Welding shop

California

Well-known member
Messages
377
Good Post Points
144
Location
Sonoma County
Basically I'm a hobby welder, tractor stuff and yard art.
Never refuse to do a minor repair for friends either.

But then I have done the odd 'paying' job but even that was mostly for the challenge than for money but it does help pay for supplies.
2 examples are converting 4 post car lifts into freight elevators and also fabricating a dozen 'luggage' type carts for my friends storage facility.
Whenever we'd find a deal on 6 inch casters we'd scrounge metal and make up 3 x 6 ft push carts for the tenants to move in or out their goods.
LOL, he'd buy my lunches and I'd often get 'pickings' from closed out lockers.
Amazing the great things tenants would abandon rather than pay their rent.
I've seen everything from perfect power tools thru to broken furniture and everything in between.
The worst and most cumbersome is mattresses and probably old Xmas decorations with clothing in between.
Worst I've seen was someone casually standing guard at the adjacent locker as we arrived. After a minute a woman with too much makeup and a businessman emerged from their nooner and drove off. :p

The look on his face said we interrupted them too soon. :oops:

Sorry bout that!
 

Gary Fowler

Well-known member
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715
Good Post Points
199
Basically I'm a hobby welder, tractor stuff and yard art.
Never refuse to do a minor repair for friends either.

But then I have done the odd 'paying' job but even that was mostly for the challenge than for money but it does help pay for supplies.
2 examples are converting 4 post car lifts into freight elevators and also fabricating a dozen 'luggage' type carts for my friends storage facility.
Whenever we'd find a deal on 6 inch casters we'd scrounge metal and make up 3 x 6 ft push carts for the tenants to move in or out their goods.
LOL, he'd buy my lunches and I'd often get 'pickings' from closed out lockers.
Amazing the great things tenants would abandon rather than pay their rent.
I've seen everything from perfect power tools thru to broken furniture and everything in between.
The worst and most cumbersome is mattresses and probably old Xmas decorations with clothing in between.
I dont believe even half of those shows on storage locker. Most folk dont put anything valuable in storage, only odd furniture and stuff that takes a lot of room. Even if they put something valuable, they pay the rent. I suppose there is the occasional guy that dies and has either no family or family doesnt know about the locker storage. Just like all other reality shows, they are scripted and made up for sensationalism.
 

Sberry

Well-known member
Messages
76
Good Post Points
10
Location
Brethren, Mi
Welder
Several
All that great stuff is a liability in the end. I got a lot of shate cause I need it, not that I need everything I got but if I was gonna live out amongst the world would get it down to a science using the least stuff. would narrow my trade so I didnt need every tool they ever invent.
 

California

Well-known member
Messages
377
Good Post Points
144
Location
Sonoma County
I dont believe even half of those shows on storage locker. Most folk dont put anything valuable in storage, only odd furniture and stuff that takes a lot of room. Even if they put something valuable, they pay the rent. I suppose there is the occasional guy that dies and has either no family or family doesnt know about the locker storage. Just like all other reality shows, they are scripted and made up for sensationalism.
No question anything you see on TV is scripted. (news too). But as for only valueless stuff abandoned in lockers, I disagree. It would be more rare than that TV nonsense, but I expect there are some real finds occasionally.

The wheel weights on my tractor came from an abandoned locker. They would have been a couple hundred $ to buy used on Craigslist etc, $20 from this storage site owner.

As for stuff abandoned by the elderly - it happens. After my grandfather had been a widower for a decade he met and married a woman he had known in college 50 years prior. She had been the heir to her parents and some siblings, and had at least three households of stuff filling her barn. Every time my Dad would go up to see his father and her, he would come back with a pickup load of nice stuff that she insisted he take. Just this weekend I was going through boxes at our ranch labelled for example 'Wool blankets - from Edna - 1983'. That stockpile has kept us and our kids in blankets, sheets, towels, kitchenware for decades now and we still have most of the nice blankets and half of the sheets. Likewise some of the furniture in the ranch originated there.

There must be many lockers filled with inheritances like this that nobody wants to go cross country to deal with so eventually it gets abandoned. It's not all junk.
 

Sberry

Well-known member
Messages
76
Good Post Points
10
Location
Brethren, Mi
Welder
Several
Welding has changed a lot and in the right environment could easily get buy with 3 real machnes, a welder or 2, a plasma , all small to do the work I end up really doing. I dont wanna be doing real welding anymore anyway. I dont mond tacking up some brackets but running a real weld job shop doesnt have all that much appeal.
The cost has come down so much that if I had to start over would be quite conscious of it and limit the amount of stuff I have. While it can be handy to have and is certainly different if a guy is full time, different if he has paid men but I could slide by quite well on a 210 feeder and a 150 inverter.
 

A-one

Well-known member
Messages
175
Good Post Points
29
Location
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Welder
Lincoln Pro Mig 180
I could slide by quite well on a 210 feeder and a 150 inverter.
I guess I need to upgrade my Mig welder. Then again, 180 amps, .030 and .035, and 100% CO2 handle most of what I come across. When it gets a little to heavy for me to trust myself with wire, the 150 amp stick comes out.
 

PILOON

Well-known member
Messages
177
Good Post Points
54
Location
North of Montreal
Welder
Hobart 200 stick
I dont believe even half of those shows on storage locker. Most folk dont put anything valuable in storage, only odd furniture and stuff that takes a lot of room. Even if they put something valuable, they pay the rent. I suppose there is the occasional guy that dies and has either no family or family doesnt know about the locker storage. Just like all other reality shows, they are scripted and made up for sensationalism.

I beg to differ---

I have been close to a storage facility for some 15 years and have seen just about every unbelievable example.
-A Jaguar (not a collectable) stored for 13 years and rent always on time.
-People actually living in a locker
-Police overnighting in order to catch a perp
-Large assortment of very good contractors tools simply abandoned
-3 large lockers simply crammed to the hilt by a hoarder and mostly of no value but paid on time ('til she passed)
-A tenant that stole his own goods the day B4 an auction (LEO's onto that one)
-By and large 60% of delinquent lockers have left some very usable merchandise behind and that's where auctions come into play
-worst is matrasses as they are not reusable or baby car seats that have multiple recalls
-Some 40 lockers opened by torches looking for (probably) drugs. (Pushers don't like to store their merchandise at home)

By and large it seems that there comes a point whereby the renter simply comes to the conclusion that the rents exceed the stored value and stop paying the rent. Problem is then he has a space that he can't rent out until all legal steps are completed so then comes an auction that hopefully will fill the gap.

The current trend is 'on line auctions' which seems to work very well so far.

Another very disturbing trend is the stealing of catalytic convertors. (some are very pricy)
(He has a large RV storage area so it like shopping center for convertors)
Buddy's tenants have been hit some4-5 times over the last months even though he has cameras everywhere.
Hoodies and Covid masks make identification very difficult and naturally muddied plates don't help.
A good guard dog would probably help deter but then somebody would for sure sue for PTSD.
His current solution is to no longer accept any RV convertor equipped as defending against lawsuits is costly even though his contracts have proper waivers.

Recently an RV was stolen and the tenant is suing with unbelievable claims as to contents. LOL he had his best 5 suits, 10 pairs of shoes, and his wife's extensive wardrobe and supposedly the family's gems inside. So ridicule's that a judge will probably laugh it out of court. But then who knows.

When it comes to auctions some trends are noticeable.
Beautiful old collectable furniture is out, chrome and glass is in.
 
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