kermdawg wrote:
Umm, are we talkin about the same US? :p In the US, they will ship the CGC out to mexico/india/taiwan to have it filled, then ship it back to the US.
:):) God bless America.
That is true for most western world countries. In the years leading up to WW2 and the years after, little Norway had the worlds second largest merchant fleet. It was one of Norways biggest employers. Today it's still huge (Frontline as one example), but with only a handful (literally) of Norwegians being employed. Most employees are from the Philippines and other low cost countries. Almost all product refining industries (that by nature are labour intensive), has been moved abroad to low cost third world countries, or have been closed down for good.
So when you're talking about labour intensive processes, the tendency is the same in all western world countries.
Because the cost of living is much higher in the US than let's say Taiwan or China, labour is much cheaper in the latter.
In Norway that "problem" is aggravated by our political egalitarian system (socialism). A surgeon makes a lot more money than an unskilled worker in the US and most other countries. That is of course also true in Norway, but to a much less extent.
The US surgeon probably makes 10-15 times more money than let's say someone who cleans his/her office. In Norway he/she only makes 3-4 times more, meaning the surgeon earns substantially less money than his/her American counterpart, and the cleaner makes a lot more than his American counterpart.
Lifting the wages of unskilled and low paid workers is of course a good thing, and leads to more social stability and a less divided society. However, it also means there are more money circulating (everybody can afford more) and the prices rise until there's a balance between supply and demand. Even though the Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark) are very similar both with regard to political systems and living standards, prices are much higher in Norway than in the two other countries. Wages (for typical blue collar workers) are much higher in Norway than in Sweden and Denmark. That has led to a massive "invasion" of workers that commute from Sweden on a daily or weekly basis. After EU changed their rules a few decades ago allowing labour to move freely between countries within the European market, we've seen a massive surge of workers from earlier east block countries like Poland, Estonia, Lithauen etc, coming to do contract work in Norway.
Before it got regulated, Norwegian contractors could hire guest workers on half the Norwegian tariff (which still would be 5 times more than they got paid back home) which of course resulted in strong reactions from the Norwegian labour unions with accusations of social dumping. A change of laws made it illegal to hire foreign workers on contracts that paid less than the established Norwegian minimum tariff.
kermdawg wrote:And not to be a jerk, but who do you think invented that sophisticated machine that takes jobs away from shmoes like you and me? Some American more than likely. Sad to say.
You misunderstand. It's not a question of which country is more sophisticated than the other. The US is the worlds largest economy, and has as a result of its massive resources (both human and financial) been able to achieve things no other nations would be able to do. (Like putting a man to the moon, inventing the atomic bomb, nuclear power, modern computer technology, and so on). All these things require massive financial resources, and a collective brain power that no other nation can match.
However, like mentioned earlier, high skilled labour earns lots of money, whilst unskilled labour is at the bottom of the totem pole (with regard to wages at least). On Discovery channel they have a series called "Dirty Jobs" with Mike Rowe. What strikes me (when watching the show through Norwegian eyes), is that a lot of the work teams that are portrayed, do things in a cumbersome labour intensive way. Even Mike reacts sometimes and says "wouldn't it be easier to use a (name given)-machine to do this", whereupon the guy he's interviewing answers "that would be too expensive, we couldn't defend the investment. This is cheaper and makes us competitive".
In Norway, any contractor would say the opposite. "We
had to invest in the (american
) machine, otherwise we would have to hire three more guys, and that would be to expensive."
Reason being that:
a) Wages are much higher here
b) Taxes are higher, (typically 38-43 % for a blue collar worker) which means the pay has to be even higher to compensate for that
c) The employer has to pay an annual state tax amounting to 15 % of the employees gross wages for hiring someone
d) It's (with a few exceptions) illegal to hire people on short term contracts. You have to hire them permanently or face major fines
e) Labour rights are very strong. If you hire someone and they turn out to be crap (not entirely useless, but way below the average), you can't fire them unless you can prove beyond any doubt that they have been
grossly negligent or are actively sabotaging the work, or stealing from the employer.
In sum:
Prices in Norway are very high compared to the rest of the world. Anything that requires manual labour gets expensive real quick. Most Norwegians who live within reasonable distance from the Swedish border, drives to Sweden if they need their car repaired or serviced, as the prices are
less than half of Norway. Similarly it is often cheaper to order a Swedish contractor to come to Norway and build your house (even if you have to house the workers), than to have it built buy a Norwegian contractor.
You just have to trust me on the gas bottle thing. If I want a custom mix, I'll probably have to pay a lot for it.
From what I've said, it might seem that Norway must be a horrible place to live, but it has its perks too. I'm not gonna go in to that, I've written far too much already. What I can say instead is that it's a real thrill for someone like me to visit the US. Not only because everything is much cheaper, but since you have a population of around 300 million versus our 4,8 million, you constitute a huge market. That means a big variety of products that are not available here, and also a huge variety of everything from cultural offers to societal variations found nowhere else in the world.
EDIT:
kermdawg wrote:Anyway, instead of talkin to the guy loadin the cylinder, try talkin to a manager or somethin like that. If you use enough gas, or if the guy likes you enough, he'll probably give you a good deal on a premixed cylinder, maybe keep a couple around for you premixed.
That's probably a good idea.
kermdawg wrote:Im sure your not the -only- person in town that needs an AR/HE mix.
LOL, It appears I am!
Through all the videos I've watched and literature I've read on the subject, I've come to realize that different argon mixtures are the most commonly used shielding gas mixtures. Even so, the guy didn't have that in stock!
They
did have a few stock argon mixtures, but I can't remember what they were, only that they weren't Ar/He. I guess most professional shops mix gases themselves on the spot, like Cjfabs described earlier in this thread:
Cjfabs wrote: Two bottles, 1 argon, 1 helium. A flow meter attached to the argon bottle. On the exit side of the flow meter attach a Y valve. Run your line to your machine from 1 of the two exit ports of the Y valve. On the helium bottle that has a flow meter attached to it, run that line to the other exit port of the Y valve. For starters flow 5 cfm of helium and 15 cfm of argon. It works amazing. Try it, if this is not your setup. Let me know what you think. Cheers.
As this is just a hobby to me, I can't afford to rent two bottles of gas (my wife would kill me), so I'll have to have them fill my one bottle with the finished mix.
And if I haven't misunderstood completely, you all say that an Ar/He mixture (maybe 75/25 like you suggest) could be used for most metals, not only aluminum.