They underestimated the project. They looked and saw just some pipe weldment and thought: “I’ll just cut and weld it and that’s it”. To your defense, you did put the tolerance very clearly indicated and that should’ve made them think. What I would have done is to look at you and say: “are you sure you want this pipe structure to be that accurate, that will increase the cost as we will have to add another process to them.” No matter how flat is your table, welding to the side of a pipe will bend it. But a nice flat table will allow you to see more clearly what you must do in the straightening process. So what I do, I fit and straighten (at the end) on a nice flat table, weld and grind can be done on a crappy table because it is so abrasive and no table stays nice if you weld and grind on it every day. The heat of the weld alone will warp your table depending on the volume, and then there is preheating too, that adds to the mistreatment of the welder’s table. That’s for MIG. TIG welders can totally do the whole thing on a nice table.
Hey Jason, loved the video!
Great investigative content.
seems pretty straight forward to me.
If you ever need an apprentice let me know.
I’ve been a mechanic for close to 8 years now and spent a year doing GMAW and SMAW in college.
you’ll have to move your shop to Dallas Texas though. 
Also I’ve been looking into starting my own metal fab shop but I’m stuck considering how to meet spec(tolerance) fast and for cheap with no shop… you have any ideas?
i am from europe so first of al if you want good toleranties you should work wit millimeters !
the flatnes tollarance is in spec i tink for most of the frames you need the measure the difference between the higest and the lowest part of your bowd piece not puss 1 corner down and measure the other side this wil always be atleast double the wat it really is
english is not my first language sorry for spelling …
I’d like to see this same thing built on a fixture table since it’s not obvious to me how it would fix all of the problems.
Good afternoon Your videos are awesome always enjoy the detail that you put into each one. What are the chances that the fab shop with the best attitude could have a fixture table delivered to them? Keep up the great work.
CICO…Crap In Crap out. Being in the R&D field myself, this point cannot be stressed enough. A craftsman is only as good as the tools they use. That’s why I insist on touring every facility we work with before processing any orders. You would be amazed at what people will try to push as a useable tool.
Hey, I enjoyed the videos! I thought when the guy asked about the purpose after it was made showed an interesting issue. If you do another of these testing shops videos, you should let them know it’s either a test (which no one will like) or it’s for an installation art piece where there’s glass involved and really emphasize that the tolerances are absolutely critical. Giving them an out if they feel they can’t follow through on the spec would be a good idea too. While it might get some backlash it might also have them try harder to get it into spec. it’s just a thought. I really appreciate the hardcore philosophy that you bring to your work.
It seems to me that the problem is that these fabricators (six out of six, so far) are unable to determine whether they are capable of meeting the tolerances by examining the drawing. A simple “I won’t accept a job with such tight tolerances; my shop isn’t set up for such precise work,” would be the proper answer.
As a ‘professional’, you should at minimum have a fixture table. You should also have some experiential knowledge, and even I know that there will be bow when welding the T’s, and I am an advanced beginner welder; it was good to see Jason using the ‘pre bow’ which was the first thing I came up with as a solution, but have never used. For these ‘pros’, every frame should have been flat, because they KNOW there will be warpage, and their experience SHOULD have compensated for that, which they clearly did not. I got the impression that they all did not take the job seriously, and fabricated ‘good enough’.
Unforunatelly, as a buyer, I hope I find one such precise contractor with a reasonable price. All projects I’ve done, must be redone, look crooked, etc. If you don’t use prefab aluminum where they obviously use the proper tools all items have major runnoff. I men doors rubing to the frame, errors… I even resorted to try and learn to weld in order to affect the wrongdoings positivelly… Unfortunally I can’t even justify the cost of a ficture table, but I can only hope more people buy these tools.
A couple people picked up on this but this level of fabricator just doesn’t get the customers that care about precise tolerances. Usually the expectation is “as close as you can get without charging me more.” The vast majority of the customers these guys get just don’t care as long as the item works for what they want it to and nothing stands out just eyeballing it. That means the time investment to fine tune the weldment isn’t justified, and neither is the investment into more precise fixturing.
I’ve been a welder/fabricator for about 10 years, in prototyping for 6 of them. My customers that care about tight tolerances express it beforehand instead of blindsiding me on pickup, and get charged accordingly for the extra time and materials required to fine tune their products.
This video series would be great if it turned into a contrast of the different levels of shop within the fabrication field and the costs and expectations associated with them. So far it’s only felt like dumping on the low end of the field by holding them to expectations reserved for the higher end, then telling them to spend tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment they just don’t need for their customer base.
