Sad reminder of the importance of welding

[tnjind]

OR..... don't learn anything from the moral of the story.

 

[Rustyiron]

True or not, it is a scenario that is no joke and not hard to imagine happening.

 

[tcreeley]

I had an acquaintance a while back, good man, tell me that when he had built himself a cherry picker for his truck to grab and load logs, he tacked it all together. Then he had a friend who was a good welder go through and weld it. He told me that he could weld, but he wasn't going to depend on his skills loading logs with it. I had to admire his common sense. He was a handy person- had a backhoe mounted on the back of an old truck cab. He had put a 4 cylinder car engine in an old tractor, transmission and all. He knew what he was doing. He took risks, but they were calculated - not from ignorance or overconfidence.

 

[/pine]

I can only speak for this local...but here you can't get a tag/registration for a homemade trailer without a DOT certified inspection...and they don't just check to make sure the lights work...!

 

[MinnesotaDaveChalmers]

I can only speak for this local...but here you can't get a tag/registration for a homemade trailer without a DOT certified inspection...and they don't just check to make sure the lights work...!

Unfortunately where I am, they just want receipts for materials so they know how much tax to charge.
No inspection, no questions on who built it, nothing.

 

[/pine]

Unfortunately where I am, they just want receipts for materials so they know how much tax to charge.
No inspection, no questions on who built it, nothing.

Yeah...A lot of places just want a weight from a certified scale... a shame...too many regs where they don't belong and not enough where they do...

 

[Scooby074]

I can only speak for this local...but here you can't get a tag/registration for a homemade trailer without a DOT certified inspection...and they don't just check to make sure the lights work...!

Here the police check it to make sure it is not stolen. Then a SN is issued. Then permit and MVI. Nothing special about the MVI, just a normal trailer inspection by a mechanic. No weld inspections, no engineering checks etc. Its kind of a joke.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I always over weld just about anything that I work on, not because I don't trust my welding but I never liked the engineer that spec'd out the very minimum requirements for safety or load rating. I always put a little more than required unless there is a real reason for small welds like warping of the weldment.
I know my welds will always hold more than the steel I am welding to.

 

[Sodo]

No doubt that trailer tongues occasionally fall off, or are wrenched off.

But that story is just a bit too melodramatic to be believable.

Agreed, story may be based on a true story, or 100% madeup or a mix. And no mention whether the safety chains tore off too.

This melodromatic writing on the internets must strike a chord because it's often imitated. Often fwd'd around in chain-emails, it's easy to spot.

I know my welds will always hold more than the steel I am welding to.

Same here too, often no reason not to, if welding one side is good enough then weld both sides. There's often a way to weld things up such that the weld strength is a smaller factor of the overall strength.

 

[Cat_Driver]

Moral of the story anything anyone build or fixes can break and kill someone, even bran new cars from the factory - just ask Toyota, GM, Chrysler etc.
Bottom line, everyone can DO NOTHING, build NOTHING and never leave the house and life forever, well if you don't ever take a shower because you can slip and fall. OH and never use gas or electric because gas can explode and electricity can electrocute you.

Moral of the story - STUFF HAPPENS and you can't fix stupid.