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I took a lot of pride in sweating copper. It was at one point the only part of plumbing I enjoyed before getting into medical gas.
Unfortunately, many of those job sites were very restricted so, I couldn’t take pictures. Boiler rooms, mechanical rooms. The last sweat job I did was a commercial 5 story apartment complex.
I suggested submitting the use of pulling tees to the owner of the company. We saved a ton of money on minimal use of fittings by just pulling tees and, brazing. We were able to do a lot of pre fab that sped production up as well. 3-4” mains going down hallways with branch lines going into the units. 6” roll groove risers. I wish I held onto the riser diagram to share pics. It was a pretty cool system.
The company I’m at now, uses Pro Press 90% of the time. It really took the craftsmanship out of plumbing/fitting like pex did when it first came out.
Quicker, cheaper, faster, more..... I wonder if my torch misses me as much as I miss it sometimes.
"I took a lot of pride"
Something everyone posting in this thread can say !!!
Put up a building around a natural gas boiler a few years ago, doing it around everything already sitting there, 4 inches from an existing building, and next to power lines was... difficult. I personally bolted up probably 99.5% of every piece of steel (thousands of different individual parts), and then decided after I'd already put the siding and roof on that they wanted vent cut in the top back wall.
The Shop
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
2nd story screen porch above heated area, over looking the Intracoastal waterway.
Me too.
Obligatory slag peeling off picture, and a little slide gate I made for a hopper the other day
I've made some cool stuff I don't have pictures of, just with your basic power tools and welders older than me, and whatever steel happens to be laying around.
Seeing this made me wanna stop and give a shout-out to all you dudes who are artists with brake metal. Seriously. I bought some aluminum boost tubes for my truck project, and one of the tubes was a bit too long so I hack sawed it off shorter. But I needed to put the boot-barb back on the end with a bead roller. So I called up my buddies at my local sheet metal shop (been using them for over 40 years) and we were able to put a new bead on the end of the tube with a bench mounted bead roller. And while in the shop it just reminded me of just how fricking remarkable sheet metal guys can be. Its a straight up art take a drawing done by a customer who walks in or an architect on a plan, then go to a big ole floppy sheet of galvanized metal and make stuff manifest like those guys do. And Im not talking simple rake & ridge metal you use on a barn, but the complicated shit those fellas can do and not have a waste pile 5' tall in the middle of the floor. Because I can assure you, when I attempt brake metal projects, the ratio is about 5-to-1 by the time I get it right. LOL
Pro press definitely takes the craftsmanship out of pipe fitting. I find it difficult to make any straight runs look good, just pulls which ever way it wants. Although, It is useful in certain situations, like if a valve upstream is leaking by.
Im currently at a pretty fancy/high end country club running about 300' of 4" steel gas line through the clubhouse and restaurants using mega press. Im excited to use it on this and not have to be welding in these ceilings/spaces.
Probably one of my favorite things I made I wish I had pictures of, I made a small diverter box out of thin stainless. Was slow at the time so I took my time, over engineered the hell out of it, and tried to make it look factory made with spare parts lying around the shop.
Was in an oil packaging plant, and when the bottle caps got dumped onto a spot where 2 conveyor belts ran the opposite way from each other, and one side always ended up getting more than the other. So I broke some thin stainless into about a 1x1' box, put a small shaft with a plate through it, made a spring loaded t handle with 8 different angles it could lock into to either divert caps all to one side, or find an angle that diverted them equally based on how each different kind of cap fell.
Not to level as you real woodworkers, but I like nailing old boards together. Wood came from neighbors old granary, built around 1910, so the trees may have been around since the late 1700s. Probably held now extinct passenger pigeons, now my dog sits next to me at it while I eat.
While I don't build anything structural or cool like you guys I do think this falls under the "Just a Tradesman" description. While it is not a building or some cool welding, it is something that entertains millions and they have no idea the amount of work that goes into making this shit. Oh, I also do high end cabinet work with my in-law's when time permits or they need help.
For gas piping installs, mega press is awesome.
Nothing worse then threading oily pipe while trying to maintain a clean space.
Rumor has it, you like getting your hands dirty with rebar as well. 😉
When I was installing dhw solar in the 80's I worked with 2 different guys. Being the apprentice/new/young guy I was the guy in the attics. One guy wanted nothing but hard pipe and soldered fittings, he wanted them ran perfectly straight, fittings wiped clean and was such a perfectionist it seemed like overkill (since no one would ever see it). The other guy was the opposite, he didn't want any soldered fittings in the attic because that was "A weak link and an area that could possibly leak" and couldn't give a shit how it was ran. That guy would feed me soft copper through the roof and my job was to run it through the attic down to the solar storage tank however I needed to he didn't care. He was more in and out and didn't want to spend the time soldering, or worry about leaks. The hard pipe guy wanted everything strapped to eliminate banging from the water hammer effect, the other guy couldn't care less. They used to argue which guys way was better. The soft copper guy would say "Fittings are noisy and a weak link" the hard pipe guy who say "Soft copper moves around and slows down the flow because the id is slightly smaller with the thick soft copper plus it never goes straight so it reduces flow" I liked working with the soft copper guy for obvious reasons. Sweating pipes in an attic in Rancho Cucamunga in the summer was no picnic
You couldn't pay me enough money to jump into a dirt hole in the middle of summer and tie steel at this point in my life.
Pit Row
Son in law made this smoker from an old tank and some scrap. The Bobby-Que. it weighs as much as a Volkswagen and is just about as easy to move.
Brisket & Ribs
Don’t have photos but was a union tuck pointer/bricklayer for 8 years after my associates, then became a union Carpenter for 5 years, decided to go into the automotive industry as a buddy of mine had a good in. Became a service advisor and then worked up to service manager.
Have a ton of knowledge and skill with homes. Paralyzed doesn’t allow me to do it though haha. 😆 had to re write myself 4 years ago again and got into the stock market. Have done pretty damn well after 3 years of getting my shit kicked in. Now, it is the best career in the world. Work from home, when your done your done and have all the time in the world for the family.
Then there’s me. Friends and, family know I’m a plumber. I get hit up all the time to help with re-pipes. I was in a crawl space for six hours cutting out and, replacing the plumbing. Then, on the first and, second floor for nine hours plumbing the walls.
Nothing like being wet in an insulated crawl space because that shit sticks to you. I only do it because bikes stuff is expensive and, so are my other hobbies.
Fuck plumbing LOL
Not nearly to the level of a lot of the more experienced craftsmen in here, but I like to play around on a CNC occasionally. The guys who are the true artists in CNC are absolutely incredible, this is the best I got though haha.
Current work in progress:
Very nice.
Love the simple, clean lines.
Shaker style doors too.
Been helping a buddy of mine, who's building his own home, build his kitchen, and stairs/handrails.
Kitchen is knotty alder, white oak stairs.
Still need to build his cabinet doors.
He's debating raised panels, or a flat panel style like yours.
The stairs...
Man, haven’t done a set of stairs/handrail in a couple years. Heres the last one I did. Fun stuff
Yeah, I don't normally have the time it takes to build a set of stairs.
I sub that part of my job out to a father son team.
That's all they do.
Here's the last set they did for us.
I did all of the panel work prior to them coming in and doing the stairs and rail.
My doors are raised panels, but the raised side faces inside. Means the panel/door still has a nice bit of weight to it.
Now, stairs… There’s a skill. And a mind for 3D gymnastics!
Post a reply to: I couldn't find the "Just a tradesman" kinda post.