I can’t see how you could achieve accuracy without something accurate as a reference and a fixture table seems like the perfect solution. A thick piece of steel milled flat would do but without the advantage of the square grid of holes.
I like how Jason isn’t overly trying to sell his fixture table, he knows his tools are pretty much the best there is but for people in say Europe, shipping a Fireball fixture table is prohibitively costly, however he is saying get the best you can. A second hand fixture table is better than no fixture table.
@Skwerlz The fabricators knew the expectations. We even talked to them in person. They were all aware of the goal. It’s pretty clear as evidence in the video. They are all aware of their table shortcomings but chose to do nothing about it. When 0 for 6 shops can’t do the job something else other then skill or desire is the problem.
1/4” 1/16”. So your definitely not trying to build interchangeable parts for autos or aircraft’s. Too bad with WW III on the horizon tight tolerances would be really good demonstration for a new generations introduction to a War Production Board. America may have to bring back all those factory jobs that got sent overseas with a new Executive Order 9024—Establishing the War Production Board in the Executive Office of the President and Defining Its Functions and Duties. China has a monopoly on all of these areas. Let’s all pray for peace because the US population probably isn’t physically or mentally prepared to pull off a repeat of WW II. Though if it comes to war tight tolerances on interchangeable parts is high on the priority list.
One big issue i think is pride. Ive met alot of these welding shops and fabricators that do this kind of work. On the outside looking in it looks right, but get to really checking, theres the gambit.
Welders and fabricators can be one of the most boastful, arrogant people Youll every meet. Because they are tradesman, they can be arrogant and nobody ever really mind, or even notice.
Like any other trade, it comes down to tooling. Along with that is knowledge to use that tooling right. Experience is the next biggest part. What good is a j head Bridgeport, if you dont know how to turn it on?
Like this video showed, something this “easy” is actually pretty intricate. If those shops had taken their time, they could have passed easily. It would just have taken a little more attention to detail. But in the arrogant way that tradesman can be, their arrogance is what caused them to fail.
Plain, straight and simple.
Alright. The editing of the video made it seem like you were quite general when presenting the drawing, then very specific on pickup. If you were specific at the beginning with these shops then yeah there’s at least an attitude problem with the fab shops in your area. The tolerances weren’t super tight so if these guys knew you actually cared and still didn’t rise to the occasion I see your frustration. Like I said it just didn’t come through that way in the video. I know the shops I’ve worked at all had tricks to meet your tolerances with basic tools, and the people I’ve worked with all gave enough of a rip to get it right.
Edit - all but one guy gave enough of a rip, there’s always that one guy you’ve seen never care about screws lining up, frames fitting together closely, etc…
I think your next challenge should be…
Bring the 3 fabricators into your shop and have them weld up on a fixture table and show the difference in the results.
This might make them think about buying a fixture table and upping their game in the fabricating business!
Think of it as giving back to your craft and fellow fabricators.
Plans tell the fabricator what he needs to do. Your plans are amateurish. Mechanical drawing died with the arrival of the computer. You need to learn more about technical drawings. https://www.product-lifecycle-management.com/download/mil-std-100g.pdf
His drawing could have been done by hand on a fast food napkin and been sufficient. All the information needed was there.
Not surprised they failed.
Surprised by the confidence they’ve got when presented with tolerance requirements. They probably get by with their setup, they make one offs, fix stuff (judging from their workshops).
I’m thinking about going into business like one of these shops, but I wouldn’t take your job. My reasoning is, I’m pretty good at getting things together, there is a market for that, but I inspect my work and thus know my limits.
Only way to take a job like yours would be if it was enough units to justify building custom fixtures/jigs. It is possible to work up to precision but for two units the amount of material for fixtures/jigs would be more than double the material used for the products, let alone time spent. Would someone order say 200 of these, I’d gladly spend time building them making sure they’re up to spec, then at delivery/payment you’d get an order for a fixture table with accessories no doubt about it.
I doubt these shops would do any better on larger quantities, they aren’t fabricators. The twist/warp they delivered can be observed with simple tools and tests, doubt your tables would guarantee their output got any better.
You’ve made me expect less from my own work, that has saved me material and time. Any time I weld something I now take into account already in planning/design the error I really can’t avoid given my setup.
Great videos, you’ve helped me lots on my way to become a shitty fabricator with hopes to one day become a great one. 