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Thank you. Glad you appreciate it.

Thank you. Glad you appreciate it. On site is awkward, with minimal tools, I wouldn't be able to some of these bits without my trusty Lidl plasma cutter!... The odd shapes it can cut like a breeze and the fact it can cut into a corner and gouge off spot welds is invaluable!

@@jwweldfab yeah I've got some welding to do on my mk7 transit van. I'm sure that will give me some practice. I'm going to get one of them parkside performance plasma cutters when they come back available. Thanks

There's a few around at the moment without the built-in compressor... £129.99! Although the one with the built-in compressor cuts much better, although it doesn't have pilot arc, but that can be achieved by the wiring the tip (crocodile clip or tight eye spade) to the ground (clamp or workpiece) hack if needed!... Handy for rusty and painted metal!

@@jwweldfab yeah definitely want the one with the built-in compressor. I know they was £149 when they were in lidl. There's a few on ebay but they want £250 for them..I'll wait until they get them back in. I've never used one before but sure it will come in handy. I want to learn a bit more metal work and fabrication. Thanks

Thank you.

Thank you, much appreciated.

I start at £35/hr absolute minimum (probably go up soon), but depends on the job size, complexity, conditions, access, time-frame, whether it requires MIG/TIG/Stick/Plasma, customers attitude. Sometimes I stick to a fixed quote, but I try to avoid that, cause especially with these kind of jobs, you never know what's hidden by mud, old paint and underseal... often, it's far worse than how it appears at first once you've taken the wire wheel on an angle grinder to remove the loose rust and paint. Good luck!

I think £35 for this repair is too cheap. I,d pay £80-£100 for that repair.

I can't actually remember... the rest of the job involved welding stainless to mild steel, I remember using 309 and 312 rods for that, I think these may have been plain jane 6013's as this stuff wasn't critical and 6013's are easily available... it could have also been whatever Lidl's were selling around the time too, they have weird naming for their rods, but they were general purpose, so basically 6013 I guess.

Obviously, but these aren't always available, especially if there's a tight deadline to get the vehicle through an MOT or just usable again ASAP and it's gonna take too long for pattern parts to be manufactured & shipped, I've had to wait over 2 months for pattern parts before!

Thank you!

Interesting, cheers for the heads up... I'll have to try it, never bothered before as I couldn't be bothered with cleaning up the slag... only thought of using it on chassis thickness steel, but then I sometimes stick weld chassis stuff. I did read up that flux core requires more amps for the same thickness steel, but my unit does 140amps, so no problems there, would save me lugging around a gas bottle, although I've acquired a short fat ally gas bottle, and only use CO2 as it welds just as good for thin sheet and costs waaay less!

@@jwweldfab I have a little Hitbox machine that I'd be lost without. Runs off 13amp - brilliant for mobile. Any old extension lead runs it off any house socket, even a 50m one. 0.8mm wire. I have all the big heavy 16amp ones too - but now I just grab the tiny Hitbox. I can plonk it on a roof/floor/boot & weld away.

Same with my little Static Arc 140A MIG Welder, run it on 0.6mm (as I'm mostly doing bodywork) wire and straight CO2 in a stumpy ally bottle. I have an Andeli MIG 200A for the bigger stuff... unfortunately I don't have access to 16A, pretty much nobody has it residentially! I used to have a Lincoln Speedtec 200C, which was £1250!... sold it for £900 when I found out it was actually a Bester with a Lincoln badge, the Andeli and especially the Static Arc weld far better and are way cheaper and, more importantly, lighter... 18Kg, 11Kg and 6Kg in order, much better when lugging around, or dragging in a trolley/sack truck for 1 person lifts in hotels! I like the 5.1Kg weight, and short stumpy stance of the Hitbox HBM200 gasless unit, maybe try that next!... can't currently find a gas unit anywhere near as light as the Static Arc MIG 140A though. Weight and size is generally my deciding factor in choosing my machines! I have a cheapy Chinese stick welder that fits behind the back seat in my pickup, cost £35, weights like 1-2Kg max, little bit bigger than a motorcycle battery!... thought it would detonate after a few uses, but I bought it in lockdown and has lasted so far, made a bunch of money with it, even with stainless work!

