How'd it go today?

I was doing pretty well, then I lost my silverstreak line.

This new cutter has a shielded tip, so you just sorta guess. Not like the old Thermal machine I borrowed once.

I was never very good at cutting holes...probably using the wrong tips or had the pressure set wrong. But I can cut a race off a shaft or a nut off a bolt and you would never know I was there!
 
You just got me excited ;) lol that's awesome, what's the swing on that bad boy? Yeah i can't stand drag tips for the plasma either. Even though i use a plasma all the time (the big one pierces 1.25" at least), i prefer a torch on a ton of stuff, but they each have their place. Same with stick welding, unless you have a 300 amp mig welder, imo you are better of with stick unless you are doing sheet metal. I guess I'm kinda old school lol
 
I have never measured the swing, but the bed is at least 8 feet. I use the little Atlas I showed earlier more, but I really need one between that and the big one.

I used my little wire feed to build up those pins, it worked nice, but I dont use it for anything heavy. I bought it a couple years ago mainly to weld on my sprayer and combine. The booms on the sprayer are made of light box iron. Works good for that.

I have a Ranger 300 on my big service truck, a 225 on the smaller truck.

Dad has a nice old grey box Ideal Arc 300 in his shop. I will hook up a tig torch to it some day and see if that side of it still works.

Most of what I do is on heavy iron, repair work. It is kind of nice to weld on the light stuff from time to time though!
 
Man i love those old ideal arcs, don't ever let him sell it. Glad too see you are a Lincoln guy too. I have mainly engine drives, a miller trailblazer 250, a lincwelder 225, a 72 blackface sa 200 (final stages of a complete rebuild), and some crappy buzzboxes in the garage i picked up for nothing. Have a friend holding a miller suitcase for me when i want it, want to get an old sae 400 or something similar for wire welding, the duty cycle just isnt there with the stuff i got, and from my heavy shop background i just can't tolerate it lol. I even worked a year at cat, welding the d11 radiator guards. We triple passed with .052 hard wire, and that was considered tacked. Capped with 3/32" dual shield, 1 1/2" fillet welds. 1000 amp machines, all Lincolns. Fastest way to sweat out a hangover that i ever care to do hahahahha. And i run hot as hell on thin stuff too, used to do the deere rops on their combines, all pulse welds tho. Smoked a miller 450 at that gig lol
 
That sounds exciting....heavy iron!

I have never done any welding as a job, but people will bring stuff to me once in a while.

My favorite story was not even welding...it was brazing. The young vet came out to preg test some heifers and he blew a 90 degree fitting on his hydraulic squeeze chute. Shut everything down. I took the fitting off and went to my shop. He asked if I had a replacement, no says I, I will fix this'n.

The look on his face was priceless. He thought I was some kind of wizard or something.

Just survival welding mostly.
 
Heck yeah, that's what it's all about. Lol that's about the same way i dropped out of college. I was going to school to be a metallurgist, and the teacher assigned a materials project over Thanksgiving break. So i went home, was drinking at a friend's house, and his wood stove door latch had broken. Some ni rods, a rusty chunk of scrap steel, a 30 pack and some jim beam later, it was fixed lol. The teacher was amazed and asked if i could really do this like it's some sort of magic, and i asked if he was messing with me, because if you teach this shit you should be able to do what drunk 19 year old could do... needless to say when i sobered up a couple years later i decided that college wasn't my thing lol.

Saving money on those pins is a great example Jim, with the right tools you can do what another man can do, but to most people it's magic. A torch, stick welder, a lathe, a grinder, some duct tape and baling wire and you can build or fix damn near everything on earth :) and zip ties for the new millennium hahahaha
 
No Chit.
Steve told me over the phone what was what, but ........
Not my first tractor I ever drove, but the first I ever drove was a Deere on my uncles farm raking alfalfa. I figured it out.
But some letters would help my learning curve. Saw some decals on line for sale. Tempted.
I know sticking both levers in the slots locks the gears. I found reverse and low.
 
Well if you were around here you'd be worried about getting that sucker stuck. Yet another day of torrential(for us) rain. I am so sick of the rain we're getting this spring, after a long hard winter. It's killing me. I was hoping to rip a old barn down this weekend, but it's postponed for sure again now. The growing season is a full month behind last spring here. Crazy and frustrating.
 
I've got a high clay content and rich rich soil. So when it rains around here you basically don't get off the beaten path or you're stuck. Spring fever has hit hard here. I just need some spring to go with it!
 
Tree09 said:
That sucks man, rains messing with my day today too. Completely manicured lawns everywhere.
Click to expand...

It can sure be tough to schedule in the spring. Espescially when some customers don't get that you can't proceed as scheduled without turning their yard into a war zone.
 
