Well I am finally getting a chance to unwind the "stuff happens" stack and get back on track with the lathe.
The welder issue ...
One of my last notations about the welder mentioned a ~$2,150 bill. I was lucky enough to get in touch with the local Miller rep and plead my cast ... yes, it was 8 years old but it had less than 4 hours of actual use. Is there anything you can do to help.
He said he would call Toll Gas and see if they could work something out. He called back a couple days later and they had worked things down to a number that I was comfortable with. I was not expecting it to be a "no cost full warranty repair", and it wasn't, but it was a number much more palatable than the original number. Both Miller and Toll Gas contributed to the bill reduction an I am very appreciative of their efforts.
The lesson learned, at least for me, is "when looking to make a significant tool purchase be sure to take the local vendor and the manufacturer into account in the price". Yes, I could have purchased a different TIG unit from an internet supplier for less but in this case the investment in what appeared to be a top shelf machine thru a local welding supply seems to have paid some dividends 8 years after the purchase.
I brought the machine home, used the engine hoist to put it back in the cart and pushed the cart into the garage. It sat there for about 4 weeks and I was finally able to get the time to reconnect the gas and water cooler and put it back with its friends.
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I had mentioned that the TIG, MIG and plasma cutter were on the same circuit. I thought I would pass along a picture of my non-OSHA non-NEMA approved extension cord. This is the business end, with two 4 wire 20 amp 220v plugs and three 2 wire with ground 50 amp plugs. It is on the end of a 25 foot 4 ga 3 wire with ground cable that plugs into a 50 amp receptacle next to the 100 amp garage breaker box.
The garage is small so shuffling the 3 devices around and plugging and plugging into a single 50 amp receptacle would have been cumbersome. As long as I was going to mitigate that issue by putting in 3 50 amp receptacles on the single breaker [I am the only one that works in the garage so 'using all three at the same time' was not an issue and therefore a single breaker would be adequate] I might as well use a flexible cable rather than inflexible wiring in the wall. After having justified the project [at least to me] I spent a day making it happen. That was at least 10 years ago and I have not had an electrical fire in the garage so I am satisfied with the results.
Now maybe I can get back to the lathe.
