Chapter 36

Day Thirty-six - Monday

I woke to Sue petting my head and my face. She was laying there with tears streaming down her face while caressing my unshaven face.

When she sobbed, I turned and was holding her, trying to comfort her, "What's the matter hon, what's wrong?"

Sue choked and sobbed a few more times then, "You'll leave now that I have all this money. You won't want me."

"That's bullshit. I don't give a damn how much you have. You and I have so much going on right now, we don't have time to worry about how much money you have and what you're going to do with it. Do nothing with it. Do everything with it. Who cares? You and I have too much going on right now, today, to worry about it."

I raised up, kissing both teary eyes, "You have a business that is tripling by the quarter, if not the month. Today I'm, or rather we are, going to train two new people on how we work. That is the important stuff. We are making our lives and lives of those around us better. We don't need your money to do that, we're doing it on our own."

"Oh you," Sue hugged me. "You are so good, so special. That's why I love you so much."

"And I love you."

I took a deep breath, "Now, let's get a shower, start the coffee for us and our friends, and begin a new special day."

Sue gave me a most passionate kiss.

We rolled from the bed, then lovingly washed each other in the shower, dried each other off, and combed out each other's hair while the coffee was dripping.

I turned on the light at six thirty on this glorious morning. Sue and I were already dressed for work. Not the coveralls, but jeans and shirts, with our coveralls ready for later.

All of our folks were gathered by seven and drank coffee telling what was going on that day. We cleaned up and were ready for Al and Tom to arrive in one of their pickups at ten to eight.

Down at the shop, I opened up the three bays, going over the different equipment we had. I had Al call several of the local businesses that carried the equipment he needed and discuss what kind of prices we could get. Sue said she would take our pickup and take him to the various places. She said she would negotiate with the dealers as she felt strong today.

Tom and I went over the different welding equipment that I had available, then we looked at the truck so that I could show him the value of a well-planned vehicle. He was astounded that such a truck could exist.

Abe was working on a generator when we were back at the shop, so I introduced him and explained to Abe what I was going to be doing. He said he had the perfect test for him.

Abe showed Tom one of the arms that attached the generator to the tow hitch that was cracked. He asked him to fix it, knowing exactly how something like that should be done.

Tom asked to use the torch, first cutting away the cracked metal, giving him about a two-inch piece to weld back together. He measured the length of the opposite un-cracked arm, then the separated arm, and made a note. He then used the torch to cut a piece of metal from a blank we had that was the same thickness as the arm.

He should have cleaned up the areas that he was working on, and with, before welding, but he used the arc wire feed and after clamping it together welded it, doing a pretty good job. Crude but thorough.

Abe asked him how he was going to sell this piece of equipment with such as obvious patch job on the tow arm. Tom was confused as he had never been taught how to do a clean job or how to clean it up.

I told Tom he did a good job welding but he didn't prepare his site, and the piece he was using, before he welded.

I took the torch and cut out the new piece he had welded in. Then with a file and grinder I cleaned the area where I had cut and the melted metal where it had bubbled.

I measured the arms and figured out what I needed, then cut it from the blank the same as Tom did. I put the cut piece into a vise and cleaned it thoroughly, squaring off the edges so it would fit the open space on the arm perfectly. I clamped it to the arm and welded it in place without raising hardly any bead.

I took the grinder and smoothed out the beads and as a last smoothing operation, I used sandpaper so I could feel that the bead was unseen. I blew if off with the air hose then with a can of primer I sprayed the new welds. When it was all done, I once again measured everything, making sure everything was exact. When I was done, Abe said, "Perfect."

Tom had been fascinated as I completed each step. He asked, "That takes a lot of extra time to do, do you always take that much time, is it okay to take the time to do it like that?"

"It never takes too long to do it perfect. I'll teach you how to be faster, but it is important that our work is perfect. That generator will now bring top dollar because it will look like top equipment, not some patched item that the customer might assume may or may not work."

Leaving Abe, we went into the welding area. I took a couple pieces of tubing and said, clean these up and weld them together at a right angle. Do your best for it to be exactly ninety degrees. I gave him clamps and a square and found two more pieces and worked on them to show him how I wanted it to look when it was done.

Since I have done this type of work for years, it only took me ten minutes to clean it, weld it, and clean up the welds. Twenty minutes later, Tom said he thought he had done a good job. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't perfect as he had rushed his weld in one area. I showed him how you could tell there was a weak weld in the area, then I showed him my two bars.

"Steve, I don't know whether I'll ever be that good. I've never seen work like that. How do you do it?"

"The same way you do it, Tom, but with a steadier hand and I don't force the rod to do the work. You draw it along the two pipes, you don't stab at it. Let me show you."

I took two pieces of cut up blank and put them together on their flat straight ends. Using the arc welder Tom had been using, I drew a weld between the pieces that you almost couldn't see.

I put two more pieces together and had Tom to retry welding without a raised bead for me. This time he took his time and slowly drew the rod through the metal, closing up several small problems he had. When he was done, he took off the hood and stared at his finished product. I handed him the grinder and he smoothed it quickly. He reached for the sandpaper before I ever offered it to him and quickly finished the weld proudly displaying what he had done.

