Whats the most usual thing that you have fixed?

[Paul Seaman]

I fixed a tool that a rancher friend of mine uses. It is made to put rubber bands on Bulls for castration. Yes, I did wash it before, I touched it.

Wierd enough?

Peace,
Paul

[davedarragh]

I fixed a tool that a rancher friend of mine uses. It is made to put rubber bands on Bulls for castration. Yes, I did wash it before, I touched it.

Wierd enough?

Peace,
Paul

Well, here's one I did not do. A friend of mine wanted to know if I could weld a buckle on his wife's handbag. Turned out it was a "Coach", (they're like $500), and I suggested he either take it back where they bought it (I believe a lifetime gaurantee), or a jeweler. Still trying to figure out where to attach a 500 amp ground clamp to a hand bag!

[turbo38t]

I welded the head back on a cast iron duck.....from that point on out it had a silver necklace on.....welded the cast aluminum grabbing teeth back on an echo chainsaw for my dad.....used tig on that and had to take the whole thing apart. Welded up some swinging rifle targets for the local pd also. Dave

[4sfed]

I fixed a tool that a rancher friend of mine uses. It is made to put rubber bands on Bulls for castration. Yes, I did wash it before, I touched it.

Weird enough?

Peace,
Paul

Those are called "docking pliers". Always makes me cringe just thinking them.

OUCH!

[Jeep80CJ7]

I plastic welded my aunts little brackets that hold the grille on to the front of her car. Plastic welding sucks.
My last job I did alot of wax welding for the investment casting process.(that also sucked dingle berries.)

[fjk]

Well, here's one I did not do. A friend of mine wanted to know if I could weld a buckle on his wife's handbag. Turned out it was a "Coach", (they're like $500), and I suggested he either take it back where they bought it (I believe a lifetime gaurantee), or a jeweler. Still trying to figure out where to attach a 500 amp ground clamp to a hand bag!

Two different friends both had some kind of precious heirloom cast-out-
of-mystery-metal knickknack, bought on some trip to wally-world
or someplace... each with a decorative doodad broken off. Since
I can weld, they asked my wife if I could fix them, who said sure,
metal is metal, after all! ().

As you said, it was not quite clear where the ground clamp would
attach..

Anyway, rather than get into a long and no doubt
losing discussion, it was a perfect excuse to go buy one of those
small butane micro-torch thingies (think cigarette lighter on sterioids!)
and ultra-low-temp solder (not knowing what these things were made out
of, regular solder might have melted at too high a temp).

Net result, the Friends are happy ("Boy, Frank can fix Anything!"), Wife
is happy ("My husband is so talented!") and I'm happy ("New Tool! I Win!")

Frank

[davedarragh]

Frank: Touche' ! Can never go wrong when ya get a new tool out of it!

Dave

I'll remember the "cig lighter on steroids"

[vin-man welding]

A stainless medical device used by a OBGYN.

the break line might keep you guys up at night but this one keep's me up.LOL

[Jake SS]

Parking and speeding tickets, well not me exactly but a friend, does a great job for me!!!!!

Cheers

[Burnt hands]

An art teacher at the gallery where I show my titanium sculptures called me and asked if I could possibly fix her camera tripod which had a broken leg.

I said of course figuring it would be a simple fix and would be good PR for me.

Well to my surprise, it was a professional model with a fluid head and very well built (and very expensive). She is a sculpture instructor and professional photographer and her photos are worthy of National Geographic.

So I looked at the broken part and did a few quick tests with a magnet to see if it was aluminum or possibly magnesium.

Carved off a few shavings to see if it would burn like magnesium

Didn't burn like magnesium so I figured it was aluminum - (mistake 1)

So with this in mind, I set up to tig the crack. ( mistake 2)

The top of the leg melted and I was stuck with a pile of bird droppings on the top of the leg. It wasn't aluminum!.

Possibly a zinc alloy but after this I was not going to experiment to see.

So after I finished cussing my stupidity, I went online to see what a replacement leg would cost for this tripod.

Cost was $140 as it is made in Germany.

The tripod itself was over $850 - ouch.

Decided to take a break before I messed things up even more.

Options:

1 - Tell the teacher I messed up and give her back the pieces - bad for the ego and truly not a solution

2 - Buy a new leg and install it. Worse for the ego (coward's way out I thought)

Luckily she told me that there was no hurry to fix it.

So I stewed, simmered and kicked myself over the weekend wondering what I could do. Had some friends over for dinner and told them about my dilemma.

They looked at my mess and one said it looked like the 6 million dollar man tv show in the 70's.

WOW - thanks guys - I can rebuild it better!.

Silly me, I didn't even think of using a different metal to fix the part.

So I rebuilt the leg top and pivot using stainless steel pieces I had around.
No problem tigging this time and no surprises.

While the original leg was threaded to connect to the top plate, I made a stainless cap and pinned it to the leg.

Took off the "kick me" sign I had put on my back.

The rebuilt leg works well and both the teacher and I were very happy.

She wanted to pay me but I said it was a simple fix so no charge.

What I learned by thinking outside the box was well worth it.