Well I guess I will throw in my .01 because I have not been at this long enough for a whole .02 worth.
I am one of those guys that have had bad luck my entire life. Many, many bodily injuries of severe nature and kinda screwed up my body. Have a hard time physically and mostly (not all) due to my doing whatever it takes to get the job done for others.
Anyway, I am currently not working again and decided to start a demolition company (
www.selective-demolition.com) and have done so but the jobs are not coming at this time. Therefore, I decided to push the Demo but also get in my bag of tricks and draw upon my past abilities.
I am not one of those guys that got along with my dad and he never taught me anything but I knew that the old men in town knew how to do "Stuff." So I hung out with the old guys. I have been "welding" since I was about 10 or 11. I worked at a gas station and sold gas at 19.9 cents/gallon. I was also the one in town to go to if you wanted the forks on your stingray bike extended to make your bike into a CHOPPER. I think I did them all in my home town for many years.
So, here I am trying to use welding as another income and have done some repairs for local farmers. I have started advertising on Craigslist for artsy stuff and yard art and also to the knifemaking community for making hydraulic presses, treadle hammers and such. I need to find where to advertise so I can actually get some money coming in. I know of several welding shops that have closed their doors in my area so that is a bad sign. I even talked to a couple of the owners to see if I could buy a TIG, no luck there.
ALL of the replies I get from Craigslist is either aluminum welding (no tig) or can you fix this $19 lamp that broke off the base and do it at my house? I will pay you $10.
I can't afford the gas for jobs like that. I explain it to the people that I will do it if they bring it to me but so far all have refused.
I can run welding and demo both as demo will be managing and scheduling then delegating, I can't do that physical work anyway. The welding I can do while the demo's are in progress so I won't be spread too thin.
I have been quoting $50/hr shop rate and people go nuts. $50/hr who do you think you are? I expected to pay $10 or $15 for this job. I let them walk because I feel if I lower to $10 I will be a $10 welder and never support myself. Even the farmers are getting tight and they know they need good work but they are complaining about the $50/hr.
As for welding experience I have been truly welding for about 15 years making all types of stuff. Never have had problems with bad welds or poor quality. I have not been trained by anyone and have no certifications of any kind. I have applied for jobs before and passed the weld test to get hired but later found out they thought I wanted too much per hour.
I REALLY wish I could get to the level David or Aaron is at. I am proud for you guys that you have done as well as you have. As for David's vacation and insurance, good for you. I have not had vacation, insurance, sick days or a day off in the last nine years (except for a year in a wheel chair which was no vacation let me tell you). I have honestly switched my dreams from doing what I love and making a living at it to doing ANYTHING that will get my wife the medications she needs to deal with her Lupus and I would really only hope for enough above to buy life insurance on myself so that if something happened to me, she would be OK.
I sure hope the rest of you have better luck. I will not stop trying to make things happen, been at it for 52 years so far, someday I will get there.
