Haha. Good to hear that. Yes hf of course. And ac for aluminium.
Building a heat exchanger with pipes is a lot easier with tig them mig. You see the leaks as you weld.
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Yes, I understand. I had enough work for my restaurant and commercial kitchen customer that I quickly bought a Thermalarc 150s inverter welding power source. It would operate on 110v and 220v and had output of 90 or 150 amps DC depending on supply voltage. I did a lot of stick welding using 7018 and 9018 rods and DC TIG welding of stainless with it. Iâd have liked it to have closer to 200 amp output but what it did - it did well for me. There is a special flux available for TIG welding stainless and some alloys made by Solar called Type B. It is mixed with alcohol and applied as needed before welding and improves wetting of the weld puddle.
Alas, I lost that little welder to the fire. When I bought it back 20 years ago it cost me $1400. USD. I also lost a pair of inverter Thermarc 250 GTSW A/C-D/C stick/TIG power sources. One was still new and in the crate. Those were valued at $2400 each. I had a water cooler for the one I was using. It was nice.
I had used a portable wire feeder with my inverter power sources and liked how the high frequency energy helped wet out the filler wire. I wanted an inverter MIG welder but my days of spending so much money for a welding power source are in the past.
Late 2020 I bought a Yes Welder 205DS. Made in ChinaâŚNot very robust in how it is made⌠but it works well.
I donât like the âsynergeticâ controls. They are not what I am used to. But at 200 amps maximum output it will do most of what I want from a machine that can use both 110v and 220v. I still have some 450 amp MIG welders that have not been used for over 10 years.
Yes Welder came out with a 220v machine that offers what would serve most folks for a welder. AC/DC -MIG but sadly DC only TIG and no spool gun capability.
I do not know how long they will last. This is the bad part of semiconductor welders. A transformer welder with arc type high frequency can last decades if stored in dry conditions. Semiconductor systems with capacitors suffer capacitor failures. Iâm hoping that my welder outlives me and this is very possible due to my health issues. I can buy 3 of these welders for what a well known manufacturer charges for their machine that has a few more options.
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What is that with you guys, another fire? You so obsessed with woodgas that you put everything on fire?
Bad joke. We have a saying, in the fire , out the fire. Insurance will pay and your problems are gone. For the first time this happened to us this summer. Some kids were playing with fire and it got out of control. They burned down a shed. Luckily it was a bad rainy summer.
If my shop burns down I will never recover. Bad nightmare, dont want to think about it.
My welders:
Esab mig mag 200 A or so, 20+ years and still going strong.
Rehm mig mag inverter 230-400 v. Not my favourite.
Lincoln stick inverter for maintanance repair. Golden oldie. There is a tig striker for it, if I really had to tig weld.
The new IMS Tig PRO 201 AC/DC HF. Didnt get the chance to try it yet. My son took it out of my hands. Cant catch up with him, gave some advice and off he went. Very happy with it, saved a lot of grinding compared to mig.
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The primary building of my business of 40 years burned to the ground. It started in my office and must have been electrical in nature. 7,000sqft/250sq/meters gone. 6 different fire departments worked 4 hours on the fire. It looks to be about $1M USD loss. I didnât have insurance. The business had failed and earned no money. Insurance would have cost 25% of our income - before income taxes. I was in the process of obtaining a new job which could have helped pay for insurance. Having insurance simply was not an option once the business could not pay for it and I was unemployed.
I lost many machines and tooling. So far - 70,000 kilos of machinery has been sent out for scrap. I still have over 65,000 kilos to go - all just from the burned building. All of my newest and best machines. Vehicles from as old as a 1957 Zudapp 250 Super Sabre, a 1967 Suzuki 250cc T-20 Iâd owned since 1975 and was still all original - even tires - with 3,700 miles. 3 Fiat 124 1800 sport/spyder cars. Parts from an airplane that is 1 of 2 known to exist. I now have an airplane that would need a lot of skilled work to make the now missing parts and there are no blueprints or drawings available.