"That's the way Tom. Every time we do a job, we will do it as perfectly as possible. I'll let you practice till you get it right. Cut some of the pipe we've been playing with and make it into some perfect welds. It just takes determination and practice."

A truck pulled up to our doors and the driver asked us if we had a forklift. When I said no, he groaned, "I've been driving all night to get this stuff here this morning. I don't know whether I have the energy to unload this by hand."

He showed me the packing slip and it was the entire order that I had made.

I made a decision and went to the office. I told the guy that I needed to use the big double unit next to my welding unit. He just nodded and said I would have to rent it for a minimum of two months. When I looked at him funny, he grinned, "As fast you're growing, you will need your own building very soon. I'm just taking advantage of the situation because I have some money invested in all the electrical I've added. I suppose you want more electrical and air piped into the unit too?"

"That would be nice but you're probably right," I said agreeing with him. "I'm thinking of looking for a building. But, I need the space for right now and if you could, could you use your forklift to unload a truck for me. It's a pretty big load."

"Sure, come on, let's get your truck unloaded and we'll see what the new unit needs. I don't mind fixing them up as I get more rent from them now. A lot of the other small business tenants have seen what you're doing and want the same. They are willing to pay the difference, so why not improve them."

The storage building owner took only a few minutes to unload the truck. I had him separate the sheet metal into the new space and the tubing into the welding area.

I asked Abe if he could build a rack to hold sets of tubing. My thought was to keep sets together like Gene did, so we would have the exact package ready when we needed it.

Tom was given the list for a single unit. I asked him to separate groups of tubing and plate blanks and to tie the tubing together with some heavy twine that Abe had saved from my auction junk.

When Tom had two units separated and loaded into Abe's pickup, I had Tom jump in the pickup with Abe and had them go to Gene's to give him the borrowed material back.

As soon as they left, I called the steel company to thank them for the special shipping. They said if my orders were that size or better, they would just load a truck and have it on the way for me as that size order required the best part of a load.

I was separating the materials when Sue came back with the pickup loaded with equipment. She had purchased everything on the list, plus a few other items that Al said would be good to have. She proudly displayed that most of the equipment was used and that she was able to barter successfully, although we were going to have to run over to the dealer with the big truck to do a welding repair for him.

Al couldn't quit talking about how Sue had worked the dealer for all the equipment they needed. The total cost was a third of what I had projected.

I told Sue about the new space and about the delivery, and that Abe and Tom were taking Gene his materials. I told her we were going to need to build a frame for Al so he could begin seeing if he could do the race car sheet metal, but I wanted to use this one as a training aid for Tom. She agreed with that.

I took Al into the welding shop to see how much he knew about welding. I showed him a finished trial with the two pieces of tubing, then cut a four inch and a two inch piece so he could try.

Al said he was familiar with the type of wire feed arc welders we were using, as it was the kind his dad had taught him on. He set up the clamps, showing me that he knew how to do it, then cleaned the ends of the pipe before he began. He also scuffed up the area where he was going to make the two pipes meet.

When he turned on the arc welder I watched him closely for safety habits. Before he began, he checked his ground clamps, he checked the hold of the clamps, then he hit a small spot to see how the arc was going take. He raised the hood and checked the spot then pulled the hood down and drew a weld completely around the pipes in a single pass, very professional. He stored the wand, turned off the welder, removed the ground clamp then inspected the weld. It was damn good.

He pointed at it as if to ask me to inspect his work. I did and it looked like a good weld all around.

I asked him if he had used grinders and files to clean up welds and he nodded. I gave him the tools and let him finish his work. Sue and I were both impressed with his performance.

When he was done, he took it off the bench and handed it to me. It was as good as any I did. I smiled at Al and said, "That is what I was talking about. That's perfection, which is the way I like a finished product to look.

"Steve, I've never cleaned up a weld like that. My dad taught me to try to not raise a real high bead on joints so it would look nice. Too bad he didn't think about finishing good work. I like the way it looks and can see how a customer would view the effort of making it look that way."

"Looks like I'm going to be able to use you for both sheet metal and welding. You don't mind do you?"

"Hell no," said Al. "This is going to be a fun job. I bet you find all kinds of work for me other than making panels for racecars."

I told Al that when Tom got back the two of them go to lunch. Sue and I were going to run over to the equipment dealer and do the work for him then be right back.

The equipment dealer had a steel deck over his parts bins holding even more parts in bins and on the decking. A forklift had rammed into the stair and had broken it and two steps. He needed someone to weld it back together. There was another weld where something like this had happened before.

We backed the truck into the shop so our equipment would be within reach. I brought out two hydraulic jacks and a pulley. While I heated up the metal with the torch, I had Sue activate the jacks and they pulled a little at a time. It took almost a half-hour and the help of a four pound sledge hammer to get the stairway back to straight and the steps bent into position.

I had Sue clear the area, then clamped the ground onto the stair rail and began. I tacked the stairs and the broken rail, stopping to measure and check the level of the stairs. It looked good so I made the permanent welds. When I put the arc wand back into its holder, Sue had two drills with grinder bits in them so we could clean up the work. We had it looking like new in fifteen minutes. I sanded the welds off then sprayed some primer paint on the spots.