Another scammer

I bought 2 units of pallet jack cause they were on sale, and I needed them.  One I was going to modify to use as a sheet press, the other to move stuff around the shop.

I noticed after ordering a few days that it had not shipped and the seller feedback was very low 30% 

I filed to cancel the order because it had not shipped yet.  But then the seller denies the cancellation, and ships me a tiny envelope of ass wipes.

Double insult.

China thinks they gonna be number one when this is what the average Chinese does to the ret of the world?

I do have a buyer guarantee thru Lazada, and my money will get refunded in a couple days.   But even still.

Saturday morning here. Wife has fucked off to her moms house on the bus.  One worker absent without calling in.  One guy painting, Sexytary is building some stuff from lumber, and the 2 welders are building plastic lumber molds.

Bonus buys

 Hit up the used palled place up the street from me.  Now I got a pallet jack I need pallets.  

The seller had a whole stack of slightly damaged GI roof sheet.  28 inches x 8 feet.  Along one edge its a bit damaged, but usable.  

$5.80usd each was the price.  I need 16 pieces to roof the welding area, so it all came out to a bit less than a hundred bucks.  I still need purlins, tek screws and some other stuffs, but for the price it is a steal.  Damn tempted to go there and buy out the entire stock she has.  

I had the boys walk over to the store and they carried our trophy back to the shop.  Looked like ants carrying leaves.  

Meanwhile getting the shop more organized and stuff put on pallets today, in prep for paint this weekend.  I gotta get the shop looking good for a show and tell visit next week.  

Put up a small sign saying "this property not for sale" in english, and chinese  Just in case the guy gets ideas. 4x4 foot vinyl banner is at the printer now.

Targeted by a scammer

 So the idiot Chinese-Filipino who used to reside in my shop location went to my shop gate yesterday with a pack of fresh off jumbo jet Han Chinese.

He arrogantly demands entrance.  Tells me, "We are here to inspect the property"  I was a bit dumbfounded as to what the hell could he be talking about.  

At first I thought this group was a bunch of city inspectors. Then I started realizing after a few seconds and wondered who the fuck were these Chinese? 

He said they were here to buy the place.  

I told him, the hell they will.  I just spent a lot of money on this property and I have a valid lease and I will get lawyers involved and sue.

He starts blustering about how he will call my landlord.  The whole appeal to authority bullshit.  

I called the landlord and asked him if the property was for sale.  Landlord told me not for sale, and the Chinese guy is not acting on his behalf.  

So now I gotta post up signs in English, and probably Chinese and Korean for good measure saying "this property not for sale"

This is a common enough scam over here. People selling property they do not own with fake titles and all that.  This is because people are too cheap to hire a lawyer to research the title at City hall and the courts, as well as there is no title insurance here.  

When a bank loans on property here, the bank typically does the due diligence, but there is no insurance there either.  But at least if the property is fake title, then you can just walk away from the property and leave the bank screwed.

This guy now has me on edge wondering what other scammers are out there targeting me, as yesterday we discovered someone entered the property and stole all the bananas in the back.

Meanwhile to troll the wife I told her I bought a new truck.  Sent her this picture.

So then the silly woman starts insisting that I HAD TO BUY a new car.  Ford Escape of all things.  I was like what the hell???  Last Friday the bank account was at 40 bucks.  

She also breathlessly told me all the 'wonderful' benefits of buying a membership at the Manila Pen Hotel.  Like I need that shit.  Still on that one. 

Thankfully she pissing off to see her mom for the weekend on her own dime.  Cause dare she actually use any money she earns towards paying for the electricity, internet, food, water or anything else.

The fabrication fiends

 I got rid of one welder guy 2 weeks ago.  He could weld, but for what I was paying him, and the fact he would just go off on his own direction, when I would give instruction, was not acceptable.  Plus always showing up late, first to leave a few min early, and absent a lot.

So I got another guy referred by the other welder.  These guys are like a matched set of dishes.  Barely talk, and stuff gets done fast.  They even look alike.  

They made 3 big tables from angle bar yesterday, and fabbed some other stuff.  Stacking the tables on top of each other, they were exactly the same.  

The tables will have a miter saw mounted to it, and a jig so that once the plastic lumber is removed from the mold, it gets trimmed, and then another rack it will go to hold it straight as it cools.  

It started a few months ago, when I was asked to estimate every thing needed to build a mini plastic lumber factory.  So I basically just took every tool and supply we used, put it in a presentation with costs and sent it.  So far that customer did not buy it, but someone else came in and bought 3 production lines, except with much larger extrusion machines, based on my initial sales presentation.  

It is my largest single order ever.  Enough to buy a pretty decent new car.

