I live in Wilmington Delaware and am starting a mobile welding business. I am almost done with Del-Techs welding program. I just picked out a 2008 F-450 with a 9' utility bed. I also am getting ready to finance an AirAdvantage 500 to mount behind the cab. Does anybody out there have anything they think I should know before I go spend $70,000 on equiptment? I can use all the advice I can get.
Hello brian bachman, first off welcome to the forum. Now as to your consideration for starting a mobile welding business. For anyone coming straight out of school it is somewhat ambitious to take on a business start-up right out of the gate, I'm not saying that it can't be done, but you might want to reign yourself in just a bit and possibly get some experience on the back of someone else before you dive-in headfirst. Without the benefit of some experience, work contacts, and developing a decent reputation for quality work to bring your customers back, you may be hanging yourself out there a bit too far. Consider your opening statement in this post, $70,000 dollar investment in basic equipment, include maintenance costs and upkeep for this equipment, fuel, bonding and insurance and numerous other hidden costs that you may not have considered. You would definitely have to hit the ground running in order to even come close to taking care of your financial commitments. Also consider the credit lines that you might need to cover materials and parts for jobs that you may have to front money on, then consider the payment timeline of some of your perspective customers, they will definitely not all pay upon completion. I believe others on the forum will have a tremendous amount of additional information to provide to you, consider all of their suggestions carefully and then proceed as you see fit.
If you have not included all of the information with regard to your considerations and situation and you are already aware of much of what I have put forth, please forgive me. I realize you may already have business sense and understanding from previous experiences or endeavors and this may not be new to you. Just a few items for consideration. Best regards, aevald
I'm experienced in many ways, but for me to open a shop around here would cost a million bucks. If I have the million bucks do I still want to open the shop? Nope. I think you have some of the same questions to ask yourself. As with aevald, I don't mean to be condescending. You may already have a secretary and bookeeper and yes, a lawyer that knows your situation before something happens. Because in this business **** happens all the time. Don't forget the receivable battles either. It amazes me how many people think paying a contractor is optional.
All that said, sounds like an adventure worth considering. Brand new truck? Brand new machine? Sounds like fun.
i agree with first two posts completely. Wow starting out with all new equipment and at least 70 K in finance. your looking at near 1600 bucks per month right off the top.
It can be done but it won't be easy. Do you already have jobs lined up? Collecting is often a 60 to 90 to 120 day plus ordeal. The ones who often have the money to pay don't. Sometimes ever. I think I would sign on with an established contractor and get my foot in the door first. Do you really need all new equipment. You can always upgrade later. A 4 or 5k machine welds just as good as the 20k machine you mentioned and its a whole lot easier to get your money out of.
I too think it would be wise to work for a few other people to find out which way the wind blows and get some field experience where You have some others to learn from. All new gear at one time is a huge ammount to finance, and interest is lost money, don't let anybody fool You about that.
What sort of work are You planning to do? There is a lot of in plant pipe work in that area that You could do with a Trailblazer, a TIG setup & suitcase feeder.
Hi Brian,
How much would you charge/hr with a 70k setup?
Just a couple kind thoughts for one that seems to have the ambition of a young man.
I ran a welding truck at the local strip mines for my first 5 years out of high school. 20 years later I was tired of my current job and decided to get back into welding.
I spent less than 5k for a 12' trailer with a used Miller Big 40, torches, gang box full o tools. I ve been toting it around since last October making $70/hr. I'm turning down work. I took on a newbie/partner to share the work last month, he has about 5k in his trailer as well.
My rates have always been agreed to prior to arriving at the job, the customer doesn't know what I'm bringing unless they ask. When something needs fixed NOW.. curb appeal doesn't mean squat.
Some are motivated by having to drag thier but outta bed because they got to make $$ for the bills, I prefer the feeling of putting $500-$700 a day away for future use. My partner and I would like to eventually build our own welding trucks but plan to keep the trailers anyway.
Running a business has nothing to do with welding. Learn both.
Are you confident that you can convince a potential customer your the best man for the job. Learn sales/interviewing skills
How are your debt collection skills?
Hire a good accountant!