I use a plasma for almost everything too - loads dislike them, I love them. They get in where little else will cut. Brilliant machines.

Same, I couldn't do without my Lidl's £150 plasma cutter with the built-in compressor, it's lasted a couple years now and cuts 12mm steel on 13amps!... closest thing I'd seen before was from Lincoln electric and it's 2.5k!

@@jwweldfab I use that same Lidl machine. :-)

Can't beat it really! Only problems I've had is the pipe blowing out the top of the 'tyre-inflator' pump, which I bodged back in mid-job, and then fixed properly more recently when it popped out for good, by changing the fitting to a UK standard thread, and it increasingly intermittently doesn't want to fire when the consumables start to wear too much, but they're cheap as chips for big packs from eBay or Static Arc... pop in new bits and it's like new again!

@@jwweldfab Best "Hack" on the Lidl plasma is - btw - to get you some 2mm core wire - any old stuff that uses the slightly heavier core-strands. Strip an inch each end, make a loop one end & put it over the torch-tip so its connected, wind it tight, then pull the loop back tight to the torch body, wrap it around the torch a few times so it stays put - you want about 6 or 8 foot of wire ideally. Connect the other stripped end to the earth-clamp - I just stick it between the workpiece & the earth-clamp jaw. Bang - Pilot Arc on your 150 quid plasma cutter. :-) Transforms the machine at zero cost & works like a bast***. :-) Thank me later. :-)

Cheers buddy, thanks for watching.

Cheers buddy, glad you appreciate it and thank you for watching!

Cheers and thanks for watching!

Glad you appreciate it!... Thanks for watching.

Yup! Glad you appreciate the effort. Thanks for watching.

These bits are quite nasty, but the rest of the van was actually in surprisingly good shape!... I've yet to edit that video, it'll probably be another long one, hopefully have it done for next Wednesday!

@@jwweldfab great job I'm subscribing 👍👍👍👍

Nah, does kinda look like it though with those big factory holes on the sides, amazed how rotten it is compared to a Cherokee

Appreciate it... thank you for watching.

Thanks for watching.

It's a nice ride, like going off-roading in a Rolls-Royce!

Haha. Thank you for watching.

I wouldn't say master, but thank you, I really appreciate that.

Glad you appreciate it. It's a Parkside PPSK 40 A1 from Lidl's! It has the built in compressor, so perfect for mobile work, not having to lug around my petrol or electric compressor, but I do also have their normal 30A plasma cutter too, which also works well, with new torch consumables, you can get an almost dross free cut, although the dross knocks off quite easily with a sharpish chisel, much quicker than grinding, sometimes a wire wheel on the grinder knocks most of it off too. Dross kills sanding pads and flap wheels cause its so harsh. Only 2 problems I've had it water freezing (it must have been below 0 degrees C) in the air outlet that the torch hose pugs into at the front of the machine, but just pulled that plug, hit the trigger switch and it blew out the front to clear it, then plugged the torch hose back in and it was fine the rest of the day. Second problem was the outlet hose in the top of the compressor inside the unit blew out mid job, but after taking the case off, managed to jam it back in and it's been fine for the last few months since. Maybe I'll do a review if I get enough interest, as all the one's on TH-cam seem to be hobbyists that have never used one before and they get pretty naff cuts cause they haven't had enough practice. Thank you for watching.

Thank you for watching.

Glad you appreciate the effort. Thank you for watching.

@@jwweldfab that plasma cutter makes thing's abit easy beats getting the grinder in there

It does, it gets into much tighter spaces and also allows make to gouge areas out a bite at a time if needed.

