's table I built as a amateur not knowing what kind of welding I'd want to be doing or even that I'd end up doing it as a career, but now it's neither perfectly efficient, nor proper enough for commercial work. So let me know what you think. Again as mentioned I have several sheets of aluminum, the thickest large piece is 23"x32" and is beyond enough for practice or small repairs, and I have larger less square pieces just in lesser thicknesses than that as well as still some steel laying around, so I wouldn't be compromising my ability to weld.

Id say keep it, but thats just me. Many thing are made in parts on smaller tables and put together. How not flat are we talking. Packers are usually fine. Two straight square tube or rect tube with help of a level, can extend a table nicely. A set of wheels to move it around can make it more useful space wise. If you need to get rid of it maybe make a couple of smaller table frames off it first, just in case. Maybe? Most industrial tables that are used in industry have quirks. I have never seen so many straight and flawless tables in my life as I see on youtube videos. As a guy who has built lotsa stuff. And a lot on the concrete floor a welding table is just lux.

Wondering how the "just in time" inventory idea is working out?

mcostello wrote: ↑Fri Oct 01, 2021 9:52 am Wondering how the "just in time" inventory idea is working out?

yeah i bet thats biting them in the arse.

mcostello wrote:Wondering how the "just in time" inventory idea is working out?

Worldwide everyone is realizing just how fragile the system is.

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typical USPS stops NZ mail service due to 'unavailability of transportation'

https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service ... elcome.htm

shipping is now suspended to,
Afghanistan
Guadeloupe
New Zealand**
Tajikistan
Australia *
Laos
Reunion (Bourbon)
Timor-Leste
Bhutan
Libya
Saint Pierre and Miquelon (Miquelon)
Turkmenistan
Brunei
Martinique
Samoa
Yemen
Cuba
Mayotte
South Sudan
French Guiana
Mongolia
Syria

Yup. I know. Was waiting for a package and wondered why it never showed. Till I read that, thanks bro, I still didnt know. But after not getting a package since July, I let Weldmonger know and they hot shotting it over through DHL. Hope it gets here. Customer service is pretty good with that lot. They offered to, no banter required. Was impressed.