Welding Tips and Tricks

Perhaps this topic has been addressed here. But how many of you work for yourselves at welding? Seems that welding would/should be one of the few trades where one could approach the idea of making money the old fashioned way. If so, how did you start out?

Hey there,

I am not in business for my self, however I reckon you are spot on. Welding is a craft that can require very little out lay to achieve awesome results.

Mick

I would like to see the responses to this. I work for a pipeline company (not welding) but would like to test the waters on a side business in the not so distant future. I'm hoping to amass most of the tooling I need to get started while working at my real job. Maybe it's a dream, but I would like to get into custom fab work. I have no desire to do general welding for the public though. I have done my fair share of lawn mower deck repairs, and that is not for me.

Sorry if I derailed the thread.

Thanks,

Jason

I've never tried going completely on my own with welding; To be properly equipped to be really versatile can cost upwards of $30K, and you generally need $5M in liability insurance to call yourself a professional.

The best money I've made welding? I've made 6-figure take-home two different years working as a contract welder, an "arm for hire" for industrial construction companies, where the insurance is on them and I only need my hand tools and PPE. Neither of these six-figure years did I actually work more than 8 months.

To work for yourself, you can't go halfway. Either spend the big bucks and do it right, or fix mower decks for the neighbors.

My two cents.

Steve S

Any input is appreciated. The one good thing about something as benign as a lawnmower deck repair is it's in and out and easy to calculate. At the very least, it could be as acceptable as a business card in a word of mouth sense. I often have to do some rather mundane repairs. 10 minutes can equal a 20.00 bill. You essentially are at the least, getting paid for your advertisement. I do a lot of custom work. It can become intense day to day. In almost every other aspect of the arts, an artist creates say a painting. Nobody expects him to deliver in an exact time frame or cheaply. Welding still manages to hold the artist to scheduling, even though at times, our creativity would rival that of, or even exceed that of art as we know it. You buy a painting and if you tell someone it cost 20.00, it's junk.

It was a lot different when we were working with old money. They expected to pay more for custom work. These days, we are often working/competing around Walmart and Harbor Freight mentality.

For you, TamJeff, I'd think you'd have to do custom work. You'd never be happy with industrial work. It sometimes requires creativity, but most of it is simply following prints, and I assure you, no matter how interesting the job as a whole, spooling pipe gets old in a big hurry when you llike to be creative. That's why I gave up the travelling work. The money was real nice, but I wasn't very happy in the making.

I understand that completely. Is half of why I am still where I work. Full creative license.
I actually started to get into business for myself at one point thru the SBDC. The problem for me was that they too, were of the idea of going all the way. The problem with their approach being, a huge amount of parasitic financial constraints which still has you essentially working for someone else. The banks. And this before you lay the first bead. Not only that, you are now competing and pricing the same as everyone else under the same constraints. Typically it's the larger established production mills that end up eating your lunch, just by their ability with regard to cost effective, sheer volume alone, even though the work may be of generic quality comparatively.

I thought this a good read. It's free. But I was surprised to find agreement that didn't sound like an entrepreneurial infomercial. A certain logic I have come to understand, even with regards to side work.
http://www.sherline.com/business.htm

I co-own the shop I work at, so essentially i work for myself. Although it has it's good and bad points, it would be really hard to go back after 20 years of doing mostly what i like to do, to someone telling me what i have to do. You do have a lot more freedom when you work for yourself, but there are also a lot more limitations. Steve S. is completely right about the equipment for a professional...you can't go halfway. You'll quickly find out that equipment that may work very well in a weekend garage setting won't last 6 months when you're trying to use it 5 days a week, every week under full load. You have to lay out the big $$$$ and that is usually not financially possible for someone just starting out on their own.

Although we are not a welding specific shop, we have to offer it to stay competitive and it's required on many jobs we do. We mostly build displays and exhibits so we have be able to do everything from carpentry, painting, laminates, welding, machining , sewing....... There's a lot more stuff that we don't do, but in these times it's hard to have to say no to any work that might come along. And for every service that you offer, that's more equipment and space that you need to have to offer it.

I would never try to discourage anyone from going out on their own, but there's a lot to think about and plan before you do it. For every multi million dollar success story, there are easily several thousand failure stories.

Other Steve

I agree Delray. . .I also own part of my business. But, I find that the majority owner will never reel in the losses by way of overhead. This in part, being the initial outlay as prescribed by SBDC. In the meantime, I have secured my own equipment and tools that would match, and in some situations exceed that of where I work. For starters, I only buy the best blades for the saws, quality, domestic drill bits etc. All my hand tools are high quality as well. Snap-on, Klein, Matco etc. Whenever I ask for specific items, I usually end up getting home center lookalikes. Not worth the space they take up right out of the box, and other false, economic expenditures, which translate almost directly on my wages. When I do sidework here at home, I can charge half of the shop rate and the pay becomes great, just for doing away of the parasitic overhead.

