There probably 3 local stores near me so I decided to pay each one of them visit to have a look at the various models they had and of course see who had the best prices. I’ve always been a firm believer that you need to doublecheck pricing before you make any purchases. I came across a particular model which was available in all three stores and I was amazed at the price differences across each one of them. Form the most expensive today cheapest the price difference was $36 and considering that all of these stores are intimate in very close proximity of each other it was amazing how to price difference.

Needless to say I purchased in the cheapest store naturally because the same item was on sale. When in the most expensive store I happened to see the manager and asked him why he was more expensive than his rival. To be honest he could not constantly and did mention something about that they order such a vast quantity that they get massive discounts. I know this could be true but you would think a manufacturer of a specific law more would offer deals like this to a retailer that would not be available anywhere else because it certainly doesn’t help with branding and pricing for the ordinary consumer who is making a purchase.

It was a particularly cold winter one of the coldest in about 40 years here and unfortunately this did cause lots of damage to property because of their frost. It’s now time to start repairing anything that you think may have been damaged because of this. You simply just have to drive on the roads in my local area and you can see the damage that has been caused to some of the minor backroads which to be honest probably very rarely see any type of maintenance and it’s going to be quite difficult to ever get them repaired I guess.

Anyway, over the next few days I need to make sure I start getting the gardening started. I have been a little bit lazy in this area but it definitely needs to be done now. At the weekend I decided to clear out the tool shead and I now need to get all of this stuff removed from the backyard.

Anyway I will keep you informed over the next couple of weeks of what I am actually doing.

I suggested that he take a trip back to the local DIY store and let them know the price difference or say he picked up one somewhere else because it was an emergency and they were quoting two weeks for delivery. It turned out that he did indeed the first thing the next morning call-back to our local DIY store and let them know that because it was going to take them two weeks he had picked up one somewhere else. Without hesitation I gave them back a refund, which to be honest with them is something they always do as they strive on some of their customer service. I have never had an issue with them in the past when ordering anything so it was nice to see that they done this immediately without question and also cancelled his order.

Because he is not computer literate he came around to my house that evening and he was able to order the battery for his power drill. It was fully because he has also had a conversation with his brother in law who also wanted him to order some batteries for his Makita 6176d and Makita 6349d. This worked out much better for my friend because now the delivery was being split across tree items so he saved even more money.

I suppose there has to be a moral to this story. Well I guess it makes sense to shop around before you make any type of purchase. It’s especially true when it comes to purchasing Makita batteries for various power tools and for any other manufacturer of power tools in fact. I will definitely be making a lot of my Christmas purchases online this year because the value simply can’t be beaten compared to many retail outlets.

It would be nice if at some stage the manufacturers that produce cordless power tools decide to standardize on chargers and batteries across the board. I guess this is an area where they make a lot of revenue as I’m sure it is a very lucrative market for them and the many third-party suppliers to also supply this type of equipment.

I suppose there are many things that we use every day in DIY that could be easily standardized. It would be nice in the future if some of the power tools and other equipment that we use on a regular basis is finally set up so no matter which manufacturer you choose if you are looking for a spare parts like a battery or charger you can simply purchase any one and they will basically all do the same thing. Maybe I’m dreaming I’m sure this will never happen but it would be nice if it finally happens to our industry just like it is happening in the computer world and the cell phone world.

Saturday morning was a beautiful morning the sun was shining albeit a little bit cold but still an amazing day considering its November. Besides cleaning I also wanted to do a little bit of maintenance that I have been putting off for a while. The last time I was mowing the lawn I simply did not get time to clean down the lawnmower and I also wanted to carry out a little bit of maintenance on this to ensure it would be okay when we get past the winter.

Once this was done it was time to put up some new shelves that I had purchased in one of the local DIY stores a few weeks ago. I had also purchased some storage boxes because I really needed to get organized and keep parts and bits and pieces in each box. The shelves took around 30 minutes to set up and then it was time to organize all the spare parts and bits and pieces I had. One of the first things I wanted to do was start looking at the amount of battery chargers I had. To be honest this is something that has really changed over the past few years. Not that long ago it was quite difficult to get some cordless equipment and nowadays I have a cordless saw, cordless drill, cordless sander and a cordless angle grinder. With this comes a many different chargers and batteries, don’t get me wrong this is not a bad idea and I’m not one to complain but this is one of the reasons I really needed to organize my workshop because every time I was using one of the cordless pieces of equipment it was taking me a long time to try find the charger and battery. Then I would discover that I had never actually recharge the battery and I would have to wait until this was done before I could use equipment (sometimes this was simply an excuse).

It took me just a short period of time to organize these and I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of spare batteries and chargers that I didn’t even know I had purchased. This is something all of us DIY enthusiasts should sort out every now and again but I guarantee that many of you out there never bother doing this and then find it a pain in the ass to try find the equipment at some later stage.

Next I moved on to organizing all the rest of the spare parts that I had. It’s actually amazing at the amount of rubbish you can connect and I cannot have two ideas behind sorting out the workshop one was to get organized and the other was to start dumping lots of equipment and parts that are no longer have use for. Sometimes it’s the accumulation of this stuff that helps toward the unorganized workshop.

After a couple of hours everything was sorted it is amazing to be able to have the windows and doors of the workshop opened while I was sorting through everything. I must say it was the perfect Saturday morning for getting this type of work done and something I should have done a few months ago. All in all I am now 100% happy with the re-organize workshop I can now find things easily and I have removed lots of equipment and parts that I had no more use for. It’s something we all need to do at some stage and if you have a little bit of spare time this weekend maybe you should consider the spending a couple of hours sorting it out so it saves you some time later when you have to find something.

