Part of my "work shop", is also my trucks, I'm in the US Coast Guard, and I travel around to units that need emergency repair. I weld, fabricate, and repair all sorts of ships, and boats.
Old work truck, w/ Miller 350D welder in back, pulling my work trailer
new truck(replaced blue truck)
a couple of my tools:
computerized shear
computerized break
Miller Dynasty 350 Tig
and I also have a 5 bay shop at my disposal...all have lifts. Tire machine, balancer,
brake lathe, more tools than HomeDepot, etc etc etc etc
gosh I love welding rigs...I work at a plant and their is a 08 6.4 welding rig fx4 black with black rims...ooooooh man I have a rise in my levis everytime I walk by it.
i would love to get into pipeline and maintenance, but up here, its all different. one day it's hardfacing, the next it's a set of railings, and the next could be a coule of 30' beams. i wish i could set up the truck more, but i need the versatility. i have a removable fork for the rear to fit all the 20'-40' material.
Our newest one at work. We built the bed, everything on it. Custom torch lead reel I made myself. Nice not having to roll that hose up around some stupid bent pieces of faltbar. Some stuff I would have done different, but it turned out nice. Shame it had to be a duramax.
Couple more we have, the last one I think was bought from a guy from northwest pipeline. Def. not my favorite bed.
Looks like a boat, or maybe a corvette.
I like the short bed regular cabs the best as far as looks.
Jacked up a bit helps!!
do you have to disconnect the line everytime to reel it up? i thought about making cable reels for my leads, but it seems to be a pain in the ass with the contacts and all.
My grandpop use to run a welding rig but he ran out of work for it and sold it! I was thinking about building my own rig but round me theres not to much work for them
Theres lots of work for welders right now.
But only if ya dont mind traveling. The pipelines are having a hard time keeping good welders on hand.
Pretty much pick and choose your jobs.
In six months you can make enough to take the rest of the year off if you play your cards right.
But you better be good at your trade !
Oh, and theres this....
anyone can learn to weld. A good welder thats a great fabricator is much better!
I always like the pipeliner rigs... I run a 2wd single wheel Ford with a cap and a roll out tray. With the kind of ordimental work that I do, a big full on welding rig would just be a PITA to park.
I have an old Lincoln SA-300D out behind my shop, and I've kinda been thinking of building a body for the Dodge. That would be a beast of a pipeliner truck, but I don't really have any use for it other than as a write off. It would still be sweet to set it up old school with the SA. Kinda like a "era-correct resto-rod work truck" :lol
i would love to get on a pipeline, but theres none of that up north here.
i think my miller with the diesel in it would chug along all day just fine. i always joked with my fiance about runnin off for 6 months to work on a pipeline and then come back home. she didn't like that too much.
right now, ornamental work is kinda slow, and misc. installers (that i know) are only workin 1 or 2 days a week.
Dang, how far north are you?
If you can pass the test, they'll put you to work.
Pipe welding is a whole lot different than most people think. Most all of our stuff is x-ray tested on every weld.
At least on anything above two inch now I think.
They test you before starting work, I believe now, they use a 12 inch on a 45 t, and cut straps out of every quarter, bend them looking for cracking, then break them to look for trash. Must have 100% bead inside, and be clean to pass.
We tied in a few cutouts last year on 42" and something like .500 wall in alabama. Takes a while to fill up .500 wall.
Bad magnetism too. That will eat your lunch if ya dont know how to get rid of it!! lol
few pics from some of the jobs I got to help on....
Mostly maryland, couple from alabama
CT. nothing happens up here. I'll drive down to Maryland to work, are you kidding me?
I haven't taken the test up here, but when i was workin down in FL i did all the pipe welding at Southwest Florida Int'l Airport for the fuel tanks at the new rental car agency. worked under the bosses certs.
Did a lot of pipe casing too, only with a wire feed (even down in the pits) so pipe work isn't new to me.
CT. nothing happens up here. I'll drive down to Maryland to work, are you kidding me?
I haven't taken the test up here, but when i was workin down in FL i did all the pipe welding at Southwest Florida Int'l Airport for the fuel tanks at the new rental car agency. worked under the bosses certs.
Did a lot of pipe casing too, only with a wire feed (even down in the pits) so pipe work isn't new to me.
I've never fooled with much pipe. The old man used to weld pipe back when he first got started. I really only fool with misc. metals and some light structural. I found my niche with the government work around here, but I still would like to take off out west some where for a summer and run some pipe.
bringin this one back. Just recently i re-built the top half of my bed. got some nice underbody boxes that i m ounted up top, and added a box to house my cables (with reels) kinda out of sight out of mind type of thing. I also installed a 10' tower light for night work.
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