This is kind of how I arrived at this topic. When I went to start a business, I had secured capital, equipment leasing, and a facility but after crunching the numbers, I would have had to keep 5 welders busy to support it in a realistic profitable setting to make it worthwhile. First off, to find 5 reliable people full time? I have had 3 at the shop in the past and wow have things changed over the years from a work ethic standpoint.

At some point, you may start to figure if you are going to be doing the majority of the work anyway as well as being held accountable, the need for others less involved in the outcome should decrease.

Hey,

Lets not forget about a side business. Its more like what i was getting at. Chop saw stick welder in your garage away from your "normal work" could make a little money on the side. I agree, though, if you are going to go full on weld fab shop/contractor there is not a lot of room for half efforts. Mower decks can be a good place to start, as long as youve got anoter income.

Mick

Hey guys I am completely on my own. I'm a little too ADD to read everything through but I have to say I love being able to run my schedule the way I know best. It depends what you want to do but you can be up and running at least making side money for under $10k. I'm set up portable but at least in my area I have a couple shops that I can use for a day if needed. Since the only guys set up portable in my area are amish or pipe only it affords me the opportunity for a lot more business. I stick to structural and rebuild/repair work. It keeps me busy. I will answer whatever questions you want tamjeff if you have some specifically for me.

Side business, small op is the best scenario in my case. I already have all of the equipment. At one point, I actually had my equipment at the shop I am at now because it was better than theirs. I took it back home once they started abusing it. As it is, I supply my own saw blades, drill bits, torch parts etc, just so I can work with quality tools. Anything less is pure misery more than some oddball commando job. I am often faced with cutting copes past 45 degrees by hand on a band saw. The crap blades they were supplying was just awful, not to mention dangerous.

The only hurdle I have really not been able to find information on, is who to talk to, and how to approach getting the word out. Most other information is geared towards professional networking, salesmen or expensive advertising. I am asking mainly because someone will often come up with some right brain solution that I could have overlooked in this regard. I hate when salesmen come to my shop without being invited. I am trying to avoid such intrusive practices myself.

I thought of offering multiple point pricing options. In other words, if they don't care where the work is done, I could offer the same quality at a substantially reduced rate and give them the choice. These days, a lot of quality is sacrificed trying to meet the demands of overhead where budgets are concerned in this economy. I do have use of a shop 24/7.

This started occurring to me again after watching the shop where I am at, having to turn away work that would not be profitable for them, that would have been nicely profitable for me. The only thing that stopped me was loyalty issues and conflicts of interest.

I should add here that I appreciate the input. I really didn't expect to get much in the way of positive feedback. There is some good information here. It is just the type of dialogue I had hoped for.

You said you were partially vested in the business...

Is it practical to consider buying him out, or buying a controlling interest?

Is it practical to litigate your way out of the business with damages for what you've invested?

I'd like to separate.

The owner actually has another career. You know his hunger is not going to be the same as mine, nor is the risk. His risk at worst is a credit issue, mine is a life worth of effort and making an actual living from it. I have too many skills to be somebody's grunt. I gave them 15 years. It's time to get feet in other doors while the personal reputation is still hot, if you know what I mean.

As it is, I am having to estimate costs and materials. . .at some point, it's obvious that I am in effect already running my own business. I often estimate complicated projects without so much as a study print and am pretty accurate.

When I started where I am at now, I was starting out with side work. I ended up working with the race guys. It started with narrowing one bumper for a late model/outlaw team here and before I knew it, I was coming home to parts on my door step with post it notes and the bright blue light in the back yard at night. I tried to juggle both but it was just too much and that happened in the span of about 6 months. I figure I had probably gotten lucky because all that started it was welding one part. I had two young sons with me at the time so I chose the salary job. Now they're finally grown.

weldin mike 27 wrote:Hey,

Lets not forget about a side business. Its more like what i was getting at. Chop saw stick welder in your garage away from your "normal work" could make a little money on the side. I agree, though, if you are going to go full on weld fab shop/contractor there is not a lot of room for half efforts. Mower decks can be a good place to start, as long as youve got anoter income.

Mick

I agree Mick. That is what I was talking about as well. I have a great paying job at this time and really don't want to quit. I was just thinking of starting to do some work on the side for profit. I'm definitely not wanting to go big. I shouldn't have trashed the mower deck business though. I realize their is a profit in that type of work. I guess I want my cake and to eat it too. Ha ha. My main goal is to make enough money on the side to buy bigger and better equipment and to improve my welding skills. I enjoy reading all the responses on this forum. No BS. I'll quit making this thread about me.

Thanks,

Jason

Hey,

Back yard work is, for me, a cool thing to do. Work full time to pay the bills and then do a little at home to get the skills up, your name out there or a little spending money. Personally, The little bits i do are mainly love jobs with materials paid for because i love to tinker around in the shed. And Im not trying to pay the bills.

That helps because if a friend says "hey, can you weld this up for me?" Ill be like , "yep" because I like to play around And it doesnt really matter what it is (with in reason). I fixed some old bar stools for my Auntie that prob should have been scrapped, but they wanted them fixed so a few gussets, the they were recovered and re powder coated and look brand new.

