SB Welding & Fabrication

Give me a grinder, sanding and buffing pads, and I'll make steel shine like a mirror!

- The eyes never lie, but the skin doesn't either! - First off, I would like to begin this post by asking all of you to check out my website at www.sbweldandfab.com that went live last week. If you have any feedback or comments on the page, please feel free to message me. Now that the promotional stuff is out of the way, let's get into our current post topic. The title of this post might be a bit confusing but when it comes to welding, these words are gospel. Recently, I had ...Continue reading

The sun is shining inside my shop... how is this possible?

A close up of the finish. Can't wait to see these tables with the stone tops!

I have to admit, these things look better than I thought they would!! Super Chrome is awesome!!

Coffee table frame ready for finishing. Super chrome is going to make this thing shine!!

People often ask me, "what does a good weld look like?" If we are talking MIG welding, this is what a good weld looks like...

Sometimes at work, I feel like putting the gun to my head and pulling the trigger...

- Playing with Pain - So for the last month or so, I have been working on a huge project for balcony rails and stair rails for an apartment complex in Santa Clara. I will be adding pictures of the project in its various states of fabrication, but this post will cover another topic. Pain. Pain sucks. It is something that many people deal with on a daily basis. Especially in certain professions. One specific career where injuries go hand in hand is professional sports. Athletes... are at great risk every time they get on the court, field, track, etc. But besides sports, there are other professions where injuries are part of the landscape. I am a BIG fan of Deadliest Catch on the Discovey channel. The deckhands that work on these boats in the Bearing Sea have a injury rate of 100%. That means no matter what, each deckhand will suffer an injury of some type, from minor dings to major issues. But beyond being an athlete or a deckhand on a crabbing boat, other occupations have risks of injury and pain. And fabrication is definitely one of them. There are obvious risks for injury and pain in fabrication work. Using tools that spin at high RPMs with cutting bits that saw through anything in its way, there is a risk that we could lose a finger or two if we are not careful. Beyond that there are risks of electrocution due to the current that produces heat, or respitory issues from the fumes that we breath. But like I said earlier, these are the obvious risks... welders have a lot more to contend with as far as injuries go. Back, neck, leg and arm injuries are all relevant in this field. Things that I have never had issues with before like my wrists and my ankles are constantly aching. My knee is swollen to all hell (why it's swollen I have no idea) and my back hurts so much some mornings, it feels as rigid as an ironing board. But what can I do other than bite my lower lip and fight through it. This is what I have had to do to stay on schedule with this project. I need to ignore the pain and push forward so that I don't miss my deadline. Otherwise, my reputation becomes mud and I wouldn't expect my business to flourish. You gotta learn how to play through the pain. Thanks for taking the time to read this -SB

Busy, Busy, Busy... I have really forgot what it means to have time to yourself. I always knew it was going to be hard running a business, but this is more than I expected. And I guess that was the most important lesson for me... when doing anything, always expect the unexpected. So enough about the obvious parts of life, lets get to business. So right now I have a few things in the works as far as projects. I have one really big project coming up which I hope I will be able ...to share more about in the next few weeks but for now mum is the word. I will also be doing a few repairs on couple of small parts and I will be uploading pictures for that soon. One of the repairs might be interesting considering it may or may not be able to be fixed, but we shall see. I also plan on uploading some Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) plans on this page soon to demonstrate my 20+ years of CAD and design experience. I am also in the process of working on my website whenever I have some "downtime" and it is coming along very nicely if I do say so myself. I am hoping to have the website go live within the next month so please be on the lookout for that. Besides that, not much else to report work wise (like all of that isn't enough to keep me busy). But this is why we (welders/fabricators) do what we do... the harder things get, the narrower the time frame we have to get our work done, the more we kick it in high gear and push our way to the finish line. So needless to say, I am really excited about what the future holds for SB Welding & Fabrication!! SB