Creative Repair, Zero Cost Is Important These Days!

Uh-oh, you guys have now opened the topic I was about to "soapbox" on the other day.

Welding.

It seems like such a mysterious and formidable thing to so many, but I cannot think of another "fixit" skill which has paid off so handsomely. I think anyone who has one of these older machines MUST learn to weld some.

Get your self a cheap wire welder if you want to start easy and just get to gluing some metal pieces together. There are about 1000 YouTube videos you can watch, online tutorials, library books and other resources that cost you nothing to figure out what's going on.

Of course you're going to need a grinder and some safety gear, but look on Craigslist and you'll see dozens of guys that either need money or thought they were going to become the next great yard-art artist and are now selling their rigs. You could even take a course at your local community arts center or vo-tech school.

You will of course become the "welder" in the neighborhood and be asked to fix all kinds of things you don't know how to stick together but that'll give you a chance to learn some new skillz!

Being able to join two pieces of old steel that you knew you weren't going to find a replacement for will make all cost and burns worth it. (Oh yeah, there will be some burns)

Yep, I forgot about all the beer I have "earned".

Of course, once you learn one technique, you'll want to learn another. I started with stick welding and have never gotten a wire machine although sometimes it would be nice. But learning to weld thin stuff with tiny rods and low amps is a good thing.

Then I had to get a gas setup because I needed that cutting torch. Which led to the fun of gas welding and braze-welding when you have really thin stuff you don't want to melt but you want to add metal to. Seatpan cracks are a good example there.

Then that cutting torch got to be too cumbersome (and was burning all my oxygen) so I pretty much HAD to get a small plasma cutter. I mean, what choice did I have? Pretty much none.

Now I look forward to cutting stuff and am trying to work on my amp settings to get the cleanest kerf I can. Oh, that also involves some kind of toolrest or straightedge since that plasma jet catches every jiggle you make.

There's about a million little things you can change with all these methods to handle different situations.

OH, and don't discount the value of being able to use the rosebud for pre-heating cast iron and then a nickel rod in the buzz box to fix cast. That's some hot, slow work but it "fixes the unfixable". You could probably get a keg out of that party trick.