Fabtech

I went to Fabtech the other day with my boss and his one son, one of my welding students. The show is a huge exposition of welding and fabricating tools, equipment and materials suppliers. Other than the Additive Manufacturing exhibits there wasn't much on display that was new to me. I did get a chance to see a friction welding machine at the Lincoln Electric display that was pretty cool. Most all of the welding machine manufacturers have new machines with all kinds of digital enhancements. However, for the most part they only enhance the machine and not the actual welding being done. SMAW, or stick welding, hasn't changed much since WWII. The new fancy inverter machines are more economical to run but you'd be hard pressed to put down a better bead with one of them than what an old hand can do with a decent motor generator.

There were a couple of battery powered machines I saw. I've used a Fronius battery powered stick welder but there was a battery powered MIG machine that looked pretty cool I'd like to try out. The young guy with us did try the virtual MIG welder at the Lincoln display. He's never done any MIG welding before, but did pretty well with it. He also tried out an actual MIG on stainless material at the ESAB booth along with running some 7018 on a Tee joint. He's been welding with those rods recently and put down a nice bead while the pressure was on to perform in front of a crowd.

I tried out the new plasma cutter from ESAB. It's supposed to be released January 15th. It comes in a small package but cuts like a large machine. I signed up to be notified when it becomes available. I was looking at buying the older model but I think this one will do everything and more I'll ever need at a price I can justify to myself.

I think the young guy had a good time and got a lot out of going. He was able to burn a "college day" from school and probably got a lot more out of this than going to any school, at least from this stage in his life. We welded a bit after work the night after attending the show and he seemed a bit more enthusiastic than normal even though he's normally pretty reserved.

We've had record setting cold around here lately - it's not like we don't get temperatures this cold most every winter but not this early in the season. It was nine degrees the other morning with a  daytime high of about twenty. The Missus ordered a ceramic heating element to keep the chickens warm and fortunately it arrived just before the cold weather. It must be helping. I gathered the eggs after working a ten hour day and none of the eggs were frozen. It's a small coop and I can tell the difference in temperature when I go inside. This should be all the girls need this winter along with the heated water to keep them comfortable.

It's supposed to warm up a bit this weekend and next week - still below average but above freezing at least. I'll try and muster up the courage to get out in the shop and get a few things done.