Let see... How do I make this HAMB friendly... OK.... So yesterday while welding my nifty new Panhard Rod bracket on to my Axle housing, the weld started getting all spattery and stuff so checked things out and I was out of Argon for my TIG welder. I don't have the luxury of being able to build custom cars as my only source of income, so I had to take time off from work to take my bottle up to the welding supply place and have the argon refilled. I get there and go in and pay for the transaction and then we go out and he grabs my bottle from my truck and walks it over and brings back another bottle and puts it back in the truck and sends me on my way. I get home this evening and pull it out of the truck and notice it says "Argon, Carbon Dioxide" on the tag. Thinking this is not right, I go and look at my tag on the bottle connected to my MIG welder and it says the same thing. Confirmed. They apparently looked and ***umed the older bottle was the empty one and gave me a bottle of Ar/CO2 instead of straight Ar thingking it was the empty one and when he pulled the bottle from my truck he didn't read the tag to see it was a straight Ar bottle. So all the work I was planning to get done this evening is down the tubes. Not only that, but tomorrow I get to take more time off from work to go exchange it once again! NICE! One day of hot rod building wasted.
That stinks. I feel your pain. We use to have a real good supplier. The guy sold it to someone who is only looking to make a buck and now they sell just the junky stuff. Went to swap out a botltle of aceylene. Once I got it home for the life of me I couldn't get the valve open. No matter what I tried. This was after exchanging a perfectly good bottle for the ****py one. Make the hour round trip to his place only to get a load of **** from the guy. I told him to either give me my old bottle back or exchange the junk he gave me. He final realized I wasn't leaving without one or the other. Last time I'll use him. We are living in a C+ world my friends.
Many of those "welding supply" places have trucks that deliver to plants around town. Is there any chance that you could call them early tomorrow, inform them of their mistake and see if a driver in the area could exchange you for the correct bottle? That is how I do it when my stuff runs out because they (Indiana Oxygen) deliver to our building on a regular basis.
Welcome to the dark side of tyler texas the bubba,s who can kill 60 hogs in a week end drink 5 cases of beer and make love their cousin but cant read a lable thank god it was not medical. oh by the way their wife work at the hospitals!!
I hate it when you run out of wire or gas in a middle of a weld! The mix stuff will work okay. It is used for not super clean metal welding. It will work on clean metal also. I be thinking it cost more $'s for the mix?
I only use the mix for my Mig. Straight Argon for the Tig. The mix is supposed to be cheaper, but if you paid for straight Argon, go back and get it from your supplier. Did you keep the receipt?
Welcome to life. You should try to make a living building cars, you will be amazed at the things that get in the way of eight hours of progress.
A couple of years ago I called my supplier to double check the time they close. He told me 5 but today they had to close early and I had to be there by 3.30. I thought I am glad I called. I left my shop at 3 knowing it was a 15 minute ride. I had to talk to a customer and got there at 3.20. Door locked and no one there. This was friday. I had to close my shop and could not finish my Friday work so I had to work Saturday to do it and I could not do my Saturday work on my car. Monday I called early to talk to the manager and he informed me that they had a gas leak and had to call the fire department in to clean up and the fire department had to evacuate the place. No fire truck when I got there. I called corporate offices and asked them about it and that was the first I heard of it. They called me up the next day and apoligized. Manager had a family "emergency' and left. They gave me a 100 dollar in store credit. I switched my business to the other supplier as soon as my 100 was spent. It would not have made me so mad if he would have told me in the first place.
Yeah, I here you can use the Ar/CO2 mix with TIG, but I tried it and it was nasty with lots of spatter and that kept contaminating the tungsten. I tried more pressure and less pressure, higher amperage and lower amperage. Nothing made it nice and smooth like it was with the straight Ar. I know that people TIG with the mix, but I can't see how they make it look decent. The weld looked ok, but I would want to display that - I'm capable of much nicer looking welds. Believe me, if it had worked to my satisfaction I would have just went with it.
This is what we are given to deal with. lol How's things going out there on the north side man? I've yet to stop by and say hi. I drove to where I thought the transportation department was but apparently I was wrong - didn't see a shop there. I'll have to get directions.
i ran out last week in the middle of a job,,it was 5.00,,,called my reguler guy he said he was closing the gates and it was only a chance that he answered the phone.....he brought a bottle to me at no extra cost...guess im lucky
Hay, Do you ever look at the guage on the tank they are there for a reason. I always check mine before and after a job to make sure I don't run out. Its a long way across town to the weld supply for me. One close by is only open every now and then. SORRY this happened to you. Always remeber "No one is perfect"!!
You can get a cheap tank off craigslist and trade it in for a full tank at the supply store, so when you run out in one tank you're not done, just swap them out and throw the empty in the car for when you have a chance to fill it.
I have an extra tank just for this reason, I always seem to run out on Sunday!! One other thing I have learned, never trust the other guy. Next time I'll bet you look to see what they gave ya!!
You can bet I will every time from here on! What I have learned is to double check everything and make sure and hold everyone's hand with everything. If you want something done right then you have to either do it yourself, or stand over someone else and make sure they do it right. I own 2 bottles. One is Ar/CO2 and the other is straight Ar. I'm sure they both came up in the computer when he pulled up my account. I know this whole thing is my fault for not telling him more than once that I needed to get more ARGON. Oh well. It will all be better tomorrow and I will be more involved in the future. lol
Lesson learned. LOL the do it yourself thing is why it took me five years to remodel my house, but you are 100% correct!!
tell me about it lets see, i worked for 10 hours today and i can bill for..... 4 I wish i could afford to stock a **** load of stuff so i never have to leave.
I own my bottles if some *** hole behind the counter gives me any **** I talk to the manager and move to a new supplier. I have done this two times I am very happy in my new location. I have no rent fees and the freedom to tell them to **** themselves if necessary. It cost up front but it was worth it.
Same here. Glad I bit the bullet and bought them up front. No problems with my supplier though. They have several locations, and we spend a good bit of cash with them every year through the company. They usually take good care of me when it is for my home stuff. -Dave
With the tanks I handle, straight Argon is cheaper then the mix, and I have the mix in 75/25 and 90/10. Another thing you should do before you leave with a full tank is to check to be sure its full! The company I deal with now has a plastic seal on the full tanks, but before that, you did a quick crack open the valve to be sure the "new" tank is really full. Some places don't keep very good track of the empties and the full tanks, if you leave with a replacement tank that happens to be empty, your likely screwed. They have no way of knowing for sure the tank they gave you was full or empty, so they have to ***ume it was full when you left. Its your responsibility to be sure the tank is full before you leave, esspecially if you have more then 1 tank. Gene
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