Mar and everything else organize he had plenty of metal sheets already in his workshop. He had gas ready to use and most importantly he also had purchased some safety equipment for use. Because he had used a smaller cheap welder just so he could get some ideas he was ready to roll as soon as everything was set up. It’s amazing to see and professional artists at work because he was so focused on what he wanted to achieve and in what time frame he was going to do it. In a few days it had taken from ordering his welder to getting it delivered he had done a number of things. I have recommended a friend who basically does this for a living and he was willing to give Martin some lessons over a couple of evenings. This was fantastic grounding work for him because he was able to learn from an experienced by very quickly.

He also rented a portable welder from a local hire store I was able to get more practice in until his equipment arrived. It’s amazing that the guy to call around to my home a few weeks previously wanting to know that little bit about welding hard in that short space of time made a decision to purchase his own. Take lessons from a professional and then also get time to practice. To be honest he knew it was going to take him a lot of work to make sure he was doing this properly. But, there’s one thing I can say is that just looking at him on the first few times he was using his new welder was amazing he was so precise and so dedicated to what he wanted to do and by when he needed it done.

It was only later that I discovered some of his work was going to be commissioned by a particular company. He has already shown them small-scale models and they had agreed on everything else so the guy was so determined to get the welding done as soon as possible. Overall it was an interesting experience to help a friend purchased his welding equipment it was not something that I had done because I am not an expert but with a little bit of research and a little bit of making phone calls to a couple of other people we were able to make a decision and I think we made a perfect decision for his needs.

To be honest this was a little bit complicated for Martin and I’m sure if you are considering purchasing a welder it could possibly be confusing for you also. There are many disadvantages and advantages to using each method you can of course buy a welder that uses both. But, many people consider the gas shielding to give a much neater finish and you also get less spatter. If you are planning on working outdoors then the flux cored (gasless) might be something you need to consider because it is easy to use and wind conditions.

We decided that Martin simply needed a welder with gas shielding because he was going to be working indoors all the time and he was looking for a weld that would be neater. He also needed to consider the cost of the gas. On average a welder will use 10 L of gas per minute and you can pick out small disposable bottles costing around $10 which should last for around six minutes or so of continuous welding. There are many suppliers out there that can supply bottles of about 2000 L they will simply charge you a cost for gas and then a cost for the bottle rental you simply rent the bottle over a period of time. There are many other alternatives out there and you should check in your local store or where you purchase your welder from just to make sure to see what they have available.

We were now down to making a decision of which will purchase. Martin (with my help) have come up with the ideal specifications that he was looking for. It’s funny how he thought I was an expert on this but some of the decisions we made together just in friendly discussion and then also reading some information websites.

There are many places that have welders for sale but before we got into that he first needed to decide what type you need. I also need to discuss the safety aspect also because as he has always worked with other material he has never needed to worry about safety. Simple things like molten is extremely hot and also the UV light that is produced from welding coming quite strong is essential that he has cotton overalls and welding gauntlets are a must. It’s also essential that he had a welding mask, I told him that most hobby welders come with handheld masks but they are quite useless so this was essential that he invested in a full face mask which could be adjusted to fit his head properly and expect to pay from $80 oak works for one of these.

He also needed to consider their torch on the welder, every welder comes with one of these of course but there are a couple of differences that needed to be considered.  Depending on how much use they get this need to be replaced during the life of any welding equipment. We look at the option of using a eurotorch because these have something called a universal quick release connection which is on the front of the welder and they are reasonably priced and readily available in most stores. The problem with a torch that is built into the welder means that you had to purchase parts directly from the manufacturer and can sometimes work out more expensive than the eurotorch.

As you can see there are a number of things that need to be considered when thinking of purchasing a MIG welder and although I’m not an expert we also done a little bit of research on the Internet from various other users to ensure that we were going to make the right decision.

Now his plans are to scale this up and make a number of bigger objects. It was funny a few weeks ago when he started asking me about welding equipment to be honest I don’t think I was a great help because I am not an absolute expert on using them. I do know for a fact that there is a big difference between expensive and cheap Mig welders and that basically lies around how easy they are to use. The first eliminate some of that was what he was going too well and find out if a hobby sized welder will be good enough or whether he needed something a little bit more substantial. To suppose it was really going to be down to the amount of work he was going planning on doing and if these projects were just going to be another phase of his artwork or whether it was something serious that he was going to do for a long time. The reason I wanted to notice is that he was going to buy a cheap welder that may be sufficient for what he’s doing now but if he was planning on doing bigger and more work (hopefully) he may need to consider investing in something a little bit better.

There are number of things you have to consider when you go to purchase one and we looked at things like minimum amps and maximum comes. Smaller welders will have 30 amps which is fine if you are working with 1.0mm sheets. You will also find some cheaper (which are cheaper is the right word) welders that are 20-25 amps and these are fine for working 0n 0.8mm steel.

We also looked at various things like duty cycle which varies from manufacturer to manufacturer but this is essentially the time period that you can well for before needing to take a break before the unit overheats. We also looked at welder parts and pricing to make sure that going forward Martin could have a good grasp of maintenance and overall expenses during the year.

There are many other things that we consider which I will go into during the next. Just need to attend to domestic life here present so will post here later today with some more information.