Dave

Spent hundreds of hours on of these.






Dave

Pistol to make everyone see it your way????

Burned a million welding rods.

Snakes, that and Apaches think the hole to hell is in those mountains...

Kent

Found a pic the year I started my apprenticeship in 71

It was 51 years ago on June 30, paid a lot of union dues in 51 yrs

Tool and die Dave? Where’d ya get all the squareness comparators?
At least that’s what they look like.

Was….



Not it’s more like…




I still weld some,

Mostly to shut up the punk ass young welders that think they know everything…..

I love it when they get mad because of rework and say “think you can do it better?”

“Lemme grab my hood…….”


🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

Looks great.

Don't you just LOVE it when some punk challenges one of us old guys?
"The education will now begin!"
No matter what trade.

Truth!

and

Not my experience on the projects I worked. A lot of young and very capable tradesmen, particularly in Korea.

All these kids know how to weld is Wire.
You gotta love it when the tell ya that they can out weld you because Stick is to slow and all they have is a 110 wire feeder.

I use to challenge every cocky welder that I was Inspecting. That I could weld faster and have a cleaner weld with Stick than they could with wire on the flat. I bet them $1000 and I told them I would pay for the UT Testing
Everyone of them laughed at me until I pulled out the 1/4 in E7018 Electrode that I carried around with me to Stick it to the Cocky ones the larges wire they could weld with was 5/64. No one would take my bet.
I do not make that challenge anymore because they have stepped the wire size up to 3/32 and that NR305 wire has a scary fast deposit rate.
But the wanna be welders with those 110 feeders for the most part are a Joke they only think that they can weld.

We call those wire welders... "squirt guns"..

Wednesday's tool aka a damn horse...lol

Gotta respect you brother. That hood is probably as old as I am.. My grandpa had one like it. My dad was also a welder/mechanic and Navy Seabee. I just built ocean going oil barges, grain barges, dry docks, and tug boats..


Also repair work, structural and even ornamental schidt:



Here's a wheelhouse I designed and built for an old tug:



You are right. Young kids don't know jack schidt, but it was our job to teach them. The bad thing is kids are different now days. They don't have the drive. They give up too easy when schidt gets too hard. We always had quota's we had to meet, but management let a lot of the younger guys slide. Up until a point, then when things were not getting done fast enough, they would sick me on them. An example, our quota for fitting angle (lets say 6x4 or 7x4x1/2" angle or bulb flat) on flat plate was 190 feet/day. The young guys were slacking off so much that they were only doing 65 feet/day. That schidt had to come to a stop and fast. So to show the younger guys how much you could actually get done, some of the older guys (all of us in our mid 30's) that could fit pretty decent had a race to see how much angle a guy could get done in a day. My buddy (an ex Airborne Ranger and 6th degree black belt) fit 450 feet. The next guy a huge colored guy that was an ex felon got 350 feet fit up, the next guy was a bomb expert, ex special forces marine (typical bad azz), fit up 300 feet, next guy down on the list was a slow meticulous guy, a little older than the rest of us, in his early 40's, fit up 250 feet. A lot of those guys slowed way down after lunch, where as I don't work that way. I pace myself and build up steam. You don't want to get in my way when I'm swinging a hammer: I fit 608 feet of angle that day. All perfectly on the layout line and nice and tight, ready for the doudle bug to come behind and start welding.. After that day, if the newbies didn't meet quota, the were issued warnings and a couple were even fired.. I don't mind teaching a young guy new tricks, but if they are unwilling to learn I have no use for them...

Bought and paid for a house with this tool, raised a family too. Not too many jobs around here where a guy can make a decent living without formal education...there was always work for a good saw man, not anymore, no hand buckers left as they were replaced by processors, and fallers were replaced by feller bunchers.
There is still steep slope hand fallers and big wood hand fallers givin er chit...6-7 $$$ hundred a day.


I am also a carpenter, but I just cut firewood now...I don't gotta put up with anybodys bullshyte anymore lol.

