The high cost of steel and aluminum..and what to do about it.

With tig welding, practice certainly makes perfect. But practicing is expensive especially with the cost of metal lately. You can recycle and get cash for the aluminum you are practicing on but with the cost of gas and consumables, it is not really cheap to practice tig welding.

I have found that buying drops from a metal company is one way to save on material. I also found that machine shops often have scraps that they would rather sell retail than get scrap pricing from the scrap yards. Usually they get their metal a lot cheaper than just the average Joe or Josephine can due to quantity discounts from their suppliers.

Getting a larger argon tank will make for cheaper welding as the price of gas goes down with the larger tanks. Consumables are often cheaper on E-bay.

I know I have mentioned this before in another unrelated topic, but finding a product to produce is another good way of actually making money while getting the experience you need to get good at tig welding.

Some ideas...a small workbench hydraulic press. The bottle jack would be your highest cost and can be bought at Harbor Freight for around $20. You could sell it on E-bay for over $100. I did! Digging tools. Stainless steel shovels. Welding carts. Small tractor implements. Tractor carts. Tubing bender. Exercise equipment.

I have a friend who found out that I have a Powertig 250EX. He asked me if I could weld aluminum. Well.....that kind of opened up another little money stream.
He had an old aluminum pontoon boat that had some damage to one of the pontoons. He wanted to get rid of the boat but no one wanted it with the bent pontoon and it did have a few holes in it. He said I could get $400 if I made it look good and if he sold it. I fixed it with some aluminum patches and it looked so good, he decided to keep it. He paid me $400. He has two more boats he has found that needs aluminum repairs. He's going to buy them and I will be fixing them. Cha Ching!

I just sold a motorized tadpole tricycle that I made from scratch. designed and built it myself. Made some pretty good money from that. http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/a.../rightrear.jpg Going to build a few more.

There are so many things that have to be made that just aren't. Everything I have made so far has sold for a real good profit. Each little project is different and I am getting real good with this Powertig 250EX.

All you have to do is think of something that someone can use and make it! With my Powerplasma 50 and my Powertig 250EX, there is a lot of things I can make that others cannot. Going to get a CNC for my Powerplasma 50 real soon.

Can't beat making money while having fun and learning.

Interesting thoughts. Thanks for posting. :)
That trike looks real nice.

One problem I'm running into is having to pay so much for needlessly thick sections of steel. I can't find the thin sheet and thin wall tube that would be just fine. 1.5x3" tube at the metal pusher is only available in 11ga wall thickness. Go to walmart, and you will find furniture with steel tube with very thin walls and it's just fine for the job. I momentarily, jokingly thought it would be cheaper to go to walmart and buy something for its steel than pay so much for steel I don't want.

What kind or which cnc were you thinking about or looking at?

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Originally Posted by parkour

Interesting thoughts. Thanks for posting. :)
That trike looks real nice.

One problem I'm running into is having to pay so much for needlessly thick sections of steel. I can't find the thin sheet and thin wall tube that would be just fine. 1.5x3" tube at the metal pusher is only available in 11ga wall thickness. Go to walmart, and you will find furniture with steel tube with very thin walls and it's just fine for the job. I momentarily, jokingly thought it would be cheaper to go to walmart and buy something for its steel than pay so much for steel I don't want.

What kind or which cnc were you thinking about or looking at?

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It's the Plasma Cam CNC machine. I saw one in action a while ago and ordered their video. Looks like a real nice machine and the Powerplasma 50 I'm told works great with it. Here is a link to their site......http://www.plasmacam.com/indexfla.php

I know what you said about getting something else to cover the job. I did that with some steel shelving that was perfect for a project I was doing for a customer. I did not tell them that the shelving was from a local business supply company and I got it real cheap.

For practice material I would call up a sheet metal fabrication business, they always have small peaces they will not be using. Because much of this will end up in a scrap yard, they will probably make more off of selling it to some one like us than a selling it to a scrap yard. Also some sheet metals shops will have some scraps up to 10 ga. material. For a few extra dollars they will also cut the material into different sizes so you have more material to practice welding.

For cheep metal, check out metal supply houses as many of them have scrap sections that sale much cheaper than a full peace of material. Current prices in Arizona are about 0.65-0.75 $/lb for much of the mild steel (some HR and some Cold Rolled).