My trophy order is still not done.  The client wants crates to hold all the things made from my lumber also. I am so sick of looking at these things now.

My plastic lumber order from last month was never collected by the client.  They have until tomorrow to get it or I will post it for sale elsewhere, or use it myself.  I am pretty pissed at them, cause I worked on my day off, in 90+ degree heat all damn day making it, plus paying overtime for workers on other days.  Plus the fact that they treated me like shit.  I had zero problem when they had a different interior designer, the previous 3 orders and a down payment was received. 

This was a purchase order only, and no down pay.  This is a thousand dollar problem for me now.  

meanwhile.. file this under the cultural revolution Amerika style

Gots some windows and doin some injection molding

Next up is the floor paint, and some molding made from my plastic lumber.  The window frame is made from my plastic lumber.  

Floor paint is one of those things that has to be done and then left overnight or over the weekend.  Just been busy to do it.

Below is the new dual shaft shredder.  It is still awaiting the install of the gears that move the blades towards each other.  The last set of gears was only 6mm thick plate steel and they bent and sheared the teeth under load.  

Coated with urethane bedliner, 1/4 inch 2x2 angle bar frame, Second unit is awaiting a few machined bits, bearings, etc and that will be done too

Third unit in the works for myself.  New blade profile, less aggressive but more teeth.  I really need to invest in a TIG welder soon to hard face the new blades.  I am thinking about using spring wire as the filler material for hard facing.  

The new 4x8 foot welding table damn near paid for itself already.  The boys built and welded up 3 big extrusion machine frames in less than 8 hours.  That was previously a full day, with all the screwing around moving material on the little table, clamping, measuring etc.  

The old smaller weld table is still there, and is now relegated for the small jobs.  It is on caster wheels, and I had them mount a bench vise on the table, which also sped up a job task that involves cutting the heads off of grade8 bolts, to make weld in stud bolts.  I came up with a trick to make that process really fast and accurate.  

The concrete ramp for the front door is poured.  But it is uneven and looks like shit.  We are metal fabricators not concrete guys.  So eventually I will need to hire a real concrete guy to go over it with a last bag of cement and smooth it out.  But it will at least work, and the clock for curing has already started, which is important cause I will be running a pallet jack over it with around 1 ton in a couple weeks.

Last up.  A client bought a injection molder from me.  This is out of my $885 dollar machine, and the mold was around 1200usd from the UK.  

I call this color combo "Coral Sea" it is made from various ground up cosmetic containers.

 
Also tried this mold.  Two tries for this one.  The comb was a perfect shot the first time.

Tuesday

 Spent yesterday in  a flurry of creating stuff.  

I had the boys build a 4x8 foot welding table because getting a good straight setup on a 3x4 foot table requires super-human ninja welding skills.  

Unfortunately I do not have the cash for a proper welding fixture table.  So I did the best I could afford which was a piece of steel plate, flat bar for ribs underneath, and heavy angle bar frame, all leveled with the digital level tool and eyeballed for flatness.

Judging tolerances is a thing one has to practice.  The human eyeball is capable of much more preciseness than one may think.  It is also common for noobs to over estimate their eyeball skills.  It is something to be practiced with and checked with measuring tools.  Even then once you get good at it, you are getting older and then age related eyesight issues start.  Like me I need reading glasses now.

Started building number one of 4 big extrusion machines yesterday.  Started building a cement ramp for the door.  Ordered 2 windows for my office. Spent a bunch of money on materials.

I decided to get new windows for the office, cause they have those old style with the frosted louvered glass.  They do not hold in the AC one bit.  I also can not see thru them to see the main gate.  It is kind of important for me to see the gate to see if there is a delivery or customer waiting.   I got plastic taped over the windows so opening the window to see what the dog is barking.

I was contemplating just putting in some storm windows, but turns out, that is a foreign concept here.  Aluminum glass guy will do each big window for 90 bucks each.  

Yesterday got home, and the wife was desperately trying to convince me that I just absolutely HAD to buy a membership at the Manila Pen hotel for 180ish bucks.  Because then it is half price at the buffet.  I was absolutely astounded.  I have a past due power bill sitting on the fridge, and ran the bank down to 40 bucks on Friday.  This week the bank is fat.  Because order down payments, and a couple orders finally got paid in full. 

So it is 2 new windows or a membership at some fancy hotel for half price buffet.  Which requires between a 90 min to 3 hour drive each way to get to.  

Well in my calculation, just one customer who shows up and leaves because I do not let them in the gate, vs some expensive buffets and a couple hours in traffic is pretty easy math.

Everything I do is aimed towards building a successful business that will earn enough for when I get old.