Good Luck
RW
Brian,
With all thats already been said, all I can add is, if you ever need insection services, get ahold of me and we will talk. LOL
JRW
New truck, new welder, new everything to start out is a recipe for total financial disaster. Like others have said, that's $1600/month right off the top. Now the other things that you also need to take right off the top: $1M liability insc $200-500/month, fuel for truck and welder $400-600/month, workers comp $100-300, and many others that I'm missing. Do the math and get $3,000 per month out the door before you have even started to get money in your pocket. Now take into consideration that most companies pay you in 45-60 days, and you have $6,000 out before you even get a pay check. Take your $70k and put it in the bank, drop $4,000-6,000 on a machine and maybe the same for a truck and tools, then use the rest to pay your bills for the next year as you spend your time getting customers and finding enough work to keep you busy.
It's not easy to stay busy all the time, but your bills are due every month regardless of your work load. Browse this forum and look at all of the guys that are looking for the next big shut down or pipeline. It's hard to start out from scratch and find enough work to pay the bills. The best thing you can do is find an established contractor and sub from them for a year or two to get your feet wet and gain some real world experience and grow your business from there.
Being a good welder is only 1/3 of operating a successful mobile welding service. The other 2/3 of it is being an account manager, bill collector, boss, bookkeeper, financial manager, sales manager, job estimator, and a host of other task that come and go as needed. At least if you are sub-ing from a big contractor many of these tasks are done for you and you can concentrate on arcing and sparking.
It's hard, but surly not impossible. Proceed with financial caution, and save everything you can to cover yourself when times are slow!
Good luck!
Mark
You forgot to mention that on just about every job he'll have to test. He can have the best looking setup onsite but if he doesn't pass he's leaving. Usually on his own dime in and out.
This is a great adventure. Good luck on your journey!
One other thing after all your business exspence you got to live house bills and so on and you got to have running money for those late checks
Really good point. Many miss the logistics & overhead cost involved, just looking at the payout, NOT all the work & money it will take to get there.
A hard lesson to learn the HARD way for sure. Glad I never went that route. I'm poor, but I don't owe anyone any money. SW.
Thanks alot guys for the valuble information. Here is my situauion. I'm being told by every welder I meet that there is so much work that I will be turning work down right away. My welding instructor ( a 40 year man )says my first problem is going to be deciding how much work I'm willing to turn down before I hire another welder. In fact, he was going to buy 5 trucks and load them with new equiptment but apparently decided against it for personal reasons. I managed William DuPonts 900 acre Rocky Hill estate for a couple years maintaining his Whitetail herd. It is so hard for him to get a welder to come out that he just buys replacement equiptment. His property is full of working expensive eqiptment that just needs a weld. I know everything I'm buying is top of the line and the most expensive. My plan is to make this same $70,000 purchase one year from now and put a welder behind the wheel of what I'm buying now. You all have given me alot to think about. I haven't sign for anything yet but it couldn't be anymore ready. The truck with an 11' utility bed fitted with an AirVantage 500. The guys are waiting for the go ahead to start making the bed according to the specs I gave them to fit the rest of the eqiuptment. I would appreciate any further comments. Thanks, Brian.
Well, that's a good start on getting some work. But in the big picture, that one account will not pay the bills for a whole year. If you were welding everything that they needed for 8-12 hours a day, how long would it be before it was all fixed? You would finish all the work in a week or month or whatever, and then you're just left repairing things as the need it. That's when getting more work becomes important.
If your talking to these other welders and they are turning work down, ask them why they turned it down, the ask them to pass it your way. They are not turning down the good easy stuff for good paying companies, they are turning down the crap work for the companies that are lucky to pay in 90 days. If that's the case then that's the work you get if you can afford going a few months without getting paid. You have to start somewhere, and if doing the crap work for bad payers is how you start, make the best of it. In any case you must grow your name as a good welder doing quality work for a competitive rate. Ask these other welders what their rate is and set yours in the same range. Don't try to undercut them just to get some work, you'll make more enemies than friends (see Sourdough's post Unethical Business). If you do, they won't be talking to you at the gas station, and they surly won't be passing work your way. One other thing to keep in mind is that welding repair or mobile welding services don't have a day off, and when the phone rings at 2am on Saturday night, you are rolling in route to the site by 2:20am.