I sell drugs. Don’t know how to get a pic of that.

Had to laugh when I saw that pic. I was doing some electrical work in a building they were clearing out for a remodel and the machinist group was moving to a new building and getting all new equipment- including the inspection blocks like that one. A guy in the demo crew who was tasked with getting rid of all the miscellaneous stuff besides machinery asked me if I wanted an inspection block just about identical to that one. The little forklift we had on the job couldn't even pick it up, much less put it in my truck to take it home. Not sure what I would have done with it once I got it home anyway- probably would have had to sell the truck with it still in the bed... so I reluctantly turned him down...

Pretty sure I couldn't get all the tools I used in my electrical trade in one picture. Besides all the hand tools I needed, we had benders, big and small, wire pullers, racks, wire reels and jackstands for up to 10K lb reels of wire, all kinds of equipment I learned to run including extendable fork lifts, excavators, cranes, big trucks, and just about anything else it would take to get the job done. I loved my job due to the variety of things we got to do... heck, we even did painting and concrete work when it was needed for our work...

Bob

40 days into this season. About 50 to go.

Not bad.

Old gigolo still lookin' for work?

GREAT Pics and GREAT Work
It is nice to be versatile workers now days for the most part have been trained to be one trick pony's
I worked in a Tank / Structural shop in my mid 20s Duosheild had just been developed and I begged the Foreman to train me on the stuff and they denied me every time i asked. We were welding up some Gigantic Fan Housings for Westinghouse. The fans to be installed were 15 ft Dia. So I decided to clock myself on how many ft I could weld per hour for about a weeks time. My slowest was 28 ft an hour and my fastest was 38 ft an hour that was with Stick 3/16" to 1/4" fillet welds 3/16" Electrode welding 1/4" Material I had to fly or blow a hole in the bse material.

I have tried to get myself up to that speed many times in the last couple years but my brain does nt work that fast anymore.

Calvin

Would you mind telling what rods and reels are in the rocket launchers? The wife and I are just bought a boat for fishing in the Puget Sound and we have to buy everything.

I use Daiwa. Saltiga 2 Speed for halibut and Lexa for salmon. Harrier x for Hali and Northcoast rods for Salmon.

Spendy stuff but I like Daiwa.

Some tools of the " trade" in that assualt pack from chapter 2 of my life.


Chapter 1"Joe Citizen" was life prior to chapter 2 "11B".
In chapter 3 now, the last one actually.
Titled "I don't do schitt now".


But do look forward to Sept 1 Dove hunting.👍👍👍

Cool pic Renegade.

My new shop during recent move-in (still in progress). These are the tools of my trade customizing yachts.

Rolling Mill foundations, big boy work as my Site Manager referenced it.

The tools of my current trade.

knife handle carving....

Flint knapping...

Would go through a 50# box of 3/16" 8010 every day on a firing line

Worked 25 years for that outfit. Retired now.

I have a soft spot for fiber metal pipeliners, that's what I wore when I was a kid learning how to weld. Here's mine, it's kind of a 2020 version of a 80's classic.

I took a cutting wheel to the lens holder and run a bead of black rtv around the hole and bolted a Sellstrom flip front on it. Then a little file work on the headgear holes and stuck a Miller adjustable headgear in it.

Thanks, Calvin.

Retired.
My Dad and I with the tools I use most now.

Yep.

Easy to modify for purpose.

I’ll take a trim the bottom down so it won’t hit me in the throat. Rivet a piece of glove onto it.

Trim the top back when i wore a hard hat, so it’d flip up outta the way.

I don't know how to get big pix.

2.4 Million miles and counting

Nice bead.

Don't remember the alloy of pipe, but at a compressor station in Bennett CO for El Paso Gas everyone (including me) was getting pinholes like a MF along the edges.

Did lots of camo work with a file before the inspector came. He was sharp, knew where you did it most of the time, no matter how good you were hiding it.

Spent the first part of my life doin' this...


