Good Morning.
I got up to let the dog out a few hours ago, it was 29 and freezing rain and sleet. Came back inside and got back under the warm covers until now. It’s gone all the way up to 31, with no precipitation, might make it to 40 under cloudy skies.
Yesterday was spent mostly in the shop fixing stuff.
I have been welding things together for almost 60 years, using most of all the available processes. I have avoided MIG welding for the most part, I always thought that it fell between TIG and stick for usefulness.
Then someone gave me a broken MIG welder, which I promptly fixed, and used sporadically. After a while, it started to be the machine I used for most quick repairs, it’s like a hot glue gun for metal. So when it stopped working yesterday, I immediately went out and bought a new Hobart. After I set up it up and welded what I was working on, I took a look at the old machine to see if anything was useable on the Hobart. That was when I saw why it stopped working. The electrical conductor in the gun connector had pulled away from the body of the connector. I made a new crimp sleeve out of a piece of copper tubing, crimped back together, covered it all with a piece of heavy heat shrink, and it’s as good as new. I’ve already found a new home for it, so it’s going to be someone else’s free MIG welder.
Next project was to look at another free device, this time a jumper box with air compressor and 100 watt AC inverter. It had a stone dead battery, and this time, I didn’t take the bait. I took the battery along with my other dead batteries to the recycler and got my $16 in dollar coins and two dollar bills. If you were local to me, that would tell you where I took them.
Today I’m going to have to find a few things to weld, and decide whether to MIG or TIG them…….
SIPS construction has intrigued me, but I have always stick built with sprayed in urethane from under the slab, to the roof. The end result is about as tight as you can get.