I still stand by my earlier post that you're taking one hullava risk going that far in debt before you even have tested the waters. But it's like Vegas, the higher the risk, the higher the reward....But the higher the loss when the house wins. Settle for lower risk, get some good used stuff, and if business is that good, but your 70k stuff in 6 months and send your new hire out in your old stuff. And if business is that good, I'm rolling your way cuz Michigan is not :) I will not undercut you :) :)
I wasn't counting on work on any of the estates around here. That is just one more source of work if I need it. The reason I refered to the DuPont estate is because when I worked there I called to get a welder to repair a chisel plow. The only people I could get to come out said they couldn't make it for seven weeks because of backup work. My instructor seems to think that as soon as I get my equiptment, especially this eqiuptment, I'm going to be offered to subcontract for one of these outfits that work the refineries around here. The only other person I know about around here who started a mobile welding business was put under contract right away. He payed his truck and equiptment off in six months. Now I hear he works six months to make his hundred thousand and takes off six months. Right now I'm trying to get the contract before I buy the equiptment. If I get the contract I'll probably get the good stuff. But if I don't I'll get the less expensive gear and truck. Thank for the advice. It's very much appreciated.
I don't think you'll get a contract without testing for the company. Most welding contractors need to do a welding test before they strike an arc on anybodies job site. I know 100k sounds like a lot of money, but in the world of self employed contractors it's not that much. Remember that 3000/month out the door that we talked about earlier? That's 36k off of that 100k. Then Uncle Sam wants about 30% so that's another 30k from that 100k. Less than 35k left to live on for the rest of you living cost. Now some contractors must supply the rod and gas on their dime.
Double that 100k and your doing ok.
Hi MGD Custom Weld. You ( and several other people ) gave me some good advice a while ago and I want to show you the welding rig I went out an bought. I'm going to try to upload a photo.
Well, post that picture!!!
If your having problems posting it, you have to write your post first, then post it, then once the post is posted, click the attach tab on your post and it will allow you to attach something to your post. If that makes any sence???
I won't hijack the thread, but get some pics of that new shop up as you get there! See ya Mark! S.W.
The site is clear of the old barn, and we will be setting poles on Monday. I still have to drop an old silo, and we plan on doing that on Saturday. Then some minor concrete work on Sunday, and new construction on Monday. Should only be a few weeks, and yes I'll post some pics.
I can't post the photo. Apparently my file is too big. It's just a $100 camera and it's one of the more popular Kodaks, so I can't understand the problem. I was told I will have to download some photo resizing software and then shrink the photo before I can send. Does everyone have this problem or am I missing something? Anyway I would really like you guys to see this rig. It's a 2008 F-350 Super Duty with a 8' Omaha Utility bed. I have a new Miller Pro 300 mounted sideways in the bed so I have room for a large Rigid job box. I have a full oxyacetylene set-up along with Millers largest plasma cutter, the Spectrum 2050. I also have Millers Suitcase Extreme 12 VS Wirefeeder. As I said before I did really well in Del Techs welding program. My instructor assused me I could make a really good living welding. I dabbled in real estate for a while - bought low and sold high, so I am able to pay off the truck if I want. I haven't yet talked to my accountant about the best plan of action with the money in my account. The thing is I want to move. I know I'm in a good area for welding -everyone here needs something welded- but I don't like the idea of raising my two girls here. I am doing alot of decorative work from my home - I watch the girls while my wife works. People are after my garden gates. Where is a good place to open up a welding shop and raise a family? I hope location won't soon matter as I am in the process of creating a website for the welding business and I can do everything online. The business is Graydie Welding LLC 753-0695, named after my two daughters. Thanks for your help. I'll try to resize my photo.
Hello Brian, if you are using microsoft software on your computer there is likely already an existing program loaded on it that can do that for you. When you have your picture up on your computer right-click on your mouse, look through the options that will pop up on that block, there should be one that says: "open with", click on that it will give you some options, select the one that says: " microsoft office picture manager". When you click on that it will open a window with your picture in it and will have a couple of options on the tool bar, one will be listed as " edit picture", by clicking on that option you will bring another side box up that will give you a host of items to choose from: brightness and contrast, color, crop, rotate, resize, etc. By clicking on the "resizing" one you will probably be given a number of choices for making changes to your picture, I generally select the choice that says something like: "large web picture", once I have made all of my selections for modifying the picture I hit the close button at the upper right hand corner of the screen, by doing that you will be given some choices again, I select save picture and it automatically saves any of the changes that you have made during editing. Now your picture will be correctly sized to include as an attachment to the forum. I hope that your computer has this program on it, it has made my picture inclusions a terrific amount easier, Best regards, aevald
Ambition is a good thing. Too much ambition is not
That's an awfully BIG risk to be taking right out of the gate with little experience & no capitol to invest.
