I've always considered myself a hack in the garage. Sure I could stick two pieces of metal together (although it wasn't always pretty), assemble an engine, rebuild a transmission, all the normal hot rod stuff. But lately I've created some stuff that I would almost consider quality fabrication (and would even pay for if someone else had made it). Don't get me wrong, I'm not comparing myself to any of those true fabricators out there that can make a new fender for a car using a flat piece of metal or bend and weld a 25.5 cage, nor can I even tig weld (although if I had enough dough to buy one I would love to learn). But in the last two years I have made my own mild steel roll cage, built a turbo kit from the headers to the end of the downpipe, did all the electrical in my car (with every joint soldered and weatherpack connectors throughout). Granted it took me two tries to get it right on the home made headers (in my defense I did change heads and the ports were different necessitating the second set of headers), but I can say that I spent less than a turbo kit would have cost if they even made one for my car. I built my own blowthrough carb, with help from this board and Brent. And just now I decided to try vent tube extensions and I made up a removeable set that slip over my existing vent tubes and look really bitchin. At what point can I call myself a fabricator and not just a hack? Or is fabricator reserved for the guys that do it professionally and make money at it?

 

I have often wondered the same about people calling themselves a mechanic too.... Cause I have seen some bad "mechanics" and some guys that could do wonders in their garage without a title.... Interesting conversation... I think its when you are proud of what you have accomplished and you can recreate it a few times????

 

Exactly, the same difference between a person that assembles a motor and an engine builder.

 

Agreed, about anyone can throw a motor together if they can read instructions.

 

When it is quality. There are many who get paid for it and are a plain fucking hack. But we all started where you are. I just kept welding until I thought my stuff was high enough quality to sell to someone else. That bar for some people is low. I have seen some flat out nasty half assed shit from people here that I know own companies and it's nasty. I look back a few years still, think "Oh god" when looking at some of my stuff. But I am very AR about my welds. I think a good fabricator can see it in his mind, like headers, and make it from scratch. Or put something together and realiize before it's made why you can;t do this, or that, or where would it fail, etc. A cage, ehhhhh. Notch and weld not so much.
That being said, that's not to take anything away from you at all.

 

I see your point with a cage. You really cannot tell a good one from a bad one (except ones with horrible welds and missing braces) until a car has been in a wreck. I'm hoping that mine never gets tested.

 

This is a good question. I like to think I'm not a "hack" though. When I hear that term I think someone that doesn't give a shit and they take short cuts to get things done. I spend a lot of time on everything that I do and I hold myself to a very high standard when trying to build things. Having said that, things definitely do NOT turn out the way I would like them or how I pictured them too. So I guess I would think of myself as an inexperienced fabricator .

Dustin- on a side note , that tank you welded up for me is great. The only problem is that I should have checked it in the car before sending it to you like YOU had said. The return line you put in is right in the way of the tank strap just one more time I got screwed for trying to save some money. Other than that the thing is money.

 

I am not too big on labels. I am sure the next time I build a kit or roll cage it will be nicer, but I don't regret building my own stuff one bit. Other than welds on my headers I like the way it turned out. A better welded would help a ton.

 

Definitely. I don't think inexperienced makes someone a hack AT ALL.

Shit man. That sux. Been there done that. The one that got me was measuring center on a tank and sumping it. Put it in the car, and the tank is not centered in the car. Now the sump is now also not centered in the car.

 

You had mentioned that too but I wasn't as concerned with that. I still feel your frustration.

 

I agree 100%.

That's one of the big reasons I'm cutting out my enture rollcage and subframes and starting over. I like to refer to the things I did years ago as my "Caveman Days". I had people build things for me or perform work that I was never satisfied with, so I either bought a book or watched people that really knew what they were doing. I was also a tool/die maker for the aerospace tooling industry, where everything has to be damn near perfect with extremely tight tolerances. As I improved over the years, it eventually landed me a full time fabrication job. I was always striving to be better and gather as much knowledge as possible. Now I'm the prototyping manager at my company, and am working on my own to learn the art of metalshaping.