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Oef, that hurts really bad. Misery never travels alone. No work then a fire. Electricity and wood is a bad combo⌠must check my wires against the ceiling.
Did you get over? 40 years lost!
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How long ago was that Ron. It will be six years in April since I burned my shop. Losses not nearly what you had but I lost an old Atlas machinist lathe and a bridgeport mill, All kinds of cabinet grade wood working tools and engine building tools. There was a basement under a section of the shop. I just pushed everything into it and covered it with dirt. Some day an archeologist will have to figure out what went on. Yes, Iâll never be able to replace hardly anything. Harbor Freight is about the best I can do on most stuff. I feel your pain.
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Get over? I presume you mean - did I emotionally recover from the loss?
I have yet to let myself cry.
I was there when the fire happened.
My parents had worked with me there. It was never successful. But - quitting meant they would loose their home. My dad worked 2 jobs for 15 years - one as a school teacher and the other at the plant. Then worked 15 more years at the business. Mom - she worked there for 30 years. Most weeks were 50 or more hours a week for her. At first - we all worked 85-90 hours a week at the business. Dad was teaching full time. I was going to school.
As I watched all of the hard work burn - all I could think of was thankfully - both of my parents were dead and were not there to see what happened.
Then 6 months after the fire a community leader who was raised to hate emigrants - started his false claims of wrong doing - he called me a criminal and that the businesses that we had operated for over 40 could no longer exist.
Am I over it? No - not really. The nightmare continues. It will continue with every village meeting I forced to attend and action taken by the village. It will continue with each headline in the newspaper. It will continue each time I pick up a machine we worked so hard to be able to pay for - and now is ruined and being sold for scrap. It will continue each time I think of the things lost. I still have my original machine shop. The fire did not damage that building. The machines are old and worn. I have to supply electricity to it with a generator. The mains were connected to the plant that burned. I can run a generator for less money than it will cost to have the electric service installed to the remaining building.
Now - after all of this - my wife does not want to live here anymore. She has seen far too clearly the attitudes of the local K.K.K. This is not a nice community.
So - now I have to plan on moving. The building I still have is 10.5m x 30.5m. I do not expect to find or afford another such building when we move. It has all of the 220v and 480v 1 and 3 phase transformers installed so that it can have 480v 3 phase supplied to it from the mains or now - from my generator. Installing such electrical equipement at a new building will be costly. I canât work at a job anymore so will not have the money to have that done again. I donât know if I will loose my shop now because of this. Time will tell. So - no - Iâm not over what happened. It is life altering.
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Ron where on earth do you live that the KKK still has any kind of influence? Not doubting you Iâm just appalled it still goes on.
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Hi Tom, September 22 2018. 3.5 years ago.
I found one thing out. I got a phone call from a gentleman who owned a company that helped businesses with insurance fire claims. When he found I did not have insurance he offered one item. My homeowners insurance would help me with non-business and non-vehicular losses. 10% of my homeownerâs personal property coverage applied anywhere in the world. Since I had $250,000 on my home for personal property losses - I stood to have $25K available. But - not for cars, motorcycles, aircraft parts, engines, the prototype aviation engine I designed. Nothing that had ever been used for business purposes.
The insurance company tried to say I didnât have coverage - until I said what I was told by the gentleman. The insurance company made me write down each item. What I paid for it. And what the current replacement cost is. They then talked of possibly subtracting depreciation for the years I had the items. I spent 4 months working late at night trying to remember what was where in the plant. What did I pay for it? Is there one for sale by a machinery dealer, on ebay? It was a nightmare. The total came to $186,000. They did pay the entire $25K. I used part of the money to buy an excavator and a thumb attachment for it so I could use it to pick up machines to scrap them.
