On Miller wire feeds there is a on/off switch on the back. It is small and hard to see if it is dusty. Newbies are not usually aware of it. Turn it off and they will most likely mess with it for awhile then head for maintnance. When they leave, turn it back on. Maintnance arrives to find no problem. Repeat after ten minutes. Drives them nuts.
By pypLynr 
Date 07-25-2008 15:49
Edited 07-25-2008 16:03
Graphite powder on their nose piece of glasses... on their gloves... headband... tool handles... everything ! Even put it on their vessel roller wheels... the vessel shell just sits there, won't rotate. Pull out their tape measure and paint it black , leaving about 6ft. at the start useable... sprinkle sneezing powder in the hood roll it around and dump the excess out... put their truck up on blocks, with the wheels barely off the ground... watch their faces when it won't go...revvin' it and cussin', its funny...
Ahhhhh lets see....
We had some digital wire feeders that you could get into and toy with the settings. It was funny to see the big blue flash of the .035 wire taking everything the power source could throw at it (probably around 300 + amps, 30 something volts) and loosing. burn backs a fun setting to toy with, especially when you could make the machine think your only doing short stitch welds when the welders expecting to do a nice long fillet.
Nozzle jelly jammed into the gas diffuser was a fun one.
A solvent (or other flammable liquid) soaked rag carefully placed near someone who's welding/grinding.
With GTAW or GMAW, taking the hose from the gas regulator to the machine and stuffing something (tape gum paper) in their to stop up the gas, that one can take hours to figure out.
One that's impressive but I wouldn't recommend (unless you're nuts...), the dreaded "rain of fire". This was accomplished by taking an air gun and a Mig and pointing the air stream right at the arc.
Bad news if you're on the receiving end... I've seen molten metal fly a good 60+ feet and still be hot enough to make someone dance. Like I said, BAD idea, but very impressive to watch.
One sleepy morning in welding school I walked into my booth and went to take my bench off the desk, only to find it welded solid to the table... along with all the pieces I was working on...
The guy who did it wasn't too happy when I turned his truck into my own personal garbage can... ;)
OK, the 3 man lift. You have 4 guys, 3 of them are in on the joke. You get the smallest man to say "I bet $$$$ I can pick up 3 men all at the same time"!!! Have another guy say he can't. Let this go back and forth with the "4th" guy watching and listening in. What happens is, the guy that is going to do the lifting, picks out the men he wants to lift. The 3 men lay on the ground side by side. They all lock their arms and legs together, which means, the guy in the middle can't move AT ALL!!! The man going to do the lift, walks up, bends over like he's going to grab them to pick up, but instead, he un-zips the middle man's pants, and fills his manhood with a tube of grease!!!
Cut the string blindfolded;
This is where a guy lays a string on a wooden skid and has his co workers take turns trying to cut it with a axe while blindfolded. The ones in on it will miss on purpose. So, now it's your "victim's" turn. But before he starts, remove his cap, saying he'll get a better swing on it. Lay his cap down on the skid. As he swings the axe down on his cap, tell him he missed and try again. Keep doing this till he figures somethings up. When he takes his blindfold off, his cap will be in pieces.
Zip Lock Bag Bomb;
After lunch, I would keep my sandwich bag, along with other co-workers. At the end of the shift, we would fill with oxygen/acetylene mix. Then we would place them under where the next shift would pick up on the weld out. Cover the bags just enough where they wouldn't notice them, but still take sparks to set it off. Come in next morning and ask the night shift if they had a "blast" last night!!!
How about the old sharpen a bunch of stainless rod cut up to look like tungsten. lol The look on a guys face after his tungsten burns back to the collet body is a classic. It gets even better when they think their machine is set on reverse polarity and they go back and check it.
Never-sieze in the gloves or on the headband of a hood.
get a couple of buddies and the new hand together and get a 80# bag of sackcrete. make bets with a few of the buddies seein who can hold the sackrete up over their head the longest. naturally the green hand will want to show how stout he is, and when he does and holds that sack up there for a little while, get one of the buddies to sneak around w/ a knife and slit that sack right down the middle with all the concrete matter falling down all over the greenie. priceless!
Well shucks I am surprized no one tried tieing 3ea 20' (or longer) 1" rebar together and make bets on who can Clean & jerk them. Works real good when you have several college football players on a summer job.
Well I pulled this one the other day.
