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You make a valid point. For about the same money a person could also just hard-face mild steel, and get plenty of service from the cutting edge as well. I just hard-faced a few teeth on my backhoe, and it took 20 minutes. As for longevity, only time will tell, but I would think I could get 300...

A silly mistake I made a few weeks ago was in welding down my generator head to its mounting frame. I had measured, and positioned, but it just did not seem right, so I moved it forward by an inch. It ended up being too much. The belts that would power it from the engine was not lined up at...

Welds seldom fail because they hold so much. Most of what i fabricate, my tacks alone could probably hold the unit together. If this seems like blarney, tack weld something to a metal bench, and then try removing it. It takes a lot of effort to remove that tack enough for the unit to be removed!

I have incorporated some welding and steel into my own house. I have a timber frame home, so it works because steel and wood in that conjunction, it "rustic". Some people do not like the look, but my wife does, so it works for us. This is a double vanity sink I just put in my main bathroom...

I guess for me right now, being a welding instructor whose students are off-center due to the Black Swan Disease, Distance Learning is my biggest project. There are plenty of great videos of welding out there, but these students know me, and know my welding skills, and have a respect for that...

In the next 10 years they predict there will be a 400,000 shortfall of welders in this country. The kids that I teach will actually make more than I do at teaching welding, and they are just starting out. Most will be making 6 figures. It used to be you figured your welding pay by the hour...

After plowing snow all my life with a tractor, last year I realized I had been doing it wrong for years. I was always PUSHING snow out of the way. Last year I used my landplane and it was incredible. I can drive through about a foot of snow, but even in Maine, we only get a few storms a year...

There is no equal to a land-plane. I just used mine yesterday to flatten out some skidder ruts in a hay field where I had a winter logging yard. The first pass leveled just about everything up but then once the humps are knocked down, the second pass makes it baby-bottom smooth. Only a...

It would probably shock people because I am a retired welder, and now a welding instructor, and yet my welder at home is a Sears AC welder from 1980 or so. It still works, and I can get good welds out of it, so I just keep what I got. I never felt I should get anything better because I was...

Nice looking lawn roller.

I just pulled a starter off my Perkins Engine that had sat for 32 years. The starter looked good on the outside, but when I pulled it apart it looked like Mars...the red planet! It was nothing but rust! Undeterred, I pulled it all apart, and spent four hours cleaning it up... Then, as I was...

Nice mini-payloader! Just watch out for the "SSS"...(LOL) That is what crochet'ers call the dreaded "second sock syndrome". That is where it takes a person two days to make the first sock, and 2 months to make the second one! I often struggle making two things of the same thing. Now, when I...

A lot of fabrication work is drilling, so it really makes sense to have a drill press in the shop. I have got everything from a battery powered screw gun, to a 1907 Canedy-Otto post drill press.

My latest, long term project has been getting a genset put together. It has been a little tough because the plan is to take a barn-find Perkins Reefer Engine made in 1978, and has not been run since at least 1988, and team it up with a 20 KW PTO generator. The idea is cogeneration, an idea I got...

Yeah if I get a project, I can buy the steel for it, and have the students weld it up. I can run the project through my business that way they can get some on-the-job training credit for their resumes. They are always looking for those kinds of projects so the advance students get a chance to...

I think the best place to start is with an adult education course. You will not be a professional when you are done, but you will get the basics and can try various different welding types while learning. Try stick welding. Try wire feed. Try TIG even... A person NEVER loses out when they...

I am building a genset out of a 55 hp Perkins Diesel, and a 20 KW pto generator. I was doing good until I had to unbolt it from the engine stand to pull the oil pan off. So now that it is off, I have to weld up a new rear engine mound, weld on some attachment points so I can bolt it to the...

ABC: Always Be Comfortable So many times I see people struggling because they are trying to weld one-handed or something. You cannot make a good weld when you are not comfortable.

Kind of a funny situation. I was a welder for years, watched what I had for vices, watched my money closer, and realized after 23 years as a professional welder, I could retire. I had a few acres, a working farm, and could easily farm to make enough money to get by for my family until I could...

I have had quite a few. I make a lot of homemade implements so sometimes the developing of those implements takes longer than I have time for. That is not a cop-out. Like I built a rock and stick rake for clearing land on my farm, and it worked...sort of, but it would jamb up sometimes because...

I came from TractorByNet. I was appalled at first...send people from there, to here, but then I saw it was a Mohamed Site, so I understood. Now I am here.

I think the biggest thing to know about starting a weld with a stick rod is that the goal is no never really strike the rod onto steel. It is arc welding, so you are trying to establish an arc as soon as possible. It is no different than a spark plug, you need a GAP. I typically scratch...

The stuff the others have said too, but I would include a half-round file. I like to use them to knock the slag off my welds because using a chipping hammer can put a mark on the weld that some inspectors will give a second look at. With a half round file, I can cut the edge of the weld and...

Moisture in the flux is the problem really, and not the age of the rod or wire. But blaming the rod or wire on its age, is pretty typical for welders. When I was working for the railroad, one welder claimed the welding machine was "junk" and had the company rent a welder for him to use. There...