iron worker

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I LIKE your thinking. Man after my heart. But I've filled up the basement shop, the barn shop, and a huge part of the machinery storage area. My SO actually suggested that I SELL something. Perish the thought.

I'd best only get this only if its a deal and I'll end up using it.

Karl

Mostly if you deal with round pipe and punch holes in sheet. When I was building roll cages for my cars, I would of loved an Ironworker.

If I had one, I'd sure find uses for it. Trouble is, one day I'd run out of projects. Ironworkers and Piranhas are awesome when you want to do a specific job, and you have a lot of stuff to cut/punch. There would also be the ability to hire out to do side jobs for metalworkers less fortunate than you. ;-) At $$$ per hour, it could pay for itself. If you don't break too many dies, that is.

Steve

They are just great for a shop using hot rolled steel bar, plate, and especially angle. Cut, bend, punch. Consider the small shop making the twin axle car haulers: a lot of angles and bars cut to length with lots of holes. With a stop on the end, you can cut angle pieces at almost the full cycle rate of the machine. Ditto for bar. If the dies are sharp, you have almost no deburring to do.

But you need the dies to make the mach> Ad in the paper: 50 ton iron worker mechanical $1700 OBO

Karl With your CNC plasma cutter, band saw and a press brake you can do more than an ironworker with it's limited set of dies. I looked at buying one and passed for that reason. Steve

Good point. I don't have a press brake. Sounds like that's the toy I need for Christmass. I do have a very large 400 ton compression molding press that I've never got running. (Its really "the kid's") maybe i should focus on getting it going. "The kid" is in love and has no time for shop stuff. (I should get him back after he's married)

Karl

How is that plasma table coming along? I just bought a Hypertherm 1000 to put on my table. Sweet machine it is. Steve

Some stuff only an Ironworker does - like stamping the triangle spike end on a piece of square tube to make fence top stakes. You can knock thouse out by the hundreds with a simple jig to set the length of the batch.

Check it out - if it comes with a lot of useful tooling, it might be worth getting. Perfect for punching and folding tabs and brackets.

(Speaking of which, I need lots of custom tabs punched out - the U-shaped tabs to hinge 1-1/2" square tubing, convert my truck rack to swing-away cross-arms. Then I have to make some arms to hang warning lights off the back corners, and arms to mount conduit carrier tubes off the sides, and a 48" wide conveyor roller on the back bar for sliding big ladders off, and then mount a Traffic Director strobe stick under that back bar...)

You needed an excuse to build another shop barn, dint'cha?

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Mechanical is done. Machine painted. Had to pour concrete footings to put it on dirt floor unheated part of barn. (shops are full) Also installed water line to it and a drain running 200' outside. Haven't started on control and electrical - have to work for a living all fall.

I get time again in Nov. and Dec. But I got a bum finger that really suffers in the cold. For most outside work, I wear the "Don Foreman (TM)" finger heater. Can't wear it for electrical cabinet work. So, as soon as things freeze tight, I'm inside and this project waits for spring.

Karl

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Sure do, but the SO came up with a "fair" idea a few years ago. I get something, she gets something. A new shop would also cost a house addition.

Karl

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:57:12 -0500, the infamous "Karl Townsend" scrawled the following:

Remind her that it's just that much more floorspace to clean, eh? That and the fact that the shop keeps you out from underfoot of her. ;)

Does she alway get tit for tat, or does she sometimes opt for something less expensive than your tats?

-- "To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." -- Thomas Jefferson

I have to concede she treats me purty good, lets me have my toys, and live in the manner to which I become accustom.

Karl

Certainly after he's divorced. JR Dweller in the cellar

Karl Townsend wrote: