I recently decided to Put my union boilermaker career to the side and start my own welding company. So far since posting this video has been going well. Promotion Inquiries: jtwelderinquiries@gmail.com Instagram: / jtwelder_official
Enjoyed watching your video, 4 Rigs later, it was good to see someone starting out. My current truck I decided to not go dually and actually go service bed. My pipelining days are behind me, hopefully!
Very cool truck! super cool that you were able to start a business and are doing well at a young age. I wonder if a welding trailer would be a better bet for a backup instead of a second truck. Either way, looking forward to another build video, cant wait to see what you come up with next!
Thanks for watching! I'll have another video coming out soon. Trailers are good for long term repair work where you can leave them parked in the same spot on a site for weeks. When your running around tight industrial plants and heavy equipment shops trailer can really be a pain in the ass. Also if I get a second truck I'll have an entire backup set of tools and a welder.
Found this channel today and I have to say it’s good you’ve put a-lot of work into that truck it’s a credit to you just a pity about the transmission hopefully you get it back on the road again
Great videos! Love you channel. You have what it takes to build an awesome channel. Keep up the videos and. Hronicle your new journey. Thanks for the videos!
Now that I'm out on my own jobs I'll be able to film a lot more so there definitely will be some in the field repair videos coming out soon. Thanks for watching!
Nice rig but why don't you remount the sliver work box so the top of the two boxes are at the same height? This will allow you to open the silver box and walk under it when open which will make sense.😊
We really need some other manufacturers like mosa and esab to break into the full sized engine drive welder market in North America. Competition is always a good thing for the consumer.
Yeah that’s true! The guy who built it was a machinist but he definitely designed it like an engineer would! Super overbuilt with lots of complexity but disregarded the most important function…….be able to move the welder around with ease!
Yeah exactly! I decided to do a welding skid setup in the factory bed indefinitely now. Make the truck a welding rig and in 5 minutes I can remove the skid and have a regular truck.
I'm 37 and I decided to go back to school and learn to weld. I would have liked to learn from a guy that's been doing it for a while but I don't know anyone so school is the next best thing. Never welded before I know nothing about but its so dang amazing what you guys make and create. This is why I want to learn I'm not trying to travel or work on a pipeline or anything like that. The skill of welding is amazing and I think its a great thing to learn. I plan on working just for a small shop and maybe getting out there on my own and doing jobs for regular folk that's very appealing to me.
Looks like a nice rig, sucks that its already down but at least you paid everything off already. I like the realistic style of your videos and that you're not trying to build a $100k rig right out of the gates I made the first step towards running a mobile welding rig today.. bit the bullet on a $100 inverter welder lol. I figure it'll do the trick until I have the money/demand to build an actual rig
Yeah I'm tired of all the instagram "money maker" rigs with the 22" polished wheels. I just try to get my trucks into purpose built tools and not toys. The one thing I can't recommend enough for starting a welding company is to slowly buy your tooling while working for someone else and to SAVE SAVE SAVE money because once you go out on your own you need a lot of money to fund jobs and keep yourself afloat when slow.
Nice truck man It's crazy how young you are and afford my dream truck that fast. I'm currently running a rig off a Honda mini van with my generator, welder and things packed into it. It's cool how you invested everything into the truck and thats what I'm also doing with my mini van rig which hasn’t paid itself off lately since I'm still in school and peope are here spending money on shit they dont need yet too cheap when it comes to a welding job LMAO. Hope to be like you someday
Thanks! I got my journeyman ticket young and had a really high paying job so I was able to slowly buy up all the tooling I needed. That way when I started my business I was equipped to pretty much do any kind of work and not have to turn down any opportunities because of my tooling. Keep saving money and working then once your fully equipped just go for it!
alberta rig welder here, more of a pipe guy than anything. Different rig than im used to seeing for sure! looks functional. should look into the "tru remote" wireless remote for your machine, can start/stop and adjust amperage without going to the truck. super handy.
Dude you are crushing it. I was wondering where you been at. I was not expecting that body work to come out so good. I love a good shitbox, I have a couple as well😅. Your welding company name and logo are pretty dope too dude. You are all ready looking for a 400amp Diesel. My dude is out here just working on some heavy equipment repairs. Looking forward to seeing you grow dude.
@@JTwelder. I'm running a Hobart 225 amp and it's about the size of that Ranger you got I really like the ideas with the boxes because all those boxes that actually are made to swing up with the lid on the side rail of the bed they're expensive I like that idea a lot and I also like your bottle rack fitment I'm pretty much going to copy your idea but I'm going to add a crane that's just big enough to pick up the gas bottles why because no hernias that's why you gave me some good ideas thanks again from Ohio
Have you considered putting all your stuff into a tandem axle trailer? Makes moving it around to different trucks super easy and it can be left at jobs that take more than one day
Trailer rigs are good for longer jobs where you can leave them overnight but for the sites I go on and the work I do trailers are completely impractical. If you look on instagram you'll see that basically nobody but guys just starting off run trailer rigs as their primary set up because of how impractical they are.