One 70 cu/yd roll off container was the recipient of most of the lathes, mills, grinders. I packed 84,000 lbs into it. I moved my Nardini 15x40 and 17x60 engine lathes into a kiln. that was partially damaged. The lathes got hot. The Heidenhain digital readout on the 17x60 burned. The live centers got too hot. I think the Pratt Burnerd collet chuck was ruined. All of the collets got too hot. There is a 20x96 Union lathe that is likely going into the scrap. An Index 55 vertical mill got hot enough to melt the diecast quill feed pulley. A Boyar Schultz hydraulic feed surface grinder with neutrofier power supply and magnetic chuck is likely junk. My Cincinnati Toolmaster vertical mill with Heidenhain CNC control is junk. The servo drive motors melted off of it. 2 Brierley ZB25 tap and drill grinders have to go yet. Their motors melted off. One had a diamond wheel drill split point attachment. It was so new that it was still on the pallet. I never got to use it. Piles of engines and hand tools, hydraulic cylinders, pumps, trays and trays of fittings. Air tools in shop cabinets melted to a puddle of aluminum with some steel pieces in the puddle. I was stunned how fast items rusted horribly. Items that I tossed to the side for possible salvage - were covered in flaking rust in months.Not just brown with rust - actual chunky rust. Lifting chains became rigid in weeks. Aluminum items often turned to globs of grey/blue slime. A fireman I know suspects that a wetting agent was used with the estimated 250,000+ gallons of water that went onto the fire. I had some 120 magnesium alloy foundry snap flasks. They got burning. Some 7,500lbs of magnesium alloy burning was interesting. Explosions every time water hit it. I found globs of magnesium 200ft from where they were burning - the result of explosions hurling the molten metal. Every explosion was like 4th of July fire works.
Iâm sorry that you had to live through such an event in your life. It is hard to explain to someone who has not experienced it - just what it is like.
Maybe you understand this one item. I had parts to an ultra rare plane in the plant. Most of the airplane was stored in another building It had been damaged by another pilot when he crashed into it the same day the world lost Princess Diana. I could remember the parts I had from one that had been destroyed in a fatal accident. Seat, fuel tank, engine, controls and other components I knew were gone - lost to the flames. I decided I was going to find the time to repair the remaining plane as part of my moving on with life exactly a year ago. I started measuring the wings for recovering them and it wasnât until I could not find the canard, elevators and rudders that my mind would let me remember that they were on a shelf below the shelf that had the parts from the wrecked plane. That was a really bad day. Only one other example of that airplane model is known to exist.
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Wow, that is a big loss that can not be recovered. Thank you for sharing this. My like is that you shared your pain with us all.
Bob
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I am sorry, stupid questions do exist. Exactly the answer I was afraid of or even worse.
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Your losses are so far beyond mine that Iâm embarrassed to have mentioned them. Insurance for a small shop that no longer makes any income is just not possible. I am too old to get very involved in any new ventures and just entertain myself doing various projects now. I did learn a lesson about storing fuels and and welding gases together. Nothing like 2500 PSI of oxygen to get a really nice fire optimized.
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Hi Cody,
Yea - it was a surprise to have my next door neighbor - the acting chief of police pointed it out.
We bought the property here 44 years ago. We were not from the area. Through comments folks (customers) would make we learned the local volunteer fire department was known as the XXX(insert family last name - clan. Ok - so a close knit group of guys who fought firesâŚRight? Well - no.
I moved to this town in 1985. I live 2 properties from the fire barn. The volunteer firemen commonly had meetings that lasted until 3 or 4am. While having meetings they would park in the alley that lead to the parking area for my home. This required that I park on the street and keep checking to see when the meeting ended so that I could park my vehicle in my parking area. Parking on the street overnight is illegal - as is parking in or blocking an alley. I have been ticketed for not moving my vehicle off the street on the nights of those marathon meetings.
Multiple complaints to my next door neighbor - the chief of police - had no effect. I didnât care if they parked there when they had a fire call. Just when it wasnât necessary. They actually had parking available on their paved lot but chose to park in the alley. It became obvious that it was intentional.
