Welding Tips and Tricks

My dad has recently been laid off. In the last few years he has put quite an impressive shop together in his garage. He has a plasma cam, a few different multiprocess welders, and a ton of stuff at his disposal. He wants to get into fabricating something out of his garage for a living. He's been playing around with a few random small things but I was just curious what any of you would make if you had the tools and resources available? I'm not a fabricator at all. I weld pipe in plants and have no clue as for ideas Of actually fabricating products.

Have him talk to a local art gallery or antique/rustic furniture store. They are always looking for metal art.

@Exnailpounder is making tables using distressed wood and regular steel and selling them faster than he can make them

The table gig has slumped off...I think its the weather but I have had a few inquiries about the expanded metal topped patio tables. The wood topped ones sold like hotcakes for awhile but I think that lack of exposure has slowed things. One of the stores I was selling in is closing down and the other has toldme they are very slow. Signs of the economy? I think its because it is warm weather now and everyone is outside doing things. I am gonna go back to it this fall when it gets cold and everyone heads indoors.

This is going to be a LONG answer:
There is no money in fabricating stuff people can buy from the store, but there IS money in custom, one-up fabrication. Finding those customers can be tricky, but they are out there. Here are some suggestions!
Join local contractor/builder group. I did this when I lived in Wisconsin and had my own shop. I ended up working with interior designers who catered to rich folks making very high end, one of a kind iron … whatever. I did planter boxes. A mail box post that I charged $2,000 and for which I should have charged double that – I would have got it. $800 for a cover that went over the door bell ringer! (Really)!! Doors for the custom wine rack. Custom wine rack. Very custom handrails. It was through the contractor group that I met the designers. At a dinner for the group, I put on a power point show detailing what exactly I was able to build. Also, for that dinner, I built a very custom candle stick holder for each table at the dinner, then we had a raffle to give those away. Being able to put hands on to these one of a kind, custom designs helped the designers really think about possibilities …

If you have a lot of wineries in your area, start building wine racks. Start with some very basic designs. Do a couple of high end designs. Ask a local winery if you can put on a ‘custom welding display’ some Saturday when they are busy, and fabricate a few using the welder on your work truck and a set of torches. People are fascinated by metal. Have a few ‘basic’ wine racks available for sale. You won’t make money on those, but you will make money on the guy who wants a very custom, one of a kind, wine rack.

Along the same lines as building the wine racks, build garden art. Make those stupid hook thingies that they hand plants from. Add vine wraps and flowers. Blah, blah, blah. Go to a flea market and sell them, or make a deal with a local garden store to build some of this higher end, custom stuff. Again, this is an outreach to try and find those high end customers.

Do all of this in addition to the equipment repair, custom field welding, custom metal fabrication, alloy welding and everything else that a ‘normal’ weld shop does. Don’t turn anything down. You will likely find that the money is down this road or that road, and as that might be the case, pursue the money, even if it is not your dream of what you want to do.

I hope this is helpful. It worked for me, for awhile!

I will agree that building stuff that you HOPE people will buy is a dead end. At my end of the welding spectrum, repair work, I am finding out more and more what a throw-away society we are. The people that come to me for repairs are usually older people who value money and don't like to just pitch something repairable. The newer generation just throws things away and replaces.
The real money in welding is in the pro end of it like techinical welding in the refineries and power plants. The problem with that type of welding is you lose tha ability to be creative most of the time. You prep a weld and weld it...boring.
I like repair work because I get to think about the slickest way to fix something or build something but if I relied on it for my living I would starve to death. I am realizing more that repair shops are few and far between because no one wants anything repaired and making money from it is a hard road uphill.
There is an aqua-cutting/fab shop here in town and at one time it was a huge deal and very busy. Nowadays they cut and fab billet aluminum parts for Victory motorcycles and have to travel to shows and set up booths to peddle their wares. The owner is about ready to call it quits.
I don't know the answers but I do have a sense of what to do and what not to do these days.