Saturday, January 11, 2020

Welding Stuff


Photo of one of my students running a bit of 6011 vertical. He's progressing well. Even though he's having a bit of trouble with the vertical up, he's been doing the finish welding on some parts I've made and they're looking real good. The welding lessons are easily the best part of my work day. It's nice having the freedom to set the curriculum and teach as I see fit without all the BS that usually accompanies education in a more formal setting. Very rewarding.

I put in a couple of hours working on pieces for the side hustle the other day and I brought a box of parts home to work on the next couple of days as well. I sketched out a small frame I need to make up. Making it will be a piece of cake - just don't know if it will do the job for which it's intended. I've been addressing a lot of issues that have been hitting the company bottom line for quite a while. Some of the solutions are actually pretty simple- just needed someone with a bit of fabricating experience to come along. I'm making patterns for all the brackets and the ladies in the office are scanning them in. They are also taking photographs of the finished installation so when I drag up, someone will be able to continue making the parts without reinventing the wheel.

I picked up another job from my buddy the Ducati specialist. It's a 450 gas tank that's practically like new but has a crack about one inch long underneath one of the fuel taps. I need to figure out a way to repair the crack without burning up the chrome and keeping the damage to the paint at a minimum. The fuel tap is brazed into the tank but torch brazing the crack is out of the question. I think I've got it figured out. I need to buy some supplies but I'll quote the job first to make sure the owner is good with the price. Buying the supplies will be a little bit expensive but I doubt I'll ever use those materials again, so I'll let the customer pay for them and add a little bit for my labor.

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