This hasn't been asked since last June, so.....

[Oldendum]

Like Heatin' ana Beatin' weldin service.

[soutthpaw]

coffee maker! need one of those!

Make sure it's a high quality cordless model.
https://www.makitatools.com/products/details/DCM500Z

[N2 Welding]

Like Heatin' ana Beatin' weldin service.

That’s a mouth full.

[Ruark]

Well....... you can route the exhaust pipe from your generator into your shop. That will save you money on your heating bill......

[Popeye an old miner]

I was just looking at your all's general welding questions subforum and it looks like it's been pretty quiet since June or so of last year. So I was wondering, I'm getting ready to start my own bidness, and just what all kinds of tools and welder should I have?



PS - I will be ever so careful to not read any replies to this thread, and then do whatever I want anyway.

PPS - Whenever the emojis start working again, a couple will show up in here, maybe, if I remembered the right punctuation to get them....

I don't know what type of work you are planning to do, I work on heavy equipment and mining machinery, been doin it for about 30 years or so when I wasn't getting nosebleeds from hangin iron. I started out with an old SA 200 I built with parts from 3 of them, it ran good for 3 years or so then the bearing burned out in the back end of it and burned up the generator armature. If you use one of those the only thing it wont do very well is run a wire feeder on the heavy stuff and jet arcing, some reason a buddy of mine burned 3 of em up doin that, one of em I bought for building mine. Then got an old Miller Big 40 and ran that the livin **** out of that thing for about 10 years, wide open all the time with 3/16 and 1/4 7018s jet arcing then I bought a wire feeder and and ran that like there was no tomorrow. Get some good steel wedges for doggin plate down and a comalong or 2 and a 2 ton chain fall and some rigging. This stuff is heavy and most of the time I am by myself and the days of lifting 100 pounds and tackin it into place are gone for me, save your body and use your head instead.
Get a good air compressor for jet arcing and get a needle scaler, works better and faster than a slag hammer and you are peening your weld than by hand while getting the slag off.

That's in case you are doin heavy equipment which is just about all I do, other folks do different stuff than this and they got their stuff they use.

Whatever you do Be safe and Good luck

[BD1]

I would go to local garage sales and flea markets. Anything will work but a assortment of hammers is a start. Look for old welding rod that's been aged to perfection, open cans, that red rod that's covered in white stuff is the best. Short pieces of chain is good too, weld together to make long ones. You are gonna have to practice too. Trailer hitches are money makers and welding up lifting beams is great practice and when they fail you just weld back together. Watch for a old x ray machine too for checking your welds. A dental ones gets in those hard to reach spots. It will show cavities in your weld too where you drill out and patch. Too many things to list but a real good start.

[Jess]

Forget equipment.

First thing ya gotta do is gain about 80lbs, get some overalls, and a baseball hat. Acquire a good ol' boy accent whilst at it.

That takes care of marketing. Dunno anybody who doesn't believe a fatass good ol' boy knows what he's talking about. I'd say about 80% of the "fabricators" fit that description around these parts. They're quite successful too

This appearance is also handy for auctions. You can be one of the fatass ol' boys that knows everything about everything when it comes to commenting on the condition of equipment going thru the ring, or sitting in a puddle of grease out in the yard.

Marketing son.........it's all about marketing.

I know several people that fit this exact description. Thanks for the good laugh!

[duaneb55]

Make sure it's a high quality cordless model.
https://www.makitatools.com/products/details/DCM500Z

I see a cord and what kinda deal is that? No battery or charger included?! And where's the dash mount for the welding rig cab?


Speaking of cabs Mr. bone, don't worry so much about what welder and other equipment you need and just get a big truck with a bunch of compartments and a crane and your customers will be too busy oooing and aahing over your professional looking truck to notice your pigeon poop welds on their expensive construction equipment.

And don't for get to pick up the professional welders "bible" you'll hear a lot about out in the field.

[duaneb55]

You'll be way ahead of the competition if you learn to run 6010 downhill first and then just use the skills learned to switch over to 7018 uphill with a slight adjustment to your posture. The technique is covered in detail in the welder's bible mentioned above.

[dosswelding]

I knew it all along , miller puts out better electricity than lincoln. But Lincoln has better frequency for rods .

[Stick-man]

And if some lowlife breaks in they will leave as there is nothing worth anything to take.

And just who the he!! are you calling a lowlife?

[storeman]

Well I said I wasn't going to read this, but I guess I lied. Although I still don't plan to take any of your all's advice, because y'all just don't seem too awful smart to me. I guess I'm going to make a ton of money doing this here welding thing for a living, seeing as how all of the experts are such a bunch of know-nothings and so forth. Everybody knows you need an SA 200 to weld anything, you lot of nincompoops! Stick around here and I'll teach you some things when I have the time.

I do have to go back to one earlier post and correct something though. We do have a business sticky, but smart people like myself don't use it because nobody can find it anyway, buried underneath other important stickies like Which Color to Paint Your Welding Cart and Just How Many Holes Should A Welding Table Have, Anyway?
I once heard somebody suggest that we have a business subforum, and I'm pretty sure the huge amount of positive input for this idea is what crashed Penton's servers. So the moral of the story is, be happy with your sticky unless Sticky is stealing your tools. And don't ask for stupid things! And if somebody else asks for stupid things, don't agree with them! Or the entire bunch of servers and stuff will crash.

FWIW, I agree with your stupid idea. There should be a business forum versus a dinky sticky (which only attracts sticky thieves).

I started my business in 1992 as I was retiring from 31 years Army. No internet out there, no guides to speak of. Had there been a forum like this it would have been so much easier to predict success or failure.

I put up a website in 1994 when bass pro and cabellas only had informational websites and no way to order from them without calling. Mine was the same. I only carried a few fishing-related items (down-riggers and accessories) but somehow I figured out how to trick the search engine so that you had to go through 20 pages of web crawler to get past my site for what I carried. Those were some glory years for sales everywhere from my basement with 2 employees.

5 years later everyone had a website and throat-cutting was rampant.

For you young folks who weren't here for the fights in the early days of the web, Webcrawler was Google at dial up speed. Anything WW can do to support business should be done.
Jerry






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