If I ever buy a sailboat-

[Stimw]

You always see movies where they get stuck waiting for a breeze.
I will keep a MIG welder and a can of spray paint on it!!!!
If you ever need the wind to blow either one will bring it on! It's like magic!

 

[Shield Arc]

Or a big blue tarp. Every time I go to stretch out a tarp the wind comes up and tries to blow it away.

 

[Daver1963]

Plywood or sheets of tin will have the same effect.

 

[murphy1244]

or raking leaves

 

[creekbend]

What about spray painting?

 

[Utopia Texas]

I've been in the nursery business for 40 years and man handling 40 X 100 sheets of plastic on greenhouses 18 feet above the ground can be really frustrating. I've seen a 5 mph wind lift a grown man 10 feet into the air trying to hold on to a corner of a plastic sheet.

 

[DanBowers]

Pool covers.............argh!!

 

[rankrank1]

LOL!

I do 99.9 % of my welding outdoors due to the lack of decent shop. Stick welding and the Mig machine fitted with fluxcore wire are the ticket for outdoor welding. The good news is that the wind and outdoors take care of all the welding fumes for you so no exhaust system for fumes or smoke is needed. There is much less chance of burning your shop down from a stray spark too.

Since I never used my mig gas bottle or my mig regualtor, I filled my bottle with Argon and bought a cheapo tig torch that connects to the stick welder. For $50 I can crudely tig weld via scratch start although I actually use this capability about 0.1% of the time. If I have to tig then I will clean an area inside the doorway of the barn as it would not work trying to do it outdoors.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I have done tons of TIG welding outside on pressure piping (xray quality work) without issue. We put together 2each 4x8 sheet of lightweight plywood with a 2x2 frame with hinges between the 2 frames stood up with the 8' in vertical position. These were effective in blocking the wind in most cases. Sometime it would require 2 sets of these set in V formation to block of swirling winds but still very effective and fairly cheap. Using outdoor grade materials would mean that they were almost weather proof also. We would sometimes have to anchor them to keep them from blowing over. Some tie wire and a small piece of rebar driven into the ground worked pretty good or even a large weight like a 6" pipe flange wired to the top hinge also. It would also work for spray painting.