Scrap Treasure Chest-A scavenger's dream

Today I went to a warehouse for Habitat for Humanities. It was a literal treasure chest. Everything from Home Depot, slightly used for scrap yard prices.
Some good metal scrap too, especially on heavy duty bolts, nuts, and washers.Have at it.

Next stop, scrap yards.










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Welding Questions from others

When you have no idea how to do something that is too advanced for you or want to save money, ask the pros and your friends on welding forums. Here is a popular one. People upload and share their project photos on this website forum too.

Welding Web Forum:

http://weldingweb.com/forumdisplay.php?f=10

Welding Project Ideas

Miller Welding MAchine Company has a HUGE collection of welding projects that their faithful customers have built. They have an incredible collection of projects in 5 different catagories. Really amazing and will let you know what is possible with welding.

Miller-Project Ideas:

http://www.millerwelds.com/interests/projects/ideagallery/in-the-shop/

Welding Project Table:

http://www.millerwelds.com/interests/projects/welding-table/

Back Yard Texas BBQ:

http://lincolnelectric.com/knowledge/articles/content/bbq.asp

Utility Trailer:

http://lincolnelectric.com/knowledge/articles/content/mower-trailer-project.asp

Books Filled with Welding Projects: several welding

https://ssl.lincolnelectric.com/foundation/store.asp?PID=16&cat=8

How the Pros Do It-NOMMA

NOMMA: National Ornamental and Miscellaneous Metal Association

NOMMA: http://nomma.org/dev/index.php

Do you want to know more about how to make Super Good stuff? Then you need to join up with and learn from NOMMA, the specialty metal working association of America. Their members are world-class metal art makers and fabricators. Many are high end artists that do amazing work in some of the biggest and most famous buildings in the world. NOMMA holds an annual international competition for Best Design of the Year. The entries are truly stunning in scale, scope and creativity. Whole fabricating shops will create projects just for this competition to be crown the " King of Metal". NOMMA publishes a quarterly magazine with special trade news from around the world. If you can get your hands on an old copy of the magazine or get a subscription you will be blown away. The design competiton isses are the best.
They hold classes for members all over the country and have an annual convention as well.




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Auto Paint Finishing-Pearlescent Paints

You can really make your work stand out and look refined if you use auto paint to finish it off. Go to an auto body paint store and get a spray canister that is precharged with air called a "Pre-Val". These canister can spray on any paint in a fine mist. These Pre-Val units are cheap and disposable. $5.00

http://www.prevalspraygun.com/around.htm


The car paint store will have hundreds of colors to choose from. Just pick one you like.




You can make your piece look really great if you tell them to add a clear-coat to your paint mix. It will look glossy with only one coat of paint. This is called 1-stage/single stage auto paint.
High quality paint jobs on exotic cars do 3-10 coats of paint and sanding between coats. These are called 3-stage paints.

You can make pearly, shimmering paint effects on your piece from an angle if you layer on the paint in steps. These are called Pearlescent paints. Have you ever seen a super tricked out car that shines in the sun with 2-3 different colors that perfectly blend together? This is how it is done, in layers.
























There is a special kind of auto paint for cars that has small, microscopic colored diamonds in it. These diamonds reflect different colored light to your eye, like a prism, giving the impression of multiple colors. You can get paint that will reflect 2 or even 3 different colors. These specialty paints are in their own class of paints, but are still used as auto paints. Several auto paint stores hold classes for car enthusiasts on how to use and apply these paints. Look up more information on Google on this topic under: "Pearlecent Paint"


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Making Metal Shine-Finishing Techniques

After all your hard work of preparing, welding and grinding to a smooth finish you will probably want to your masterpiece a finishing coat of paint to even out your burn marks and protect it as well.
There are several ways to do this. Paint sloughs off metal really easily and must be prepped before any paint goes on it.

1. Sand it smooth with gradually finer grit sanding wheels, called "Flapper Wheels".

2. Mineral Spirit-whipe everything down to remove the oil bath that the metal was dipped in at the factory when it was made to prevent rust. Most metals are covered in this oil when you buy it.

3. Primer coat-Apply a primer coat of paint that is compatible with your final top coat of paint. This is an important step, so ask a paint company to check that your paints match the application and material.

4. Final overlay coat-your choice of color. Auto paint will usually look the best.

This is the quick and dirty way to finish most any piece off in a hurry.

If you wanna make your piece look like a million bucks on the cheap, then you got a couple more options.

1. Autobody paint-ask a car paint store for details. They can mix and make any metallic paint color you might want and you can spray it on. Mix it with 1ounce of paint Hardener and it will stick to the metal and last for more than 5 years. Hardener is a MUST! It is cheap too, about $20. See my next Blog on Auto Paint Finishing.

2. Powder Coating- must be sent to a commercial powder-coating/ baking factory. These companies spray on a sandy powder coating and bake it at high heat to make an almost plastic like, super hard coating, fully encasing your piece. This coating fully protects against rust for many years, better than any paint will. It will rust only if chipped off or the bare metal is exposed to air. Look up books on Amazon about this topic: Powder Coating

3. Patina- the fine technique of artificially aging, coloring and finishing fine artwork and commercial pieces directly onto the metal itself using acids, chemicals, heat treatments and so on. This is a whole topic in itself. You can buy books on how to achieve different patina finishes. This is an expert craft skill used by foundries and professional sculptors. Look up books on Amazon about this topic: Patina







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Getting Skills Fast-Part #2: Layout

Layout

Learning to do good layout is a critical skill in welding fabrication. Simply welding one piece at a time and tacking things together as you go is a recipe for distaster. Metal is very unforgiving and can not be shaved down like wood or other soft materials. You MUST plan ahead to make something good. It will save you alot of money and time.

