Industrial Welding...

Is not a fun part of what I do.  I seldom do it; I have to be dragged into it and I don't enjoy it at all.
It is heavy, dirty work, tons of grinding, sparks flying everywhere.  Hot steel and laying down welds
for hours on end.  I have been doing this for three days now and the neighbors are irritated and I am

 Heavy Gates in front of my shop

tired.

   It has been all the more frustrating because these are not even my gates.  I am repairing the work of another fabricator. These are heavy farm gates and not my style at all.  The only "art" now is in just trying to do it right.  Clean up the welds, prevent water from leaking into the tubular steel and replacing the hinges with better ones.

   I am doing this all myself.  My helper is off fighting fires, out somewhere saving a forest from burning down.

   There will be a funny side to this story.  Well it is funny now, it wasn't then.  These gates weigh about 200 pounds and it is a job in itself to leverage them onto the work table.  I have set up a work area next to my little garden pool.  The weather is finally nice and the water is inviting.



 The weight of the gates!



  As I finished one side of a gate I would remove it from the table and set it next to an arbor that is just in front of the pool.

Then I heard the crash and had enough sense to just watch what was happening.  I made no effort to stop it and it was all in slow motion.  It all went tumbling down.  The weight of the gates caused the arbor to fall over.  One potted Wave Petunia and the roof of the arbor went swimming in the pool.

 Sink or Swim!

   No harm to the gates!   So, I went swimming!  It is a private backyard.  I was skinny dipping!

   All's well that ends well.  The roof is out and the gates are done!

What I really do is HERE