Plus Cat Pictures

Instead of talking about what a great day I had, I’ll just get right into details.

I have to get my tools together and functioning. I have waited way too long. I made an appointment with an electician, and I put a bunch of stuff online for sale to make room.

My acetylene equipment arrived today. That’s wonderful. It will allow me to do a lot of things you really have to be able to do in order to have a decent workshop. Heating, metal straightening, and cutting are the big things, although I could also do some acetylene welding.

I also got some welding practice in. I did both stick and TIG. Things went very well.

Regarding stick, I was working with 6011, which has always given me fits in the past. Today I tried fillet welds, and I turned the amperage down to 40, which was a big step from the 85 I had been working with before. I succeeded in doing two welds. They were not pretty, but then 6011 always makes ugly welds, and I am still not skilled at it. The main thing is that I pulled it off. I was able to keep the arc going, I didn’t long-arc too much, and I could see what I was doing. This is a huge step forward.

This is a great relief, because I had started to wonder if I was ever going to get it. I think I was welding badly because I had the hot-start set too low and the running amps set too high.

As for TIG, I used a Walter Abrasives flap disk to clean two pieces of metal before fillet-welding them. These disks are the only tools I know of that remove mill scale with acceptable ease and speed, without gouging the work badly. They are amazing, and they last a long time because you can peel the old layers off and reveal fresh ones.

I used my new Nova pedal. I just bought it to replace the original pedal. My welder, though Chinese, is perfectly good. The pedal that came with it is an abomination, however. I didn’t realize how bad it was until today. In the past, I created grey welds, I didn’t have good control of the amperage, and things generally went badly. Today I made welds that were either shiny or nearly so, especially after I turned on the gas. Oops. I thought the regulator was ready to go, so at first, I didn’t open the low-pressure side. Turned out it was closed. Oh, well.

This is huge. TIG is the most fantastic kind of welding there is. You can weld little-bitty things without ruining them. Lots of control. It leaves welds that are both pretty and strong.

In other news, I have a cat. Temporarily. A day or two ago, I saw a cat sitting on one of my porches, and I yelled at it, and it just sat there. Today while I was busy outside, I heard a pathetic sound, and I didn’t know if it was a stranded baby bird or what. I went looking for it, and there was the cat.

I figured that was the end of it, but the cat decided to make me the center of its universe. It started following me everywhere. It tried to get in the house. I went inside, figuring it would leave. When I came back out, it was a foot from the door, waiting for me to come out. It did that twice.

When I went out to weld, it followed me and jumped on my workbench, which was not good at all. I don’t want my things broken, and there were bits of sharp metal everywhere.

You can’t weld with an animal in your shop because the light will injure their eyes. This thing insisted on staying within a foot of me, so I didn’t know what to do. My friend Amanda said I could put it in a crate while I welded.

BINGO! I had two travel cages for the birds.

I crammed the cat in a crate, set it outside the shop, and went to work. Very nice.

I was planning to take the cat to the Humane Society, but Amanda says she’ll take it. If it’s still here tomorrow, off he goes. Actually, off he goes whether she takes him or not. He’s going somewhere, because he can’t stay here.

I know it sounds like one of those movies where some gruff old guy finds a puppy and ignores it at first and then falls in love with it, but my life isn’t a movie. The main reason it’s leaving is that I don’t want a cat. There are other issues, though. Cats make houses smell. Cat people always say their cats don’t smell, but they really mean they can’t smell it any more because they’re used to it. Also, cats don’t work with parrots. One scratch from a cat can kill a parrot. They go into shock and die. Some people say their cats and birds get along great. Yes, and you will probably be okay if you drive drunk every day as long as you’re careful, but it doesn’t mean you should do it. Final thing…cats live forever. A dog will usually die at around 11. Cats commonly make it into their late teens. Yow.

It’s too bad, because as cats go, this one is fantastic. It’s extremely affectionate, to the point of needing therapy. I have known it for about three hours, and it’s insanely devoted to me. If I wanted a cat, I would want this one, but I don’t.

It would be nice to have a feral cat that kept the yard clear of moles, but that’s as much cat as I need.

Whatever happens to it, I hope it does well in life. But I don’t intend to become a cat’s servant in order to see to it.

When it’s gone, I will miss it. For half an hour.

I’ll post some photos. I couldn’t resist.

Now that I can weld a little, I’m thinking I need a better welding table. I don’t want to buy one, though. I’m thinking it over. I should have my mill set up in three weeks. Once it’s here, I can buy strips of steel plate, mill them flat, and weld them to a homemade frame. I can use the mill to drill precise holes in them for clamps and so on. It would probably be as good as a thousand-dollar table, and I would expect to spend maybe $150 on steel.

Northern Tool has a crazy deal right now on a fairly good cheap table. It usually runs almost $400, but they’ve cut the price over 50%. It has a 9-gauge top which is reasonably flat, and it has clamps and holes for tools. I’m wondering if I should get one. It would take a few weeks to arrive, because they’re backordered. By then, I would expect to be able to make something myself.

The Harbor Freight table I’m using now works, and for the tiny price, it’s a great tool, but it wobbles, it’s hard to get your feet and the pedal under it comfortably, and there is always the possibility that it will collapse when you put something heavy on it.

I suspect that the super-fancy tables are overkill. People have made a lot of great stuff on plain old steel plate. But I don’t know for sure.

Tomorrow I should get some oxygen and acetylene, and maybe some goggles for the cat. He might come back to visit.

I guarantee you, he is in my garage right now, staring at the door to the house.