Finally the last time I talked with my neighbor about the parking - he commented - youâve heard it called the xxxxxxx-clan right? âyesâ. Ron are you that ignorant? That is not clan with a âCâ it is clan with a âKâ. It is not a fire board meeting that they have that lasts until 4am. Those people donât like blacks, emigrants or Jews.
Only a year later - the fire chief and his son stopped by our business. When they entered the office where my dad was working - Dad recognized the son - Well hi!..Son replied - I donât know you. Dad pressed - you were one of my students. No - I donât know you. They left. Dad asked who they were. I said Bill and Bill - dad yelled out their last name. He was right. The son had been one of his adult education students who apparently did not want to admit in front of his dad that he had an emigrant as a teacher.
There was a rather nasty change of leadership at the fire department about 12 years ago. The late night meetings ended soon after. The number of times that firemen blocked the alley reduced a bit. It still occurs though. Just because the leadership has changed - certain attitudes take time to die off. Likely only ending as the people who believe such things die off themselves and quit instilling such thoughts into their children.
Back about 1989 a customer came to our business needing some minor landscaping items. Mom helped him in the office. Then turned him over to me to load his purchases. He asked me - that woman in there - is she German? No - I replied - she is Dutch. To which - Bxx replied - Deutschce and Dutch are the same thing. No - not at all. Deutsche is German. Dutch is the Netherlands. She and dad are from the Hague. They lived through the Nazi occupation. To this he replied - you are a liar. She is a gxx - dxxx German. Emigrants and Nxxxxx should find someplace else to be than Nashville.
I loaded his purchases and got him off my property, I asked mom if she knew who he was - no - but he paid with a check. I photocopied the check - cut off the excess paper and put the copy under the coin tray of our cash drawer. It was still there when the fire happened. That man was the father of the present village president who is causing me problems claiming we never got the permissions that were given 44 years ago and confirmed by the village council 32 years ago. I have to meet with the SOB next week.
FYI. When my business burned, I called 911 for the fire department. 2 volunteer firemen from my town came with their small water tanker. Just 2. At that point I knew my building was a loss. Volunteer firemen from a neighboring town 7 miles away arrived. Then one of our village firemen. Then another. Then the volunteer fire department from a town 15 miles away arrived. Finally another one of our village trucks arrived with a few firemen. Then another department some 18 miles away arrived⌠Then another was called. Then another.
I am left to wonder if the slow turn out of our local department reflects the attitudes that were so prevalent for decades
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Your pain is still quite real. I am thankful that only a limited number of people know what it is like. When I called 911 they asked if there was fuel in the building. Yes. Is there oil? yes - drums full. Are there tanks in the building? Welding tanks? YES!!!. You name it - it is in here.
I had the large T size oxygen and argon tanks in the building and 420 /450 cu/ft size acetylene tanks. I expected to hear/see them explode during the fire. After the fire I found those cylinders with only the valves and the regulator attachment fittings on them. The brass regulators fell off when the stemâs melted. None exploded.
I had about 8 5 gallon steel pails of grease and gear oil in a cabinet. They boiled dry. Absolutely nothing remaining in them. Shortly after the fire 55 gallon drums of oil could be heard gurgling as the oil inside continued to boil.
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Hey RonO, takes courage to speak out like that.
Add another hated types of folks to the the blacks, immigrants, and Jews . . . newcomers.
Folks moving in without a 2-3-4 generations of local-yokel in their families.
And you are correct the Haters often use above board organizations as their face.
Here it is the fraternal organizations of The Eagles, The Lions and less frequently the Masons.
Please. I am not saying these from national, the top down. Nope. Nope. Locals. One at a time.
Wife and I have found it safe to be involved with the VFW and Auxiliary. But not the American Legion. Safe to be involved with the Granges. Four out of five of the local churches o.k. Not the fivth.
Well. We moving now away from our 2-3 generations claim. Still being very careful.
