Folks Of Interest Now what, special tools

Now that's funny.................

 

industrial equipment auctions. Migs, tigs, arc, plasma, torch sets, lathes, benders, shears, ironworkers, presses, compressors, forklifts, hoists, gantries, sometimes even hand tools. Pennies on the dollar on volume buys. Even less if its 440v. I'm lucky, I have a electrician buddy.

 

I wish I had the money and the room for all that stuff. I'm doing all my work out of an 8' x 8' shed

 

You loan em to your buddies lol....

 

"what do you use your specialty tools (welder, plasma cutter, torch etc) after you got your car built?"
Nothing. I lose every tool and often it's replacement or I never use it. Found a Lincoln welder while trying to find a corner in one of my buildings last weekend. Think I bought it 10 years ago. Never been used. Must have been something I was going to use it for.

 

I had a friend that always said " You are already paying for the tool you don't have".

 

Spent many years doing home renovation for a living, have many tools I may never need again such as my drywall lift.
I find that I still get calls from friends to borrow them, so if nothing else it helps to keep me in touch with old friends.
My better half is after me to start downsizing, she does not want the cleanup when I go and I am several years older than she is.

 

I've still got my Dads tap and die set along with a Roper shear and some Starrett machinists tools. Good tools are never a waste as long as you use them. I look at them as an investment.

On the other hand I know of several Tig welders, most of them offshore junk, that are just sitting around because the owners thought they could learn overnight. Make sure you need it, ( a Plasma is pretty easy to learn but does require some refinement to make them really work for you).

 

I bought a plasma machine years ago to cut cam profiles in a machine that I was building. It works great but kinda Like a stick welder and old school way of doing it. With the plasma we were cutting 3/8 and 7/16 plate and had to machine and surface grind the edges. Today we would have used a water jet ,laser jet and a few other ways to cut metal plastic and pretty much anything. If your making art it’s perfect or cutting off brackets but not a precision tool.
I was thinking I could make a CNC plasma cutting table for it hummmm?

 

I'm the CAD guy at a laser shop making the bigger parts is pretty easy. I still have quite a bit of body/rust repair to do and my reasoning is that a plasma cutter would make it easy, cleaner, and probably safer work of all those hard get to areas.

 

Who builds one car? Definitely not me, I have multiple projects going at once. I use my welder and plasma all the time. I rarely use the torches since I got the plasma unless I am heating something up only.

I am also a flipper of farm and construction equipment and that stuff you can get fairly cheap abused and wrecked and make a nice profit after you put them back together .

I am also a scrapper so the plasma comes in handy for that and that is where I finish burning up my used tips on. Takes 10 seconds to cut condensers in half to get to the copper. Cut 11,000 pounds of stainless one year with the plasma. Try cutting it with a sawzall? You be changing blades real often.

I grew up in a construction family and I learned to weld at a very young age seeing we had a minimum of 8 welders or more at all times. Sometimes we built are own toolings or specialized equipment instead of buying them at the inflated prices so we were always welding/building something and when I moved on my own I just basicly inherited that skill to always be building or making something or ripping something apart to make a buck.

Both my welder and plasma paid for themselves real fast.

 

DON'T DO IT!!! That could be her first step in getting rid of you! And hide the antifreeze so it doesn't wind up in your lemonade.

 

I have a lot of tools...My neighbor, not so much. He's happy I have them.

 

I used my plasma cutter to help one of my neighbors demo some stuff so he could move to another state. That in itself made it a good investment.

 

If she has not gotten rid of me yet after 20 years, I think I am as safe as I can be. I do the cooking, cleaning etc
as I am mostly retired, she still works for another 7 to 10 years. Now if it came down to me or the cat I would worry.

 

Meow?

 

If you die with too many tools.............tell the wife to have a yard sale and put a check for the tools in the casket. You CAN take it with you.............

 

A need always seems to pop up, even for the lesser used tools.

However, it was the duplicates of never used tools that I sold off and haven't needed since. If I haven't used it in 10 or more years, I don't need 2+ of them.

 

Damn! I'm 75 and I still buy tools. Can't imagine getting rid of them, they're part of who I am.....and yes, I still use them regularly.

 

I have a number of tools I don’t use much . In fact a few I haven’t used in years but they are bought and paid for in great working condition just waiting for the right job. A example of that would be a radius grinding wheel dresser Harige . I bought it for a job I had to do but dont uses the 6x12 surface grinder much anymore either. I had a reason to buy it just like my plasma cutter. Small stuff you can put in a tool box but larger stool and machines take up floor space . Then again I have wood shaper next to a gas pump in the shop next to the brake press and surface grinder . You just never have enough tools.....

 

Did you ever notice that many of the projects you dream up are only considered in the first place because you know you already have the tools needed to do it? Some tools are very specific, while many others are generic in purpose. Its all about using your imagination to make those tools do what you need............

 

@ekimneirbo you hit it on the head as imagination and inventive ideas what became inventions. As a old model maker we had to make items from prints and even sketches. Without proper tools that’s not going to happen and yes you don’t need cnc machines. In fact I bought a machine to do a specific job . It’s a old tool/ machine but no machine is like it . It’s a 1912 singer 29k patcher sewing machine. The head swivels so you can sew in any direction and was designed for cobblers doing shoes. They are also used to sew patches on many item hats vests paints and shoes. It will sews leather like it’s warm butter and works awesome. I bought it broken kinda and fixed it with my other machine lol..