One of the other things that helped me when I was starting out on my own was that I had to do everything by hand. I had the usual assortment of fabrication hand tools, and a Harbor Freight drill press and sander, a Miller TIG welder, and a mediocre plasma cutter. No box/pan brakes, no shears, no Burr King grinders or anything of that sort. Learning to do without makes it much easier when you have access to the high dollar equipment because you know the fundamentals. It's kind of like math. . .it helps to learn the fundamentals before you sit down and do everything with a calculator or computer because you actually understand what to do. It also helps you become a little more creative in the process by problem solving.

 

I know mean about being creative. Working in a home garage with only basic tools you have to be creative at times.

 

It definitely helps in the long run, and makes completing a job even more satisfying. It can also make one more appreciate the hard work of others when you see something that was built by hand. Learning to "do without" also makes novice fabricators realize what happens to metal when cutting, forming, and welding. . .metal can be a strange animal sometimes! It also helps when whatever "magic machine" in the shop goes down during an extremely time sensitive project and things have to be made the old fashioned way in order to make a deadline!

It also makes you want to spend a bunch of money on home shop tools to be able to get things done faster, so you can spend more money on more projects!

 

Years ago I brought my gas tank to a shop to have it sumped. Marked the tank and showed him just how I wanted it. When I picked it up he had welded it on backwards lol. I was so mad. Needless to say that is what inspired me to become a better welder and make my own stuff.

 

^^^ It's this. When you're proud of the work you do, you will just want to get better and better at it. And you will. Like SWT said, even if you're working with a pile of dirt and a screwdriver, eventually you'll get good enough to the point of really being able to use, and justify the purchase of, pro tools which do (what you're trying to accomplish).

For example -

We have a "machinist" here at work, who is over 50, and should be machining absolute circles around us "kids." Right? No. He has a bullshit blue collar "I'm owed this" attitude combined with the fact that he simply does not give a single fuck about anything he's making. His superpowers include making entire pallets of bad parts, loudly complaining about doing an operation which requires one or two extra steps that normally don't come up, misreading prints, hammering on brand new machined parts that he made which do not fit together, and destroying GOOD parts which other people have made. Despite our protests, he receives a rose-petal-showered blowjob daily from the owner, so he magically gets to keep his job.

On the other hand, the "kids" (including me) get a kick out of pulling a sweet part out of the machine when it's done. We stone tables when we set things down, take extra time to put chamfers on everything, NEVER fight threads which can't be slacked/unslacked by hand, etc etc.

This is just a small example, but I'm sure it carries over to anything you do. Pride in your work is something you can't put on a resume, which is too bad, huh? It's probably the most important thing.

 

My son is a machinist and he has the same exact gripes. Not to mention getting paid half of what the so called experienced guy gets paid.

 

I love reading his stories lol. Makes me remember why I got out of the military and why I have to own my own place. That kinda of stuff on a daily basis used to make my want to choke people. Nothing worse than a lazy bastard.

 

Amen to that! I am just a little E-3 in the Air Force and I know I dont know everything, and I know experience is everything in the military, but it seems like some of the dumbest people in the military can get promoted into positions that they dont have any business in being in just because they are good test takers. I know I'm not old but I am 29 years old (I got laid off when I was 27 and desided to join the AF cause there arent any jobs where I am from) and I have done a lot of things and had a few jobs in my life, from flipping hamburgers at MacDonalds to pushin parts and building 4x4s and the biggest thing that drives me nuts is laziness when it comes to work. When you are at home relaxing be as lazy as you want but when I go to work I am there to do just that. I know sometimes people have off days where they dont feel like doing anything (god knows I have had them) but there are some people that dont want or care to do anything. I have seen people work harder to get out of work then the job would have been just to do it. I have spent the last week teaching higher ranking people then me how to do their job, which doesnt bother me cause they are for different air frames, but 1 of them wants to learn everything I can teach them and the other just stands there waiting for us to get done so they can go back inside and sit in the office. Ok I am done with my rant. All I am saying is that some one how is a hack is also some one how is lazy, and I have done some pretty hack things in my life but probably everybody has. Just learn from what you have done in the past and show improvement. If you dont learn form what you have done then you are probably being lazy.... Dont be afraid to try something you dont think you can do, my parents always told me when I was young "cant never did anything."