I’ve been talking to a gentleman who works in the architectural testing business and needs a welder. This wouldn’t be a full-time job. He has “jobs” he needs done every so often, and when I have time available, I help him out.
He’s the guy I made the vault door for.
He has a wall that is 20ft high and 45 ft wide of 3/8 plate steel he uses to test architectural structures.
That’s Clayton standing in front of The Unicorn. That is my name for the wall, because no one believes it exists until they see it.
Anyway, he needed another, smaller one built for a very special test. He bought pre-made pieces and just wanted it put together. We negotiated a price and I invited a few members of the top talent from my class to lend a hand.
We arrived at 8am on Saturday, unloaded the truck and got to work.
It consisted of three pieces of 1/4in plate that were 12ft x 5 ft getting welded to three frames of the same dimension except made of 4in x 4in x 1/4in angle iron. I asked that they be laid out on blocks on the concrete so that we could weld them flat.
We used jacks and gradually slid the wood blocks down as we worked so as to prevent distortion in the steel.
Because there were three pieces, we were able to do half of the welds on a particular piece and them move onto the next piece, and so on, to keep the heat down.
All in all, it was six and a half hours work and one hell of an experience. I’m hoping to get an excellent reference from the guy who runs the shop. And for my knees to stop hurting by Wednesday (yes, I wore pads. But six hours welding on the deck for a guy who isn’t used to it is still painful).
Sounds like a fun, and potentially profitable, gig.
You need to slap a “Wall Drug” sticker on The Unicorn. People seeing it might think they are on them.