I wish it was only just the daddy (or mother) to son (or daughter) effect. Give some hope these Hater chained cycles could be broken.
But my own blood families show that as often these are adopted attitudes family members seek out and cultivate. If I said it seemed more prevalent creeping in by married in, inlaws . . . Iâd maybe being prejudice myself. Hey hey, sure seems . . .
Vaccinations hubbaloo has sure shown this in our families.
The increased hate for science in my families. For me science is not a set-in-stone for-certain to be worshipped. Nope. A tool to be used as is appropriate.
Here. I shine out my own prejudice. The Haters have in common an easy-think core. Just tell me what to believe. Itâs childish too hard to have to think these things out for myself.
Immigrants, visually different folks, different practices living folks, and newcomers have to work harder to make a go of it.
Too many local born and raised boys and girls it was made too easy and they refuse to take hard-work ways. And a lot of fear there. I scratched out for what I have. And I ainât giving up any of it to âOthersâ.
Hey! Thats me.
Difference is I say it about the Federal GovâMint, the State Government . . . and now for the past 15-20 years our local Town. These last took away our 60 years in service private water well. Grudge from when my Father-in-law had been mayor and tried to fire the public works manager. Others entertained watching an old line generations family brought down. Humbled.
Then a year later . . . our grazing cows on vacant Town lotS that WE HAD BOUGHT AND OWNED. âCept that attack came about by others in-Town hating crowing roosters.
No Livestock in Town said the revised tightened new ordnances. Horse riding only with a paid-for parade permit. (shit brings flyâs you know) And after 18 months of vigorous debating over what was a chicken forced by me: 6 hens allowed with a granted permit, with a plot set back registered ( again that shits brings flyâs you know); and written letters of non-opposition from every adjacent neighbor. But no crowing roosters allowed.
No grazers like cows. goats, sheep, geese allowed. Back to those shits flyâs. Ooooh! Icky!!
So . . . damn near 20 years now mowing vacant lots grasses and weeds. Four mowers worn out. Hundreds of gallons of gasoline burnt off. Thousands of hours of my personal time.
Iâve sweat. Cursed. And Hated right back atâchaâ. Out lived every one of those Haters men and woman involved except two. It was the local have-to-be sponsored-in Sportsman Club that was the core base. They flaunted their key-holding gate access rights too often and got jerked back to us commons.
Your wife is correct. Take your losses. Take your gains and Move away to seek some peace. Only way youâll be able to put your own hate theyâve cultivated in yourself to rest. Keep it, they win. Put it to bed, faded away, you win. Marats wisdom.
Bless my wife for now being willing to give this move-away to me.
Best regards
Steve Unruh
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I can only guarantee one thing Ron and anyone else, if you move to Kings Mountain or Bessemer City NC youâll have at least one friendly face to look forward to and that would be me.
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Ron, still upset by your story. But the next one is a good one to share. I cant hold it back.
Cyclone works, even in water. It surprised me that the ashes are trown out instead of sucked in. No more excuses, I have to start also.
If I dont have a nervous breakdown by the end of the month, I will never have one. No more excuses.
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I am so happy for you that your efforts are bringing you the joyâs of success. I believe someone once posted of fitting a water jacket around the cyclone to help cool the gasses. The manner in which a cyclone functions places the gasses with the highest energy (speed and temperature) at the outside of the cyclone. I do not know how effective cooling the cyclone actually is.
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Thanks, and I hope there is a lot more joy to come. I follow this guy. He is very puntual, like electrotechniciens almost always are. I believe it is a succes with not to much missers to get there. I have to survive another few weeks and hopefully then there will be some time for playing again.
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Pelletpower; I and Iâm sure all on here appreciate your video posting, but unfortunately most of us on here speak only one language. So the best we can do is watch the video and visually determine approximately what is being discussed. Seeing that you speak the language of the video, and also speak English, I would appreciate it if you would give us a little written explanation of what is being said. Thank you TomC
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