Truck was cool. It’s a shame it went down. I don’t know how you felt during your workflow but I feel like if I had that many tool boxes I’d never be able to find anything 😂. Hope you get up and running soon.
Luckily I got the transmission fix for free under warranty and the truck is back up and running. I now have a second rig (2015 f350) so there will be another video on that one coming out as well.
Just take your time and learn on someone else’s dime. I wouldn’t even consider starting your own company till you have 10k hours in the trade. Once you have the experience build up your tooling and get a truck and you’ll be good to go out on your own! In the meantime you can definitely make some cash form side jobs with you machine and just reinvest in more equipment.
I would save that cart your welder was on its bad ass and I’d search for a cheap high hour pos machine identical to yours and rebuild it so you kno the ins and outs and have a back up or if you need to do a lot of welding you have a extra machine for a buddy to run it’s just nice to have a back up
Yeah I ended up keeping the cart like you suggested, it’s a good way to move my welder around when ever it’s off my truck. When it comes to buying a second welder I’m actually go up to a higher output diesel machine and keeping my ranger to put on a second truck.
If you don’t end up upgrading to a larger truck I’d recommend finding a shop near you that can build/upgrade transmission. The stock one behind that Cummins doesn’t hold up well by itself, especially when you start asking it to push several hundred extra pounds 24/7
It was a fresh a built up transmission. Turns out The billet torque converter was bad, I got it replaced under warranty. The Cummins is now my back up truck I switched to a 2015 f350 with the gas 6.2. I crunched the numbers and it’s more profitable to run gas welding trucks over newer diesels because I hardly ever tow anything.
I’m not sure whether safety and security aren’t issue where you are, but you might want to invest in a few pairs of $40 hockey puck locks with brackets that they use on cargo vans to secure your toolboxes as well as a cellular data plan security camera mounted above the cab facing the back of the truckso you can keep track of your assets
I have AirTag trackers in any all my expensive equipment. I would love some of those hockey puck locks but they don’t fit on any of my boxes. Luckily though I live and work in a very safe area. The only time I’m concerned about theft is whenever I have to stay at hotels overnight with the rig.
It was easier, faster and cheaper to just use the factory bed. My other truck I have now has a flat deck that it came with. I try to avoid building anything from scratch though because it's usually quite expensive opposed to buying used.
@@JTwelder. I see more and more of that the longer stuff is going on. I work in industrial mechanical/ HVAC. We constantly get parts and equipment that is bad right off the rip.
I don’t see why people are so worried about the value of their vehicles. You got a truck to put to work, and you can’t take it with you when you go so put some miles on her 😂 Side rant done, it’s pretty great to see people pursue their interests. I just started welding here a week ago and want to do pretty much the same thing.
I look at my trucks as a tool not an asset. I couldn’t care less about its value I just need it to run. To many people buy really nice high end trucks for work then their worried about actually using them. I always wanted my own welding business and finally the time came where I could make it possible. Definitely harder than working for someone else but it’s much more rewarding!
You can look at my videos to see it, but welding rig for years has been a 94 1/2 ford only 525,000 miles of abuse and it keeps going, and yes its been beefed up a lot
You should put another coat of paint over those Diamond Lead reels and grease the hell out of them. You'll find surface rust dripping out of the hinges/bearing in a few months.
Mine have been on the truck for 8 months and haven’t dripped any rust. The paint is cracking in some spots and surface rusting, all the paint could come off and they drip rust like crazy and I’d still be happy with them because of the way they function and the price I paid.
On a budget it works fine. Good luck brother hope you enjoy it. Different life running your own truck. I always charged for my trucks time on top of me.
I change a much higher rate as a rig welder than I would just for me. I also charge all my consumables and travel separately. I'm actually getting away from hourly work though because I've been making double by quoting jobs to a hard dollar amount.
I started out similar way 2nd gen dodge 3500, it made me enough money to load it down too much with tools etc 😂 it eventually became a liability transmission issues, injection pump brakes, new rear end etc an I was losing out on jobs when it was down, my “affordable rig” was more then a new truck payment at times so I pulled trigger on 550 with a crane best decision I’ve made + more versatile, more reliable, also more comfortable. Paid it off in 2 years, not bragging at all just hoping I help with your decision on new/newer rig, good video 👍
Nice a service truck with a crane is definitely nice to have! I have a 2015 f350 now that's all rigged up as my main truck and the second gen is getting a small welding skid to be the backup.
Acetylene cylinders contain a porous mass and liquid acetone that dissolves the gas. An upright position gives the liquid acetone time to settle back into its correct place in the porous mass. This prevents the release of solvent which can quickly vaporise and lead to problems that affect both safety and quality.
