I got the extra blades, as I paid for them when I was there. The extra blades were nothing to do with Wayne's order. I figured since I was there, and he was willing to sell them to me for cash, I would buy a couple just in case I decided it was something I just had to have.
The explanation I was given by the young man that loaded it (after midnight on a Sunday night) was that they were having a rough time getting back into operation after Katrina as most of their welding machines and tools got stolen during the period of time that they weren't able to get to the shop due to restrictions of law enforcement. I know what a normal shop should look like, and what it takes to fabricate things in steel, and it was obvious to me that something had happened to the stuff that would be required to run a business such as that. I would probably have taken his word on that part, as it seem very plausible. History has had similar shops that got "drank away" and more recently "snorted away" but having Katrina roll thru could very easily have done the same thing.
Wayne was out more than his shipping costs, as he drove from S.C. to the middle of Georgia to meet me, and gave me a nice tip to offset some of my gas expenses.
David from jax