Like i said, a class act. (ABSOLUTELY no sarcasm implied here)
In the 80s i was a fabricator at a shop named "Rocket Mixer" in south St. Louis county. We built Rocket cement mixers (mr. obvious) with parts fabbed completely and totally at our shop. The only items we bought complete were Hydraulic motors, shift knobs, and hardware. I got a lot of welding & fab experience in the years i was there. (boilermaker's local 27)
After almost 80 years in business, the company closed & was bought by an out of state company & i worked as a dock manager for a huge sporting goods retailer for a couple years. I was charged with logging in, logging out, distributing, & ordering merchandise for an 80k square foot department store. That got old FAST.
I went to work for a mass production machine shop (called screw machines) & progressed up the line & spent several years setting up 4 machines with 2 operators under my charge, and have extensive knowledge & experience with all types of metal fab, including aluminum, ferrous, non-ferrous, & 316 stainless steel, marine brass, all types of bearing steel, as well as mild steel (cold rolled to be specific). I was charged with producing literally millions of mass produced parts for everything from pen tips, plungers for ratchets (you know like the Craftsman push button ones), to precision formed hydraulic fittings.
It was a filthy job, and i was wanting to move, so i took advantage of the cash i had saved, and moved to Boliver for a couple of years, where i worked as a handyman/carpenter/whatever i could find. Oh, i also atended college there, and was a pastoral major.
I took a job as a carpenter with a commercial company in Springfield, got married, and switched jobs a couple more times, before i took the last job i will ever have, and that is a maintenance man at St. John's Hopital.
I am charged with repairing & maintaining a multi-billion dollar facility. That's just a fancy way of saying i make sure the poop leaves the building, the life sustaining outlets (oxygen, med air, and vacuum/evac) in the facility are in proper working order, and the staff has all it's simple comforts met.
Those are my qualifications to critique your work, and i can tell a lot from the pictures posted, because i do know what to look for. To be honest, i thought your worked sucked, when i first saw your early rigs that you were fabbing for yourself, but now, your builds are looking better every time. (except those FAWKING flying batteries)
I build very little of my own Heep stuff, but i don't ever plan to go as big as the ones you or the Kellers run, so i am happy sticking with Jeep heritage equipment. The rest i can do as i have the time. I'm also growing more lazy the older i get, so it's much easier for me to pick up a few hour's overtime, and pay someone to set up my gears. I've done enough of that. Let the man trying to feed his family set them up, and make a few bucks. That's how the American economy worked for a long time.
Thanks for listening.
