Random stuff, reduction, servo motors, ideas and thoughts

I try and avoid mechanical work too. One of the last times, I replaced a timing belt and 2 weeks later, the water pump went and when I consulted the book, it said first, remove the timing belt! If only I had of known as the water pump was not very expensive.

Anyway, last week, I employed a qualified mechanic 2 days a week so I'll be off the hook now!

i think if i were to hire someone i would hire a scientist to clone about 10 more of myself so i at least had a fighting chance of getting somewhere

better get rich fast in my case i seem to be moving anywhere but forward at the moment

Sometimes paying someone to do the work does not always work out hassle free. I have a company ute and last time I took it in to the dealer to be serviced they missed a bunch of stuff I told them NEEDED to be changed.

Get the ute back and fan belt squeaks and they did not do any of the other requested work but tried to charge us for it. The whole fiasco took about a month of backwards and forwards with the dealer to sort out. Its a two year old ute as well.

Sometimes its easier to do these things your self but then again time is a pretty valuable thing.

You hear of problems like that with car dealers but I've never experienced it.
In my case, I was hiring a helper who just happened to be a mechanic but his first job was to install a roof rack. The next day I had him a day's welding (he is much better at that then me but I don't think he likes it any more than I do!). I needed some help and he was looking for 2 days a week work which should work for me and he has some good skills so I hope I can find enough each week to keep him gainfully employed.

Yeah having a guy like that would make thing easy. I think one of the main problems business have is finding good employees. I have had my crew of guys for the last three years and they are mostly pretty good.

Some of my guys enjoy certain jobs and loath others, it can be hard sometimes balancing the work to be done with the people who like doing it but we manage.

thefabricator03 wrote:

Yeah having a guy like that would make thing easy. I think one of the main problems business have is finding good employees. I have had my crew of guys for the last three years and they are mostly pretty good.

Some of my guys enjoy certain jobs and loath others, it can be hard sometimes balancing the work to be done with the people who like doing it but we manage.

Sometimes its a lot easier to make good employees than find them. In my last job I had a couple of long standing employees 30+ years who had been bullied for years. It took a long time to gain their confidence and trust so they knew they were going to be treated respectfully, My team of about 10 would walk under water for me and we got stuff done. Something the recently deposed coach of the Broncos never achieved before falling on his sword (oops sorry Broncos, an Aussie Football team who is set for the wooden spoon with a new coach after years at the top of the ladder!)

i wish i could say we live in a perfect world and everyone could be trusted but sadly that's not the case. i took my truck to the dealer to find a problem with the air bag light coming on in the truck. they found the problem sure enough but wanted around $800 to fix it. i took a look at it and seen it was just a wire pulled out of the wire harness and it was only two wires at that. i ended up fixing it for like $2 and that was 4 years ago and no problems since then.

something like this is a bit more involved but if i do it at least i know for sure i'm just fixing the problem and not making stuff up to add too the repair bill.

i can't offer any insight to the employee side of things other than most of the guys i work with have been there for a long time and the company functions on it's own for the most part as far as work flow. i have a job where i pretty much know what needs done and work with no supervision. what ever i encounter i deal with on my own basically since i work the night shift. the company i work for has had me for about 10 years this time around actually started working for them out of trade school when i was 17 left to move on to westinghouse working on defense contracts and when the bottom went out i ended up back there again for a few years before i took close to 15 to 20 year break from the place. somehow i seemed to go in a big circle and end up where i started out i must be doing something right they keep taking me back

well at least gaskets are not very expensive $35 for a set and hopefully i can get the youngest daughter up and running again

finally got a chance to play around with the new welder i can only work with the 120 V side of it for now but it was nice to finally get a chance to play around with it today.

welding steel is pretty easy with it but i have a new found appreciation for how hot things get around the hands while doing this kind of welding beads looked pretty nice on steel but i think my amps were to low and got a lot of heat in the pieces i was practicing on. had no problems getting a puddle but it was taking to long to get it to that point.

aluminum welding was ok with it but i can see why contamination of tungsten happens so much. one little bit of crud and it does not take much to jump up on the tungsten:)I feel good about strong welds with either material but cosmetic in aluminum is something i will have to work at

i will say this the true color high definition optics are well worth the extra money for a hood. that thing is like night and day compared to the piece of sh!t i was using

making a adapter / coupler for the cupped wheel for the AC motor worked pretty darn good for grinding tungsten. chuck the tungsten up in a cordless drill to spin the tungsten while grinding the tip works great.

I think you know that specialist demand that tig needles have to be grinded in direction of the needle, not to leave radial marks.
Mike