And the rest using one of these...

Keep the cap narrow helps to avoid pinholes on the edges. Also check the batch numbers on the cans of rods and stay with the batch numbers that don't pinhole as much
Also bad welding leads can cause pinholes as wells as to slow travel speed and machine set too hot

No, farming is not a living. Learn a fugking skilled trade.

Oh great, now you are insulting Conrad.

Do you guys fish every day? Even just a few months out of the year, that has to be tough.

You guys would love feeding cows for the 250th day in a row.




Fishing season?!

90 days?

Oh my....



LOL

That fugking sucks. At least you have a BGE and claws.

Worst thing about livestock is they tend to still be there when you wake up.

(Paraphrase of an old dairy farm joke)

My bad. Professional fishing is easy peasey.

Livestock are a constant worry. I'd rather be a full time farmer and play the numbers game than try to out think a damn cow.



And a man can only drink so many Claws in a day to suppress the worry.

People pay you to go have fun. Sure you have to drive the boat, pay for the fuel, pretend to like douchy people but it can't be all that bad.






When people start paying me to go feed the f'ning cows for the millionth day in a row I'll stop whining.....lol

Does not matter the work or trade, ill try to teach, if they don't want to learn i have no use for them.

norm

lots of hand work on Vancouver Island

Safety first, I'm wearing the helmet.

i,ve done 40years of that kind of playing in the dirt with my Tonka toys,

Every "cool" job is hard. That's why more people don't have them. Nothing cooler than being a real cowboy...unless you're a real cowboy.

Every. Single. Day. Since last October.

Did get 2.5" that greened stuff up a week ago. But next 2 weeks none in the forecast, and 100 degree days will brown it all again.

Did get to cut the scrub brush out of a ranch to allow better grazing for what green grass we have now.

Don't even remove the hay spear. Know I'll be needing it soon.

This is the same guy that thinks living in a place with no winter is "tough."

LOL

remember my FIL going out to bust ice on a pond on Xmas morning so the cattle could get some water

Nope, not raising cattle I says to myself that morning.

Job I retired from required that I go out and check the passengers on those barges. Yes, there's one in front of that boxy looking thing. Picture from 40' up in the wheelhouse of the tug, which I had no responsibility for. If it got worse, and it did, the captains would say no one is going out on the barge.

I had a family friend who was a bar pilot on the Columbia River bar and a river pilot up the Columbia. He asked me one time if I wanted to go on a pilot job with him and I foolishly said yes, thinking this was going to be a nice quiet little adventure... well, the bar was raging that night when we went out on the pilot boat to the ship. Then they put down this little 2' wide stairwell with a boom that hung beside the ship that we had to get the pilot boat up next to, step over, and climb up the stair boom that was swinging in the wind and the ship was swaying back and forth, so the stair wasn't always close to the ship as we traversed up the 30-40 feet or so up to the deck. Did I mention this was also in the dark? Once we stepped off the pilot boat, he scooted out of there as fast as he could because of the conditions and we were on our own going up that stair/ladder/amusement park ride...
Once we were on deck and in the control room, the Korean crew gave the ship over to the pilot and it was smooth sailing all the way up to Portland- about 60 river miles. Not a job I ever had a wish to do after that night even though at the time they were making very good money and benefits...

Bob

Just another day at the office Sheister.

The tug captains had a saying:

"Boredom is way underrated"

When operating those things, excitement was not fun.

And I inspected a million of those welds by radiography and or MT/PT. Shot a 42" flair line weld yesterday.

Some of you folks have cool jobs!

Some of the tools of my trade. Not shown: Telephone, computer and printer.

I took a few law classes when I was going to college off and on and they were reasonably interesting to me but they just put me to sleep in no time... pretty sure they could be marketed as a cure for insomnia...

I guess that Trump's most others, huh?

Pretty nice looking job, pard!

Nosler? 😁

I write music and screenplay for the adult film industry.

I'm a big fan. That one about stepmom getting stuck under the bed was epic.

