Whats a 'farm' welder worth an hour?

W

Welderloon

Member
Trade
Everything said above is relevant, nothing is cheap & margins are being squeezed constantly.
Farm Welder is a very broad church.
Is the individual a fully time served & qualified multi process welding machine operator with fabrication skills & knowledge regarding structural integrity, design capabilities & an understanding of metallurgy or are they someone who can just about fuse some metal together?
Unfortunately you get welders & people who try to join metal, the worth of the two are vastly different - again its all relevant when it comes down to money.
 
L

Lazy Eric

Member
Phil P said:
£45/h isn’t expensive for anyone who’s worth their salt!
By the time you take your equipment/running costs, electric, building maintenance, insurance, tax and NI plus all the other little bits that add up out of that £45 there’s not a massive amount left as a wage at today’s prices. And you need to make a “profit” otherwise how do you replace your welder or grinder when it goes pop (they aren’t cheap!) Trust me I’ve been doing it long enough and my phone wouldn’t be constantly ringing if it was too expensive. If anything it’s to cheap in today’s money.
Local Nissan dealers want £108/h just to open the bonnet and look at a fault that’s not even to fix it.
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I can’t disagree with any of what you say. It’s just the ag industry is being squeezed so hard with increasing costs over the last 3 years the little bit more we’ve received for our cattle and sheep has just vanished in mortgage interest increase…..running so hard to stand still.
The irony is I always wanted to be an agricultural engineer/ welder when I was young. 😆
 
BuskhillFarm

BuskhillFarm

Member
Arable Farmer
These threads are alway amusing, a welder justify a why he needs more than an nhs surgeon, your ego and justifications may tell you, you are a good welder, but not weld two arteries together good. Support British starts with supporting your customers
 
B R C

B R C

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
South Beds with a bit of Herts and Bucks
BuskhillFarm said:
These threads are alway amusing, a welder justify a why he needs more than an nhs surgeon, your ego and justifications may tell you, you are a good welder, but not weld two arteries together good. Support British starts with supporting your customers
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A welders rate is is the cost of running a business, inc some wages, an nhs surgeon is paid a salary, I don’t think he/she has to pay for their own scalpels, the two are not remotely connected . Patching up some gates might not be worth it for a welder with a workshop and equipment that has to be paid for from there hourly rate.
 
wdah/him

wdah/him

Member
Location
tyrone
I’d say 30 is reasonable. Not a rip off but not going to make millions. Yes a welder working for someone will earn over half that for just showing up to work but think that at the same time this isn’t a full time job for you and you have less overheads for this business. The farm is the main business so by using farm equipment it is consumables and wear and tear to think of not a whole new set of books, sheds, accounting and staff. If you want 45 an hr then I would be expecting you to be able to cut fold and manufacture parts as that is about the going rate for. Engineering shop over here. A man and a welder not able to fold profile etc isn’t worth the same as a complete fabrication workshop price to me.

I do some welding for farmers part time and charge about 25-30.
 
David.

David.

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
J11 M40
When it can, it will be a bargain.
These would need to be some very strong gates to justify paying someone else to patch them, tbh. Although if pig shite is involved, the top 3/4 of the gate is usually fine to go again.
 
Will 1594

Will 1594

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Other side of the river to sandringham
Welderloon said:
Everything said above is relevant, nothing is cheap & margins are being squeezed constantly.
Farm Welder is a very broad church.
Is the individual a fully time served & qualified multi process welding machine operator with fabrication skills & knowledge regarding structural integrity, design capabilities & an understanding of metallurgy or are they someone who can just about fuse some metal together?
Unfortunately you get welders & people who try to join metal, the worth of the two are vastly different - again its all relevant when it comes down to money.
Click to expand...
chap who comes here beating told us a lad been for another job after his place retired
any money talked about he wanted 20 they offered 14 plus ot
then he had to weld some intricate test pieces
the now boss asked him why two different welding standards one was more than perfection ,that was 20 quid
other was 🫣
he is now on more than 20 for what he does
 
T

thorpe

Member
tinsheet said:
It takes a lot of skill to weld up rusty gates. Shitty rusty steel, like welding kit-kat wrappers 😆
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my youngest lad is a plant mec-nic his skill's amaze me, a few week's ago our feeder bucket suffered a bit of metal fatige annd the auger tube had craked and started to twist. he pulled it back into position with a pull hoist , welded it up lined it and braced it ' what a fantastic job. he even painted it. ready to use for afternoon feeding, we have a spare bucket for such event's but didn't need it. he didn't want a penny!
 
Gerbert

Gerbert

Member
Location
Dutch biblebelt
thorpe said:
my youngest lad is a plant mec-nic his skill's amaze me, a few week's ago our feeder bucket suffered a bit of metal fatige annd the auger tube had craked and started to twist. he pulled it back into position with a pull hoist , welded it up lined it and braced it ' what a fantastic job. he even painted it. ready to use for afternoon feeding, we have a spare bucket for such event's but didn't need it. he didn't want a penny!
Click to expand...
There you have it. A good farm welder is free :whistle:
 
A

AlCapone

Member
I remember buying gates from an unknown
Person which were ‘surplus’ from a job
He wanted cash but reluctantly took cheque
These gates were galvanised good quality
and cheaper than making
Don’t see them nowadays
Transit trucks loaded with gates
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 117 38.2%

  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 118 38.6%

  • 25-50%

    Votes: 42 13.7%

  • 50-75%

    Votes: 6 2.0%

  • 75-100%

    Votes: 5 1.6%

  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 18 5.9%
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Expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive offer for farmers published

May 21
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Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive offer from July will give the sector a clear path forward and boost farm business resilience.

From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and The Rt Hon Sir Mark Spencer MP Published21 May 2024

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Full details of the expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer available to farmers from July have been published by the...
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