DIY engineering/welding courses

[MR.C]

Get yourself a cheap Tig welder £1000 all in, dead right.

Then you can do your 10p worth of Tig welding in confidence.

Sorry Steve mate.🙂

[Steve (sdh2903)]

If you can find somewhere to do tig for 10p let me know. I can then sell mine to @Glen_I 😂

[MR.C]

They all use Jasic  at my work place.

[jeff oakley]

1 hour ago, Glen_I said:

You're a legend!

 

I nearly placed the order yesterday then noticed the foot pedal is out of stock.

 

I will order it all tonight when kids are in bed.....retail therapy😉

 

 

Funnily enough I have just been clearing space in the garage and have decided to sell my Snap On box that I got as an apprentice in 1992. I traded it in when getting my Mac Tools one and then purchased it back due to sentimental reasons but its been sat under the bench for over 20 years I think? 

 

My daughters don't want it for some reason😅

 

 

 

Not sure what it will sell for as prices are all over the place on eBay.

 I got the very same tool box in 1975 when I had been working for 12 months as a mechanic. I put my very best tools in there which was a few screw drivers and a socket set my dad bought me and a few bits and pieces given by others at work.

 

One gave me an old Britool half inch ratchet that he had replaced with Snap on one.

 

Snap on dealers were like crack pushers and slowly it filled with shiny tools which I still have and kept paying for for years.

 

The box I kept for years and eventually gave it to my Nephew 4 years ago, who is a body repairer in France. He fully restored it and is still in use today like it was before.

[Steve (sdh2903)]

39 minutes ago, MR.C said:

They all use Jasic  at my work place.

 

Are they 10p?

[MR.C]

When I started as an apprentice mechanic I was ordered

 a full set of Britool gear.£300 when I was on £25 a week.

[Glen_I]

On 24/02/2022 at 20:15, jeff oakley said:

Snap on dealers were like crack pushers and slowly it filled with shiny tools which I still have and kept paying for for years.

 

The box I kept for years and eventually gave it to my Nephew 4 years ago, who is a body repairer in France. He fully restored it and is still in use today like it was before

Yes, Snap On isn't cheap but back then it was very limited without the luxury of the Internet to purchase tools like it is now so it was Snap On and briefly we had a Britool van come around.

 

I will however say that I still have my Snap On ratchets, sockets, screwdrivers, breaker bar amongst many other tools from the mid to late 90's and they still do the job. I purchased a set of Britool spanners and they were terrible (made of chocolate), the open-end would splay open.

 

After cleaning my top box and centre box it then dawned on me that they really are well made but as with most things nowadays the quality isn't there it seems with Snap On.

 

If I was starting again I wouldn't get as hung up on Snap On as like I say tools elsewhere are readily available.

 

As with any trade though there are tools that work and do the job but when it's your bread and butter and these tools see action and abuse then you do get what you pay for (most of the time?!).

 

TIG ordered along with a trolley, gloves as my mig ones don't have a great deal of feel/movement and some filler rods for mild steel to practise on.

 

I have organised a trip to my mates to rummage through his bin of offcuts to practise on  and I still need to get the gas bottle sorted, no doubt this will have gone through the roof as everyone will blame price hikes down to that little scrotum in Moscow😠

[jeff oakley]

I still have my Snap on tools which is why normal house insurance doesn't cover them. If you get hold of a Snap on Price list you will be amazed at how much things cost now if they need replacing.

 

Britool was top quality in the 70's and 80's but they were made in Sheffield at that time but production moved to the Far East.

 

As for the gas bottle look at Hobby Gas, you buy the bottle but then pay for just the refill. Years of having BOC bottles paying through the nose as there was only them is now a thing of the past

[Glen_I]

9 hours ago, jeff oakley said:

I still have my Snap on tools which is why normal house insurance doesn't cover them. If you get hold of a Snap on Price list you will be amazed at how much things cost now if they need replacing.

Friends who have no idea about what these cost always think I'm exaggerating about the cost.