Orville & Wilbur were crewchiefs on that thing... 😁

LMFAO

😂

🦫

Beauty.

Have spent much of my life hunched over those pink Starrett surface plates and those grey Hardinge tool room lathes…nothing better.

It's not mine. The last place I worked had Hardinge lathes stuck everywhere.

Best yet!!!

There was an Electrical Engineer at the last place I worked. He had a pretty big office.

He came into the machine shop one day throwing a big fit at the Foreman about how something had been done,....was telling the Foreman how it *should* have been done. The big machine shop manager was good friends with the Foreman.

A couple of days later the big machine shop manager had a Hardinge lathe and a Bridgeport milling machine transported to the Electrical Engineer's office and had them all leveled up and run power to them,.....told the EE he could do his own machine work from now on.

Cleaning guns that have been submersed in salt water sucks.

The dishwasher version wasn't bad either.

Been a helicopter guy for the last 20 years…

I appreciate all you do to keep me busy acting.

TTSX. They over penetrate and besides, Noslers are too inaccurate...

Heck with the rods and reels what kind of boat is that? She is very NICE?

rainshot
Yes. Tool and die maker.
Actually alittle more specialized then that. Plastic injection mold maker. Over the last 45 years or so.
I've built or made parts and tooling for just about every kind of plastic part you can imagine and a few probably nobody can imagine...
The gauges on the surface plate with the yellow on them are called surface gauges.
http://murkensprecisiontool.com/
They typically don't come with yellow painted parts on them.. ..
I walked away from the trade in 2007 and went to work at a GE locomotive plant. Pretty much a huge culture shock.
Started out throwing steel around, sheet metal shop. Ended up as an inspector in probably one of the largest machine shops in the country.
Got laid off with 8 years service. The general electric laid off half the workforce, about 1500 people and you needed 10 years to stay in plant.
I went back to work in tool and die. And didn't go back when the GE called.
My surface gauges got some rust on them sitting around and I took them out to the gunsmith to get blasted and painted.. black and John Deere yellow... Duracoat...Ha.
The indicators on the surface gauges are Interrapid .0001.
On the left side is a Mitutoyo drop indicator and stand.
And the white blocks are Mitutoyo ceramic gauge blocks.
Not to far down the road from now .
This stuff will all be for sale.


Dave

Sometimes you have some small holes....
dave

Dave

My favorite tool is the slick. Couldn't build log cabins without it.
My blacksmith made this slick for me from the drive shaft of a '53 Plymouth.

No foot adds?

Foot adze.....

Polish notation?

Reverse (RPN)

I also have an adze. This adze was made in London in 1881. This baby will give you a workout believe me.

It’s alway fun when old school takes new school to school.

My favorite Lathe... Little bastards are fun to run.

28 Northriver. Some guys like cars/trucks. I like boats. My other one is a hewes 250. It’s my all around charter/hunt/trap/commercial fish boat. That boat gets crazy hours and it’s a monster on the water.

This was one of my tools for a few years. Just sold it in preparation for moving. This last year was crazy busy with orders. I guess folks didn’t like paying the high lumber prices.

I use one of these for doing gamma radiography.

Mostly on piping, but also on bulk storage tanks, valves, structural steel, etc.

As we speak.
(pit stop header check)

Makita. I used to have one of those beasts.

Most of what I work on belongs in the Smithsonian, but it's paid for and makes good parts.

ROFLMAO...

I cut coated, rolled goods. Fiberglass, paper, aramids.


They bring me the orders, 6.80", 12.91"... wide.
No tolerances.
We set up the knives using precision, caliberated,...Stanley tape measures!

It kills me.

Orders out to the hundredth, no tolerances, and I'm eyeballing it as
just under a 16th.


It's okay though.
We are IOS compliant.😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Really. We are.



We do cut some stuff that is done right.
-0, +.002.
That gets the Starett digital calipers.

That’s a man saw.

That's the biggest circular saw I've ever seen!