Of course you do have to be careful, No insurance means no welding anything major, Just little bits or at least things that arent going kill anyone.

Mick.

Here is how I would approach it:
1. Decide on a name for the business and organization type (llc, inc, etc...) and get the legals organized.
1b. If you can buy out your partner some of this is done already and you just need to change the legal name on all of the paperwork.
2. Save up a 6 month emergency fund meaning minimum 6 months living expenses. If you go out on your own the work seems to never be there right away and this can cause a lot of people to borrow themselves into oblivion.
3. Take some time to let key customers and vendors know your intentions. This helped me out a lot cuz they knew I would be available on my own and if they are loyal to you at all this is where you first bits of business on your own come from.
4. At an appropriate time take the plunge. Any free time should be spent dropping off business cards and flyers about what you do to anybody and everybody.

One more bit of advice.... be versatile until you have a solid niche established then cut back to what you do most and best. You will know when that is.

Another small tidbit... don't go through the change without a good lawyer and a good accountant that you can call for f9r help if needed.

Hope this helps!

Good morning men, I am new to this site and I mean about 2hrs. new. I stumbled across this site yesterday afternoon and sit here till 1:30 this morning reading, and was back at 5:30am. I don't join many sites, only those that I am interested in and after alot of reading before hand. I belong to one for TrackerBassBoats, another for JohnDeereCompactTractors and now this one because I took my first pipe test in 1974 for Brown&Root, I'm sure some of you know them,lol. My father was a union boilermaker with a double digit on his union card and owned his own weld shop, in which I didn't learn to weld because I was going to wear a suit and tie and work the a/c office. This subject caught my eye and there has been some great advice given here and thought I'd throw my 1 1/2 cents worth in, and its only mine. I chased the mighty dollar 48 out of the 50 states of this great country before I decided I was ready for a break. When I decided to go on my own I had worked for a company for 14+yrs and during that time I gathered equipment and in 04 I made the move, I didn't borrow a cent and had a few bucks for rainy months. The biggest thing I had to think about was competion so I had to offer everything, shop fabrication and mobile welding and more. One of the first things I done was go to the other weld shops within 25mi. of me that didn't offer mobile welding, left them some cards, I didn't have the first one to tell me "no thanks" and the next thing I did was to make sure I was the less expensive and no job was too small. The other thing I did was post a ad in the business yellow pages, and that was a factor in the name of my business, if any of you are like me when I go looking for somthing I start at the beginning and call the first one thats sounds good. I could't use A but I got in the B's, lol and it paid off. One of my best memories and feelings was that I had made enough money off the first roll of wire I burnt paid for the mig welder and the AC/DC with hi-freq. machine in the shop. When things were slow I built things like "Pig Cookers", tree stands, and anything I thought would sell sittin in front of the shop, and they did. Soon I started getting orders for them and then the prices went up. I guess if I was to give any advice to anyone on going into business for themselves I'd say, take a good look at the "need" for what you are offering and is there enough for you and your competors. And the second would be do I have to go in debt to get started and how much, thats another pmt. out of the profits you need to make. The good thing about the welding trade is that you can always go back on your tools, and hit the ditch,lol I hope I didn't bore ya'll too much by this book I just hammered out and I can tell by my reading I'm not amoung the last class from the barn yard weld school. Have a great day and thanks for reading.

No, that was a great response. Is basically what I am thinking of doing. I had great feedback on my initial try at it years back without even an ad or business cards. Fortunately, I did buy and continue to buy quality tools. I keep everything forever, even cars. I have a ton of layout and fab experience. I don't want to work for China anymore. I know there is people who want old school industrial quality, even if they don't know it yet. At least I am somewhat known for it by now. That's what started this ball rolling. It seems a shame to be giving it all away.

TamJeff, I am in support of anyone that wants to have their own business and hope they all make it but in the real world you know that doesn't happen. I was repeatedly told to expect to lose money for at least 2yrs but the good Lord had a better time line for me and I can't say I spent any long period of time without work of some kind, maybe mower decks or bush-hogs or a log trailer but seems like when the light was getting abit dim something would roll in. I had a period of time that I had a county contract taking care of the heavy equipment at the landfill. That 2 1/2yrs gave me a step-up and opened a few other doors. Anyway, I'd say go for it with all your muscle and heart and I wish you the very best of luck.

Welcome, Rodiron, to the best welding forum/site on the net. It's the only welding-specific forum I belong to, primarily because it's a BS-free zone. If you've explored weldingweb and millerwelds forums, you know what I mean.

I will, now, have to watch who I'm responding to; We have an active (and very experienced) member named "RedIron"

Steve S

OPTIONS FOR EXPERIENCED WELDERS. Eight to ten years of experience sets a solid base for a welder. Add on another ten and a welder definitely knows his trade. Twenty years also takes its toll on the lungs, eyes and back. Parallel welding related jobs, such as: quality control, welding inspection, quality assurance, hse, leadmen, supervisors, etc., are out there for experience welders ... as an employee, as consultant, neighborhood arc wizard, or even kicking-off "your own business".

Thank you, Professor Turing!