Brian.Evans
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 10, 2012
- Messages
- 75
Hey guys! *@#$I'm new here, and new to welding in general. I learned to weld with OA when I was a kid, and did a little stick later on, but have been away from it for a while. We bought our house last year and it had a 40x70 pole barn attached to it. I got interested in knifemaking and general blacksmithing, and have been slowly accumulating tools over the past year. *@#$I sold my motorcycle and bought a four year old Lincoln AC/DC with a TIG torch attachment for $300. *@#$
I went home and had Dad give me a refresher, but I'm a long way from where I need to be.*@#$
First thing first, I need a table. *@#$I'm a paramedic in town and one of our students doing ride time is a machinist at a local factory. They were throwing away a perfectly good small table, so he snagged it for me.*@#$
Cleaned it up and painted to match.
It's a nice table for practicing, but really a bit too small for much of anything larger/longer. *@#$It's overbuilt though, which is nice.*@#$
This is where the story will seem to go off track, but stay with me.*@#$
One of the local hospitals landed a big contract and they are remodeling. In the dumpster outside the ambulance bay were a BUNCH of suspended ceiling lights. I had to go all the way up to the CFO, but I got permission to salvage the lights. *@#$It took me three trips over a week and a half, but I scored all these lights.*@#$
There are 28 4 ft fixtures and 15 2 ft fixtures. All are 4 bulb fixtures and have all the bulb in them. I also scored around 30 extra 2 and 4 ft bulbs out of unsalvageable lights.*@#$
My goal was to keep at least a dozen-ish big lights for my shed, and half a dozen or so little lights. The rest, well, they are trading fodder.
Remember, I wanted to make a welding table.*@#$
For my first trade, I swapped the car detailer guy down the street four 4 ft fixtures for this list. *@#$All new, non rusty steel.*@#$
I had thought the long pieces of angle would be decent legs and part of a top frame, and I could build it slowly as I salvaged more steel. You see, we have 5 kids, and my wife works her *** off at home with them, so my check doesn't go real far towards hobbies that don't make money.*@#$
One of our other students at work has a brother who works at a local grain cart manufacturer. *@#$Apparently one of the brothers coworker's needed some lights for his shed. I traded him a dozen 4 ft lights for a piece of steel for the top. *@#$I hadn't decided the dimensions yet, so it was kind of a "to be determined" type of trade. *@#$
Every third day on my way home, I pass a guy's house that is.......a junkyard, putting it nicely. *@#$My kind of picking! *@#$I never could catch him home, so I finally left a message on his car and waited. He called me a week later. After some haggling, I bought this frame for $25.*@#$
It is 1 1/2" 3/16" angle.*@#$
I called in my favor and got the steel for my top. It's 64"x32" which will give me a 4" overhang on all sides.*@#$
This is the piece of steel for the top. It was supposed to be 1/4", but when I piled it up, it was 3/16". *@#$I'm not really in a position to argue about it, as it was free anyway! *@#$Haha
I went home and had Dad give me a refresher, but I'm a long way from where I need to be.*@#$
First thing first, I need a table. *@#$I'm a paramedic in town and one of our students doing ride time is a machinist at a local factory. They were throwing away a perfectly good small table, so he snagged it for me.*@#$
Cleaned it up and painted to match.
It's a nice table for practicing, but really a bit too small for much of anything larger/longer. *@#$It's overbuilt though, which is nice.*@#$
This is where the story will seem to go off track, but stay with me.*@#$
One of the local hospitals landed a big contract and they are remodeling. In the dumpster outside the ambulance bay were a BUNCH of suspended ceiling lights. I had to go all the way up to the CFO, but I got permission to salvage the lights. *@#$It took me three trips over a week and a half, but I scored all these lights.*@#$
There are 28 4 ft fixtures and 15 2 ft fixtures. All are 4 bulb fixtures and have all the bulb in them. I also scored around 30 extra 2 and 4 ft bulbs out of unsalvageable lights.*@#$
My goal was to keep at least a dozen-ish big lights for my shed, and half a dozen or so little lights. The rest, well, they are trading fodder.
Remember, I wanted to make a welding table.*@#$
For my first trade, I swapped the car detailer guy down the street four 4 ft fixtures for this list. *@#$All new, non rusty steel.*@#$
I had thought the long pieces of angle would be decent legs and part of a top frame, and I could build it slowly as I salvaged more steel. You see, we have 5 kids, and my wife works her *** off at home with them, so my check doesn't go real far towards hobbies that don't make money.*@#$
One of our other students at work has a brother who works at a local grain cart manufacturer. *@#$Apparently one of the brothers coworker's needed some lights for his shed. I traded him a dozen 4 ft lights for a piece of steel for the top. *@#$I hadn't decided the dimensions yet, so it was kind of a "to be determined" type of trade. *@#$
Every third day on my way home, I pass a guy's house that is.......a junkyard, putting it nicely. *@#$My kind of picking! *@#$I never could catch him home, so I finally left a message on his car and waited. He called me a week later. After some haggling, I bought this frame for $25.*@#$
It is 1 1/2" 3/16" angle.*@#$
I called in my favor and got the steel for my top. It's 64"x32" which will give me a 4" overhang on all sides.*@#$
This is the piece of steel for the top. It was supposed to be 1/4", but when I piled it up, it was 3/16". *@#$I'm not really in a position to argue about it, as it was free anyway! *@#$Haha
morning going to dig through his fresh trailer load of **** he dug from dumpsters only minutes before. i get some good shtuff though. 
