Busy Busy Gobble Gobble

As a four day weekend is rapidly approaching, the guys are silent with focus. The mood in the shop is serious to put it mildly. Juan, Jose, and Sean are at their workstations with their heads still and their eyes locked. The entire shop is billowing out steel dust and torch heat. I can feel their minds thinking and am very careful about walking into their space. The small glances are enough to notice that I should not be in the way today. So, I keep my distance and quickly take some pictures for the day. Juan is working on a new railing project after finishing up all the long ADA rails from the previous week. That is along with the steel stairs he and Jose have been working on, although Jose is working on the base of the stairs, which resembles the heaviest book shelf ever. The stairs are going to have a heavy stainless steel safety grating that looks like the world's largest cheese grater. Hopefully no ones falls on these stairs because the stairs will win by K.O. These stairs are going to last a lifetime and have a non-slip grip that no mud will deter. Sean has been taking care of all the smaller loose ends, such as walk-in ornamental pieces, and helping Juan on the new handrail project. The mood is slightly lighter in the office, only because we need to communicate in order to be productive. Even so, Lily is staying late to help out and everyone is quickly trying to tie up any loose ends before being able to enjoy the great American turkey day. The website has already generated a couple of positive leads and we are excited about improving it's function even more. Leave us some comments or send us an email telling us your thoughts so we can improve on it further. Till next week, enjoy the food, family, and football games that is Thanksgiving.

Chasing Down the Turkey Time

Lots of work and half a week to get it done. Murphy's Law is in full effect as I speak. Whenever there is less time there is more work. At least the stress is based on a positive fact that we have plenty of jobs to keep us busy. Yesterday started off slowly and throughout the day built up more and more work. By this morning the boys were working on at least five or six projects at the same time. Juan is continuing to work on some half inch steel stairs that are solid to say the least. It is amazing to see the man work in his head. The way he draws out a chalk sketch on the floor of the shop and decides what to do next reminds me of watching my carpenter father as a child. When someone like Juan, that has been perfecting his craft for almost 30 years, is working in front of you it is fascinating to watch the process. Then there is Jose, who says very little and does very much. He always has something in front of him to be working on. Today it was another handrail and a heavy steel square connected by 45 degree angles. Sean is the young blood around the shop and gets to do all the dirty work. Today he was underneath a old school Winnebago like trailer, welding some half inch steel support panels on the frame in order for it to survive the beating it is going to take in Baja for the next five months. Then he was working on an aluminum electrical box for which the use is a mystery. All we know is that the little aluminum box is worth $1500, so Sean made sure he held his cutting hand real steady. As for inside the office today, we never realize how much the girls up front do for all of us until both of them leave early and we are all scrambling to fill in. Anyway, Flor and Lily, if you read this, we appreciate you greatly and know how much time and effort you put into making all of our lives easier. Till tomorrow, another busy day at Morena Welding Inc.

Heavy Duty

Today was full of BIG projects in the shop. All the guys were working on smoothing out the welds on all of the ADA hand railing for a building down the street. Its nice to see Juan, Jose , and Sean all grinding at the same time, its like a symphony of flying fire. After that was ready to go get galvanized Jose and Sean started cleaning up some heavy duty pieces of steel for use in a staircase. Large pieces of steel like this are almost always rusting when you get them just because of sitting around for so long before they are put into use. Time decays all, even steel. The guys have to grind them all clean before the project can even start fabrication. Masks, glasses, and sparks make for a fun afternoon, right? Also, a custom gate came back from the powder coater looking so clean and tight. All wrapped in plastic, it is like a happy home owner's holiday gift. A productive Friday in the shop all in all. A round of applause goes out to our Field Correspondent Angela for closing two of her first sales today. Way to do it Angela. Till next week, enjoy the weekend.

Morena Blue

With the launch of MorenaWelding.com we have already had a couple of responses and bid requests. Here in the office we were excited about this since it has only been live for less than three days and if, lets be more positive and say when, those two jobs are solidified, they are large enough to pay for the website outright. One of the inquires was actually from out of town. A nice young lady has a property here in San Diego that she needs work on, even though she lives in Los Angeles, she was able to find out about us online. I, being the marketing guy, am very pleased with this beginning and will continue to push it further. Enough about cyberspace, today the real bread and butter, our skilled craftsman, are working on finishing the fabrication of an ADA hand railing system for a local business up the street on Morena Blvd. Juan is in the shop all by himself again working on that hand railing, as well as a custom aluminum box to enclose speakers underneath the seat on a boat. The boys are out installing a custom designed residential handrail in La Mesa today. The handrail took a while to complete because of the complexity of bending a quarter inch thick piece of steel around a retaining wall and keeping it as flush as possible. It looks great and after the powder coat filled in all the little angles it looked nothing less than amazing. I am sure that the customer will be extremely happy with it since she has a background in iron sculpture and should be able to appreciate the difficulty involved. The shop has been getting a thorough cleaning every Friday and recently a new Morena Welding blue paint job. Consistency is key to organization and productivity they say. Whatever 'they say' the shop looks good and clean, just the way we like it.

MorenaWelding.com is LIVE!

The Morena Welding website is now Live and operational. Give it a look and tell us what you think by leaving us a email on the contact page. Now that the site is up I can spend more time updating our day to day operations and explaining the who's, what's, where's, whys, and how's of Morena Welding. Yesterday Sean and Jose where out working on a portable welding project not too far from the shop. Down Morena Blvd. right across the street from the Arco gasoline station is a building comprised of small offices. This is where we are installing a couple of very long ADA certified handrails. As I have explained before, these ADA projects have to be particularly precise in order to pass inspection. The guys will be down there again today making sure all the measurements are correct before the final fabrication. While they where gone yesterday, Juan was working on sealing cracks in an intake manifold where the manufacturer ground the ports too deep. This caused the tiniest cracks which could be disastrous if overlooked because the compression would not hold and eventually would make the cracks bigger until the block went boom. Juan was also working on an aluminum bracket that needed to be redesigned to match a larger piece. A large residential handrail that had been completed earlier last week returned from the powder coater and did I mention our new website went live. Check it out at MorenaWelding.com.

Mondays

Lots to do and time seems to be shrinking. We should feel that way a little further into the week but with more contracts coming in, pressure builds to get things done. Last week for me was spent working on the almost completed Morena Welding website. Just like out in the shop, when you think things are almost done, there is always some ends to tighten up. And sometimes the ends outnumber the beginning means. All you can do is take a deep breath, put your head down, and get it done. Today in the shop Jose started a new railing project while Juan worked on an ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) railing. These ADA railings have to be right on spec in order to clear specific guidelines and that is why Juan, who is our most experienced welder, is on top of it. Sean was working on detailing a railing that had been galvanized, in between talking up the Charger win from yesterday of course. All in all it has been a busy day from start to, well, we are not finished yet.