 

Also amazes me when most people assume the 'garage' buys your tools..... a friend wanted to borrow something awhile ago and I said 'yeah, not a problem', we then got talking about the cost and I said the top box and roller cabinet cabinet was about £3k (approx in 2001 when I purchased it), he was gobsmacked at how expensive it was and assuned that included the contents!

 

We had issues with the last dealership I worked in regarding insurance. We all got told 'don't worry, your tools are all insured up to £5k'. It all kicked of that day and we had them valued and the valuations ranged between £15-25k!

 

Thanks for the heads up regarding gas, I started looking last night but felt I was going around in circles.

 

@jeff oakleyout curiosity who do you use to insure your tools at home?

[jeff oakley]

There were only two companies who would cover and that was Hiscox and NFU. we have been with NFU now for years as it is part of the house with a number of expensive jewellery pieces as well on the policy.

 

A plan called me up recently and mentioned that AXA would insure tools up to a larger amount.

 

One of the reasons we have stayed with them is because we were burgled about 10 years ago in the middle of the day, alarm went off but no one came to look, now it is monitored. They never batted an eyelid in fixing the damage or replacing the lost items.

 

Funny story on that , one of the watches stolen was pretty unique and the police said there was no chance of finding them. That night went on Ebay and there was my watch in a pawn shop in Bristol. 

Arrests made and suspended sentence given, but none of the sentimental stuff got back. That is why we have stayed as you only know how good a firm is when you need to claim.

 

I always took my tools home, had a small HA viva van, did not have a Roller cab at that time. Others left their tools. The place was broken into and all tools stolen. It was at that point that they discovered they were not insured at all in the business.

 

Although I love anything to do with engines, I always said I chose the wrong trade. I wanted my own garage but the cost to set one up was insane and then I got into management so never got there. My mate on the other hand got trained by British gas bought a few tools and a van and made a fortune as a gas engineer and plumber. hardly any overheads and a lot of cash in hand back then, which was nice for him. 

[Glen_I]

Look what arrived today!

 

This will be it's new home no doubt for a week or so, maybe longer as a certain person cant pick it up to dump it by the back door 😉

[Steve (sdh2903)]

On 25/02/2022 at 22:25, jeff oakley said:

As for the gas bottle look at Hobby Gas, you buy the bottle but then pay for just the refill. Years of having BOC bottles paying through the nose as there was only them is now a thing of the past

 

Just to add if you contact boc and ask for the hobbyist price they arent actually that bad.  The probs with the hobby gas is they don't actually contain that much gas. From what i gather tig uses a lot of gas, especially doing loads of practice. 

 

From a local gas place I've got a bl**** massive bottle for £40 quid a fill and 8 or 9 quid a month rental. Have a good ring round.

[Glen_I]

Thanks Steve, I rung around a couple of places yesterday but got to that point where I'm going around in circles!

 

It's apparent that there are not that many places near me.

 

I will try BOC again today but failing that I will probably have to go with a hobby weld agent as that's my only options, and that's still a 30mile round trip.

 

To be honest comparing it to what I spend on the silly disposable bottles for the Mig than this still seems cheap for a Tig bottle.

[Glen_I]

Had another play this afternoon with my Tig welder that was already gathering dust....

 

I had previously spent about 3-4 hrs I reckon just messing about and not really achieving much.

 

However this afternoon a fresh approach and yet another new tungsten and this is what happened almost straight away on a lap joint with 2mm thick alloy.

 

I was getting frustrated on my 1st few attempts and it was basic school boy errors.....

 

This time I ensured the 2 pieces of alloy were firmly clamped together with no gap otherwise the alloy would just melt and dissappear and secondly I got myself a makeshift seat and sat down which gave me much better pedal control.

 

I think I'm still going to book a place on that training course but hopefully at least I can rock up with some idea now?

 

I'm not going to claim I'm an expert but I think I should be pleased with these early results?

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

26 minutes ago, Glen_I said:

I'm not going to claim I'm an expert but I think I should be pleased with these early results?

 

As long as it had penetration/strength, (not always easy to tell from a photo), I'd be well happy to manage that, even as a beginner, let alone one of my first attempts.