Well, if I come across one I'll try and remember to video the process for you. Thank you for watching.

I have a T4 job coming up in April that needs a lower runner lip on the left side, I'll try and video that one!

@@jwweldfab ok mate, look forward to it, Ill health has stopped me from doing mineCarpel tunnel and knackered shoulder. It's slowing turning to dust😁

You should see the VW T4 I purchased. Most are Rot boxes.

Too right, haha. Thank you for watching.

Interesting to know.... I thought Transit's were the kings of rot!

@@jwweldfab as I found out with mine they rot under the strengthening plate where the rear shocks bolt too (chassis)and under the floor where the rear springs sit there's a 3 mm plate that disintegrates then the inner b posts rot. I would say T4s are just like a transit, Crap

Oh dear!... Thanks for the heads up.

Thank you for watching.

Very true! Doubt it'll be on the road for anymore than a couple more years. Thank you for watching.

Glad you appreciate it. Thanks for watching!

Thank you, glad you appreciate the efforts, and yes, it is a shame... not exactly a classic!

Had I known earlier in the process how bad it was gonna be, that probably would have been the better option, even for installation, a bunch of spot welds s far easier than tons of seam welds. There is always several ways to do a job, and being mobile, I do things differently to how I'd do stuff in a workshop, even so, a garage will often bodge it and put stuff in like what I pulled from the wheel arch... filler, rubber, seam sealer, cardboard and newspaper cover it in underseal, then they'll pass the MOT for it and charge £90-£150/hr!

Glad you liked it! Well, I'm generally still cheaper than your average garage, and I am actually a welder. I charged £1,200 for all the work in this 3-video series. I charged £30/hr for this customer as he provides quite a bit of building related work like balconies etc. Thank you for watching.

Yes, you can't just cut willy nilly as the original rusty parts are needed to figure out the shape, otherwise it's a complete guessing game, although some of this was as it had been butchered before so much. Thank you for watching.

Glad you appreciated the effort, thank you for watching.

Glad you appreciate them and thank you for watching.

Thank you!

I do... straight CO2 (half the price of argon mix and plenty good enough), much cleaner than flux core (which I've still never tried!... although I have a reel to try) but for car stuff I'll stick with gas. Good tip though, removing the shroud, I am already aware of this from other TH-cam videos... I'll try give it a whirl soon, and also with gas for dual shield, which doesn't seem very popular here in blighty, but seems quite common stateside. Thank you for watching.

@@jwweldfab flux core real messy, spits and hisses 😁 but it does weld ok on thin panels.

Yeah, I know flux core is the MIG equivalent of stick welding. I keep meaning to try it for heavier stuff, as it would be more productive if I had a full workshop, but for heavy stuff I just end up using stick as it requires far less power to do real heavy work compared to MIG, I can easily do structural work on a normal household plug with stick. I think I'll have a play with flux core on some 3mm sheet. Does it fight through rust and paint like stick?... MIG can be quite fussy!... If so it would be better on some bits of these rot boxes.

@@jwweldfab I've never done stick just mig and seeming though gas is expensive I've been using fluxcore. It seems to fill holes ok when it blows on thin metal with rust, if that's what you mean and fluxcore seems to be ok on thicker 3mm metal.

Ah k cheers, I'll keep a reel of flux-core in the truck in case I run out of gas on the weekend, which, sod's law, happens more than I'd like!

Wow, thank you!... me too, I know it's a long one, seemed to take forever to edit, appreciate you watching.

@@jwweldfab long is good I have done quite abit of this and got a van to do soon 👍 nice job

Thank you.

Thank you!

Thank you!

Too right! £1,200. I do have those, but my petrol compressor has a constant oil leak so until I fix that I can't really use them mobile, but I'm thinking of getting a small 8 or 25l silent compressor... will only be able to use short bursts, but at least it's light enough to be 'mobile'. Thank you.

Yep, definitely a money pit! Thank you

Thank you!

Thank you!