Welding Tips and Tricks

hello all.
a couple of weeks ago one of the guys I work with told me the general contractor on an expansion we were doing was going to give us the left overs from the metal framing of the industrial steel building so I had to see it, long story short we loaded my truck and trailer thinking I was going to split it with the guy who told me about it but all he took was a very few items, mostly bolts and nuts, there was probably 200 pounds of them and we split them 3 ways.
anyway I am now thinking what in h@&& am I going to do with all this stuff and where am I going store it, well this weekend I made a dent in it, I used some of the 12" u channel and made a nice shelving unit about six feet X 10 feet and a chop saw stand about 19 feet long. part of what we got was several hundred feet of 1 inch sprinkler pipe that for some reason was already cut to 10 foot sections, I am using some of that along with 1/2 inch conduit and 3/4 all thread to make the rollers for the saw table. I also made a table frame and topped it with a storm grate we literally dug up out of the ground awhile back. I made it low to the ground so that I can sit on a milk crate and lay over the table to get braced good when working on small enough items.
all for the trouble of loading it and the cost of power and consumables and I haven't even put a good hurt on it yet. I also got quite a bit of metal roofing out of it so the price for a roof over for the tool crib / tractor shed has come way down as well.
if you can store it, take it- you will use it one way or another.

C

if you cant store it take it. It is amazing the places you will find for free crap. Just remember to use it

My nephew, (an electrician), was working on a condo project where they changed brands/model #s/whatever of air conditioner units. There was a (prolly at least 100 lb.) pallet of 24"x2"x1½"x 12 gauge brackets with thinly electroplated galvanize on them headed for the dumpster. They all came home. Also, got about 100' of yellow 6x4 extension cable (for job site 'spider boxes'), that too came home. Its a 100' 50 amp extension cord now!

-c-

cornmuse wrote:My nephew, (an electrician), was working on a condo project where they changed brands/model #s/whatever of air conditioner units. There was a (prolly at least 100 lb.) pallet of 24"x2"x1½"x 12 gauge brackets with thinly electroplated galvanize on them headed for the dumpster. They all came home. Also, got about 100' of yellow 6x4 extension cable (for job site 'spider boxes'), that too came home. Its a 100' 50 amp extension cord now!

-c-

Good Find !!!

Free has a quality all its own

My son works at a local Metal Supermarkets, running the shear and saw. The owner, who has become a decent friend, has told him to stash all the off cuts and discards into a crate that my other son made. The two boys bring it home monthly to sift through before it goes to the scrapper.

I get aluminum flat stock, sheet, square tubing, round stock, stainless rods, tubing, carbon steel, etc. It's a bloody smorgasbord of usable stuff and free. I've used a great deal to teach my sons to weld with and small blocks for fixtures or piece goods on a mill. I still do a great deal of business with him, and sent some good repeat business his way. All the welding practice pieces go back to him for return to the scrapper anywa, albeit heavier than when they left so makes out in the end.

Sometimes, it pays to have kids. No often, but sometimes...