02/15/2018

Seven Tips and Tricks to keep your welding projects square!      When it comes to fabricating, you would think that making a box or a rectangle is fairly simple and straightforward.  After all how complicated a shape is a square right? But the challenge comes when you have to meet certain specifications dimensionally.  Depending on the size of the project and its intended use, you may be able to get away with being off a little bit, maybe even as much as 1/4".  But if you have to fabricate to

02/03/2018

How To Hang Gates Like a Pro!       When I take on a project to fabricate a gate for a client, like any fabricator I take  pride in my work and make sure the finished piece is something I'm proud of.  Unless I install the gate myself, I have no control over how it will look once it is installed. If it's hung crookedly, or if it's a double gate and the two halves are hung unequally, people will look at it and ask who built that contraption?      For that reason, I like to ensure the gates are

01/23/2018

Fixing Caulking Tube Clutter      I don't know about you but when it comes to storing caulking tubes in the shop, whether it's silicone, construction adhesive, sealant, or even tubes of grease, it's near impossible to keep them organized.     When ever I stood them all neatly upright on a shelf, invariably I would bump one and it would fall over knocking all the other ones over domino style resulting in a huge "pick up sticks" mess of tubes rolling around and falling on the floor!      The

12/28/2017

Tough Paint Recipe       I'm not a painter. I'm a welder. I don't like all the prep work and the clean up for doing a proper job of painting. Painting seems to add as much labor to my metal projects as it does to fabricate them, which is why I avoid it when I can and leave the painting to someone else. Sometimes though, you just cant get away from it, you have to paint.               In the interest of expediency, most of my paint jobs are of the rattle bomb spray paint type. Recently