That's a sweet setup. Do you mostly do welding on heavy equipment? Sounds like you keep pretty busy. I'm a heavy duty mechanic and do lots of welding repairs. I run a old f350 with a 11ft service bed...often think a bigger truck with a crane would be nice. Cheers from BC
Yes currently I pretty much just do heavy equipment repairs and modifications since it doesn't require engineering. I love doing anything on heavy equipment but I recently just got my company cwb certified so I'll be braking out into structural work for the mines and processing plants in my area and then hopefully eventually get TSSA certified and start doing some pipe. Yeah a crane would definitely be super nice to have!
You like the 350 set up? I'm running out of my ranger these days, but I'm probably grabbing a job out west for a few months to save up for a 550, with a crane and service bed. I had left the industry, but money is running out quick. At least I got one semester of college in before I had to go back to work though! Oil Field here I come!
I get all my materials delivered to site by the supplier. Surprisingly it's more profitable for me to do it this way than try manage logistics of transporting job materials my self.
Its crazy how you guys deal with that rust there thats gross lol Down here in AZ never once undercoated my 1990 vehicle and still not even surface rust XD
I’m in Ontario Canada. My rates are a little higher than some other guys but my company is certified for structural welding so it justifies it. My rate is always the same on any job or time of day/week unless it emergencies than it’s x1.5 my rate.
Actually the only gas that requires to be stored standing up at all times is the acetylene, which on my truck is standing up. Oxygen and shielding gas cylinders can be stored and used laying Down because they don’t contain any liquid.
Yeah 4k CAD which is about $3k USD. The problem with 12 valve Cummins is they have a horrible transmission. If you spend $10k on a really nice one it's kind pointless because you never know when the transmission is gonna blow. I've got $9k USD into this one now and the body is rebuilt and it has a rebuilt transmission with paperwork. I usually have the winter off so I had plenty of free time to build up the truck.
Yes it rolls in a shop but you would never have a gasoline welder running inside a shop. Did you not watch the whole video? They guy that built it intended to pull it by hand up a ramp into a trailer and to wheel around a job site which would never work.
This is how I started out in 2011 while working full-time at home Depot. I had a 89 yj and put a Lincoln Arc 4000 and went to town for two years and ever since I now work for a company paying me 90k a year now . I miss working on the road but I don't forget what I had to miss and I'm happy but my Best experience is on the road 🛣️
The problem ended up being the billet torque converter. Got it replaced under warranty. Seams like even the high quality stuff these days isn’t even reliable anymore.
Go back and watch it again, the acetylene is stored vertically in this truck. There’s literally a whole 10 minute segment in the video of me building a vertical mount and putting the acetylene bottle in it.
I'm no longer working out of the boilermakers hall. Im hoping to get my company TSSA certified though and start doing pressure vessels work so I can hire boilermakers.
Meeting with potential customers and eventually some of them call me when they need welding. You have to be a salesman first before you can be a welder when owning your own company.
Unfortunately Toyota doesn’t sell a truck with a high enough weight rating for me to legally use one as a welding truck in Canada otherwise I wouldn’t 100% drive a Toyota rig. My daily driver is a 02 rav4 with a 5 speed and it still runs and drives great! I’ve been a ticked welder for 7 years and had my journeyman status in Canada for 2 years after completing a 4 year apprenticeship.
@@JTwelder. Oh okay toyotas sure are reliable ass hell💪 have you been considerin other trucks than ram and if yes what? Also could you make some my Day as a mobile welder type of video where you show like how much travelling you do in a Day and all the expenses and profits i would for sure watch it. My dream is Also to be a mobile welder maybe Also to add some mechanic work to that. Ps what part of canada you live and is it expensive, ive heard that canada is super expensive to live nowadays and government is doomed is that true?
🚨If you’re gonna build an air compressor generator, you want to make sure you pressure test that air tank as it looks like it’s got a lot of rust and has been welded on 🚨
dont know you but i like welding and youtube put you on my homepage and i was pleased, but i do ask why did you pay 4 grand for that truck even with a good transmission i would never pay that much
I have a similar setup, but I can’t seem to get any work. I have google ads and everything but the phone rings once every 2 weeks or so. Can you make a video about how you stay busy?
1. Where are you located? The best is to be located near large industries like mining or oil. I live near the largest mining city in canada so there's lots of opportunities. If your located somewhere with no industry you basically only gonna be doing hand rails and basic structural repairs on buildings. 2. Google ads should work but anytime your not on the job you should try to be out knocking on doors and handing out business cards to companies that could use your services 3. Are you certified? Depending on your area certification might be a must have. My company just got certified for structural welding in my area because a lot of potential clients will only hire certified and insured contractors.
Carbon arc isn't as efficient as oxy acetylene, on what planet? The torch is 80ish dollars. Then you buy the tanks witch should be filed under consumables. Old air compressor tanks should be seriously looked over before putting them back into service. The outside of the tank is zero indication on how the inside is. Compressors will build up alot of water in the tank and more so when used outside. And the drains on them rarely get all the water out. For almost its whole life it has been rotting away inside. O/A is a much simpler system with much less things to go wrong. Food for thought