Yup. Most of my clients are very understanding thank God. I have a 30 hp backhoe that I've often wondered about using for tree work. I think i would have to plywood it everywhere i went tho, and that seems like it would make it about worthless. That and i don't have a trailer to move it yet, it's pretty wide. Another project for this year lol
 
I've got a nice 35hp kubota tractor(l3400) and rarely to never used it for treework. I also had a smallish wheeled mini skid(ramrod 950) with a BMG grapple. It was my go to. Small enough and low enough impact to be handy but would still clean lift a 400-500pd piece of wood. It could drag a hell of a lot more in log lentgth or brush. Also could feed brush into the chipper without ever actually touching it. That was a thing of beauty, pretty much need a feedwheel chipper to do it though. Drag brush/limbs by the butt end to the chipper, spin ninety and lay all the but ends on the tray, spin back grab em a little longer and jam em in. I took that mini damn near everywhere.
 
squisher said:
I've got a nice 35hp kubota tractor(l3400) and rarely to never used it for treework. I also had a smallish wheeled mini skid(ramrod 950) with a BMG grapple. It was my go to. Small enough and low enough impact to be handy but would still clean lift a 400-500pd piece of wood. It could drag a hell of a lot more in log lentgth or brush. Also could feed brush into the chipper without ever actually touching it. That was a thing of beauty, pretty much need a feedwheel chipper to do it though. Drag brush/limbs by the butt end to the chipper, spin ninety and lay all the but ends on the tray, spin back grab em a little longer and jam em in. I took that mini damn near everywhere.
Click to expand...


It was handy looking, I liked that you could load a butt onto a trailer then push the rest up.
Show us the pic Squish!
 
I think they're on my phone maybe? Or lost? I'm terrible with photos, unfortunately.

I know the picture you mean though! Lol.
 
Really any mechanical method for lifting heavy wood is a big game changer IMO. It saves so much effort, time, fuel ,saws, chain. No matter what it is, as soon as something else lifts for you. Boom, big removals go so much faster and easier. And big removals is where the big money was in my area anyways.
 
Same here, but around here everyone is so mechanized that you have a steep hill to climb securing the gear to compete. I do most of my work in backyards because i climb, and don't have the iron yet. Doing it part time doesn't help either. I bought this f9000 with a 21.5 ton hiab when i first started, but i haven't been able to justify the 3k to put it on the road yet. Slowly building up my gear till i can, and then it's off to the races lol. Would probably make it a rear mount, although my buddy has a rolloff that i could put on it. Would probably make it too heavy tho, so rear mount seems better. That's a ways in the future tho.

20121212_122814.jpg
 
Nice. Cool truck.

Every market is different, I've learned that from The Treehouse. And then also finding/having a profitable niche in that market can look very different to different people too. Lol.

In my market. One guy had a small hiab truck going and another guy had access to skid steers but still mostly only hand bombs everything. No one was accessing yards really with mechanical lifting ability. So with a mini skid (38"s wide I think?) I had the most versatile mechanical lifting ability in my market. I killed the backyard or tough access scene for the most part. With a smooth hand it left minimal imprint on a yard, and if impact was a concern it could drive on a single piece of plywood, so the odd plywood Hwy wasn't like laying sheets for a truck. If it's was dry and you planned your turns/arcs right I rarely needed plywood and after raking, no trace left behind. That mini skid had great traction and was fantastic on steep ground too, espescially with the grapple. You could run it like a skidder and use the grapple/load to stabilize and maneuver yourself on ground that you would otherwise never travel over. I only flopped it twice in the time I had it. No damage either time and minimal fluid loss even.
 
squisher said:
Well if you were around here you'd be worried about getting that sucker stuck. Yet another day of torrential(for us) rain. I am so sick of the rain we're getting this spring, after a long hard winter. It's killing me. I was hoping to rip a old barn down this weekend, but it's postponed for sure again now. The growing season is a full month behind last spring here. Crazy and frustrating.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we are the same way here Justin. Clay snot in after a rain. Almost got it stuck off the road playing with it. But I locked the diff and backed her out. I kinda know my limits around here. Man has to know his limitations ;)

Tree09 said:
Are you planning on using that for moving tree material? Don't you already have a mini?
Click to expand...

Mini is my primary for tree work. But I need a loader for for forwarding fast down long drives and more log lifting capacity. Back up machine. Need a second machine for Rob's mill too. I would like to put either a grapple or like what Mick put on his for skidding logs as well with the 3pt.
It has it's limitations, but it has a niche as well. Grading my driveways is huge, and work I can do for quick money with a scraper. Hydraulics are my plan B as I get older. My crane op bugs me from time to time to learn his machine. The jockeys around here that think it's a mobile floating block bothers me though.
 
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