I do alot of NAPKIN Drawings when I get ideas. These

Artistic Welding-Getting Skills Fast-Part #1

Have you seen a really cool welded sculpture before?

Have you wanted to learn the skills on how to make it?

Be rest assured that you CAN learn how to do it. You can learn how to make great artistic things, but do not be fooled that you with make millions off of it.

I will talk a little bit about how to acquire enough welding skills to be dangerous enough to do something cool.

You can relax to know that most great welding artists learned on their own. They did not have a teacher in the beginning, just the will to make something. Every sculpture artist makes garbage the first time they do something. The important thing for amy artist is to create, evolve and improve upon your last project.

Be keenly aware of the power observation. As a metal arts welder/sculptir you CAN make great things just by watching other welders do things. This is how I learned in the beginning. I found a welding shop and offered to help them on ANY project in my free time/ evening hours in order to get my hands on good equipment. I was free to them and they JUMPED on the oppurtunity for free labor. It was FREE SCHOOLING for me. The journeyman welders immediatly took me under their wing and taught me tons!! After one month, the welding shop won a huge artistic project for a veterans memorial worth $500,000 and I began to work on it, right along side of the journeyman. It was great !!
After one year, I was a really good welder, I did side jobs and filled in for sick guys at the shop and the company took me in as one of their own. I also got to take credit for working on the war memorial project, along with working on many decorative gates. My boss eventually offerred to pay me because my layout skills became very good and my quality was reliable enough that he could trust me to do basic and intermediate layout without him watching. I became an essential part of the team. This all came about be offering to work/learn for free.

As for

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Types of steel-how to get base materials cheap

Do a web search for steel suppliers in your area.



Do a search for auto junk yards in your area too.


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Types of Welding: where it is used

1)Repairs-like trailer or axle repairs.

2) Building construction-making parts for big buildings in connecting elements to the base structural steel.

3) race cars, airplanes and helicopters

4) sculptural art

5) repairs: spot welding / tack welding

6) ship fabrication

7) automobile production welding




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Finding Welding Materials in your city

The Art of Scrounging Around: an essential skill in becoming a good welder

When you begin to look for welding supplies in your city there are a few things that you can do.

Most people that start welding first see it done by a friend or acquaintance they directly know. After becoming interested in what they do, you need to make a list of tools that they use.

Welding equipment can get expensive fast, but you can work magic with just a couple of tools.

Here are welders that are high end and low end. Since you just want to get start I will show you the low, cheap end and the other one is just for you to drool over. Look for USED welding equipment, new welding equipment costs a mint, so you need to become good at scrounging and digging around to find good USED welding equipment. Every good welder that I know has a traind eye and good knowledge of where to scrounge around for tools and materials, finding older things and turning them into looking brand new or a very useful part or tool. Welders are experts at taking junk and turning it into treasure. This is one of the BEST SKILLS that I have noticed runs through all good welders. Starting out this skill of scrounging will get you really far in assembling a mass of hardware, tools and materials enough to work with and get started quickly. All welders I know started small and everyone buys a simple welder to get started. We all have to get our hands dirty sometime. Expert welders always have back-up welders in case their main welder goes down or breaks....EVERY good welder has one. This is where your scrounging skills come in handy.

I have found many cheap, used welders on Craigslist website. It is VERY useful in finding used welding equipment.

Simple and cheap welders:

Lincoln Rod Welder 225-$100 usually (used)

This red Lincoln rand welder is cheap and uses welding rods to welds parts together. Rods are cheap and you can weld alot of different types of metal with this welder on the cheap. You can make decorative furniture with this welder, fix broken car parts, make a car trailer, a metal door, a metal gate, fence posts, a swinging porch chair and so on. This is a good, all=around welder for simple things. You can cut your teeth with welding using this machine. To use this machine it will require a clothes dryer type of electrical outlet, 220 volts. Welders generally suck alot of power to make the bright arc light that you see to fuse metal together. This requires alot of power. If you dont have a 220 volt outlet, then look at the next simple welder below.

Small MIG welder-for regular house plugs-110 volts: $100

This welder is very small and good for simple projects. It is limited to thin metal jobs, decorative type work and spot welders. Simple, simple, simple. Remember this is just to cut your teeth on, not to build a monument. The machine below is VERY limited in what you can do. I would recommend two well known brands in choosing a welding machine: Lincoln (always red in color-above), and Miller (always blue). These are the two best welding machine makers in America that I know of. The small welder below is probably made in China by a generic company. You can weld small things none the less, but keep in mind, in the welding trade, when it comes to tools and welding machines, you get what you pay for. You will eventually find an older machine that works great for a great price and that will become you first serious welding machine that will be a workhorse for you. Just keep scrounging around and asking around like I said, you will find them in time.

High End Welding Machine with it's own power plant engine. This can be used in places where there is no electricity around. For example if construction equipment breaks, this machine can be driven in the back of a small truck to the construction site and a spot weld can be made immediately instead of waiting a week for the machinery to be serviced, towed in to a professional shop and so on, wasting precious work time. These machines are usually used by people who specialize in mobile equipment repair of heavy machinery

Go to a professional welding fabrication shop and check out what they have as far as tools and write down a big list of everything that you saw inside. It will be a long list but important to starting out as a welder.

Over several years your can acquire welding tools of your own and learn what you will eventually need from a professionally outfitted shop.

Buy a book off of Amazon, Home Depot or Barnes and Noble about welding and read as much as you can about welding. You will learn enough from one book to start on a project on your own.

Good luck.

Welding Arts-resources

Welding Arts

Some resources to welding artistic projects, for artists.

Artistic welders:

Kjell Varvin: http://varvinart.blogspot.com/