I sure don't want to come off like a jerk, just really think about what you're going to do before dropping that kind of debt on your shoulders for the next several years.
I know a few guys who went belly up, bankrupt, 100% financing large amounts of stock for a small business that failed 18 months later.
Go to work for someone first & get a feel for it & see the ins & outs for yourself. Possibly start out with a few pieces of GOOD used equipment. Add on as you get more experience & work.
All I'm saying is think it over.....REALLY think it over.... You'll be glad you didn't jump in head first. :-)
Good luck. S.W.
Famous well proven statement, "if it was that easy everyone would do it."
I got me one of those EASY buttons from Staples.
No one should be without one! :-)
I love the EASY buttons, as an inspector I have one on my desk and I aggravate my welders with it daily. . . . . I'm waiting for the R rated version!!
when i first started i had a 1500.00 redface still had the vacum ideler on it and a 1986 chevy single cab dually i rented my bottles just 1 set thats was it i picked everything else along the way some was given most i paid for but starting out used equipment is the way to go it seems like it takes forever to get going goodand sometimes it does but it's worth the weight i have never bought a brand new machine or truck but now i do buy my tools brand new start slow then go big i would never go 70k in debt even if i could afford it
I never bought a tool until I needed it and then I tried to figure a way to work it (or part of it) into the bid. If you are looking for an area try to find one with few or no welding shops. Gates and staircases and whatever comes through the door will keep you going if you aggressively market yourself. I had a truck and did that for a while, my best advertising tool was the newspaper it seemed like. I also looked for small plumbing and heating shops to get jobs from as they usually needed welding done but didn't have a full timer who did it. Any dirt company dump trucks, belly dumps, side dumps will constantly be needing patch work on the trucks and equipment I had a steady contract with a couple of those before I moved back to CO and sold my truck. I work for someone else again now because I got into inspection but thats 6 months a year. I still have all my equipment and I'm in the process of setting up a little shop to run the other 6. Check auctions, ebay and craigslist for tools there's a lot of good used stuff out there. The big thing starting out is keeping the expenses down. Figure every possible expense into your bid pricing and realize that you need to be taking home at least what someone would pay you as a welder on a steady basis to make it worthwhile. If your not than your spinning your wheels and you need to change something. As the above post says if it was easy everyone would be doing it. Working for yourself means working 80 hrs. a week so you don't have to work 40 for someone else. Oh one more thing if I was you I'd buy a manufacturers shop manual for every truck, welder or piece of equipment you buy even if all you ever do is routine maintenance on them it saves a lot of bucks and down time!!!
Update. Everything went well. Business is booming. I know buying all that equipment with no experience was a risk but it worked out great. I love going to work everyday welding and I’ve never made this much money. Check me out. Www.graydiewelding.com. Thanks for everything.
Well done brian!
Good looking rails.
Tyrone
Good to hear that things are working out. I just realized that your thread was started back in 2008, so this update was a good one to read this many years later. The fact that you love going to work everyday is a huge blessing and produces good vibes for you and your family and everyone involved in your day to day business. I love working with contractors that love their work and what they do. It shows when I have to review the work of some one who loves or hates their job. My reports usually reflect some of that attitude due to the quality of the work that I inspect.
Keep on keeping on, looking forward to the next update
Update. Been killing it. Up to three trucks and tons of happy customers. Here's the link www.graydiewelding.com. New website about a month away. We have over 1700 handrails now on the Delmarva Peninsula, all guaranteed forever and maintained by us with free inspections and repaints. Been an interesting ride. I can't wait to get up and go to work everyday. I have my daughter working with me intending to run her own rig. Check out the website and Facebook Page.
https://www.facebook.com/GraydieWeldingArtGallery. Have a great day and thanks for the advise!
Good to hear things are well with you and your projects
