Video Transcripts:
Lincoln Ranger and 7018
I visited my friend, JD Brewer, the other day. He’s relocated right down the road from where he used to be, but it’s in a little bit bigger area with a nice, nice overhead crane. I’m gonna show you a little bit of that today. When I visited him, there was this hot job going on where he had to, by the end of the shift, get a security bar put on some shipping containers for a shop right down the road. They’d had a break-in the night before, stole a bunch of stuff. So I thought I’d bring you along, ’cause I thought it’s pretty interesting to see what you can whip together. No drawing, no sketch, just like, “Hey, get some bars on this thing so somebody doesn’t break into it again before we can get security cameras and a better lock on the gate.” Things like that.
So I thought I’d bring you along for the ride. You know if it’s JD, you know we’re gonna be doing a little dual shield flux core. Also using his Lincoln Ranger on site for doing stick welding, for the portable work. Throw a little plasma cam work in there and we’ve got a video. Let’s do it.
A mag drill sometimes is handier than a drill press. I’ve seen JD modify ways to clamp this thing down and use it for all kind of things. That’s what he’s using today. Dual shield flux core welding these pins in.
Then we got to this point, discovered need some washers. They need to be 3/16 thick washers. It would have taken like an hour to run to the store and get back to get some washers. So we just decided to really quickly cut ’em on the plasma cam. Threw a piece of 3/16 metal up there. Needed 8 washers, had ’em cut in like 10 minutes. Had a helper clean ’em up on the sander while we were doing something else. Went really quick.
Not really something that makes a whole lotta sense to think you need a plasma cam to cut washers out but it was quite the time saver. This particular job that we’re doing, not a huge rush, just needed to be done by the end of the day. The customer was a little nervous if the people might come back that night to try to steal some more stuff. Like I said, it’s not a huge rush getting these things done, but an hour saved is an hour saved. Sending somebody to a store and waiting on ’em to get back before you can start assembling, we’d take too long. This took literally about 10 minutes to get these things drawn up, cut, and sanded and prepped.
Doing a job like this like right now, like, “Hey, we gotta have this today,” means you’re using stuff that you already have in your metal rack. So that’s the reason for different size square tubing here. That’s the reason for needing 3/16 inch thick washers. Like I’ve got some of this square tubing, I’ve got some of that square tubing. I’ve got some of this flat bar. Oh, I can make something work here. While this might be a little overkill for a bar, when you’ve got some people who are really apparently wanna steal stuff really bad, maybe it’s not overkill. Then again, maybe there’s no kill like overkill.
JD is using a dual shield flux core here for getting some tack welds here. If you know JD, if you’ve seen videos with him before, you know he’s a big fan of dual shield flux core. This is I believe a Techniweld brand of flux core wire. All flux cores run a little bit different, especially dual shield flux cores. In fact, all of ’em do. So no one setting is a sweet spot setting for every brand of wire you get. This isn’t quite dialed in yet, there’s a little more spatter going on than usual, but it’s cooking in there pretty good and it’s making a decent looking bead. It’s not going anywhere, that’s for sure. It’s burning in good.
You can push a little at a little bit of a push angle. You can drag a little bit at a little bit of a drag angle. You don’t wanna get carried away with any angle. Probably a slight drag is the best way. The old saying goes, “If there’s slag, you need to drag.” Not a bad idea.
Those are loaded up and ready to head to the job site, which is right down the road.
So what’s the scoop on this theft or robbery? …
JD: Somebody broke into out shipping containers and stole a whole bunch of copper wiring and copper scrap. So we’re coming up here to put some security bars on ’em overnight. That way it doesn’t happen again tonight, ’til they can get better security and better cameras and all kinds of stuff.
I didn’t get all the details. I don’t know if they just had this one lock locking up the container, but it looks like they either used a cold chisel, or a hacksaw, or a combination of those two things. But anyway, there wasn’t much to getting into this container. It looks like it was just the one lock, so probably you could have deterred ’em just with using four locks. I don’t know. But we’re gonna weld some bars on here.
When I say we, I mean I’m gonna hold the camera while JD welds some bars on here. He uses this Ranger a lot for portable welding, for powering grinders and portabands, and also for stick welding and scratch start TIG. He also uses it a whole lot for powering the POWER MIG 210 MP.
One cool thing he told me about this, is that you can easily switch from 1/8 to 3/32 road with just a click here. He’s using 1/8, 70 18, at around 130 amps for everything; for the flat, for the overhead, for all these welds. It seems to be a pretty good sweet spot on that machine for running this rod.
Now I realize, and I know a lot of people are gonna comment that the weak point on this whole thing is the lock, and it is. But the plan is like the next day or the day after, to kinda box this thing in with some plate to where you really can’t get bolt cutters, or a cordless grinder, or whatever on the lock. You really can just barely reach up in there with a key, or combination, or whatever. Just make it pretty much theft proof, unless somebody really wants to get in there bad, in which case you just can’t stop ’em.
It is a shame that you have to go to these lengths to stop somebody from stealing something that they can only get pennies for the dollar on, and that it costs the company all kinds of heartache and aggravation to have to pay somebody to come in and weld security bars on shipping containers out here in the middle of the country. But, that’s the world we live in.
One more container to do and we’ll speed this up. I won’t show you all the stuff. But another lock here that they busted off. Looks like they might have just hit it with a cold chisel, or a hammer, or whatever. It didn’t look like it took much. But, same thing here, just welding that cross bar on there. We’ll put a lock on it and then box the lock in, in a day or two.
Back to the shop here. Let me just show you quickly the overhead crane that’s in JD’s new location. It spans the whole width of the shop. There’s two bays, in and then out. Trucks can come in and deliver metal without having to suck it in on a trolley system or anything like that. It’s a really, really good setup. This is a wireless pendant here, running this crane. So we’re just gonna lift up the Ranger here and set it back on its cart. It’ll be ready to go for whatever comes along next.
From hanging out with JD, and collaborating with him on some videos, and tagging along on some jobs, from what I’ve seen, this little Ranger here has been a super useful welder/generator. I’ve seen him use it by itself for stick welding and scratch start TIG. Also seen him use it to power a 210 MP to do dual shield flux core onsite. Stick welding, lift arc TIG onsite.
I tagged along here when he was building a trolley crane. He had a big load of metal coming in and he needed to build a gantry crane that would take metal from outside to inside of his shop. Then I got to tag along another job where he was doing an aluminum awning, powering a spool gun. No hiccups, the thing just ran great. Why I’m bring that up is a lot of people ask how that little 210 MP will run off a generator and things like that. The combination of the two, the little Ranger and the 210 MP, gives you a lot of options. In JD’s words, “Options can make you money.”
JD is my good friend. His YouTube channel is JD Brewer. Go check him out, he’s doing some cool stuff over there with signage and fabrication. Plasma cam stuff. See you next time.
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