As welders we pride ourselves in our abillity to build and create virtually anything.

High stress
and high expectations give reason to dig deep and bring out the innovative spark and
meticulous mentallity that flows through the veins of every man and woman who pauses to take
in the scent inbedded in our work clothes at the end of the day. The scent of hot steel, silicone
carbide dust from from various cutoff wheels, hard stones, flap discs,composite polishing
wheels. We custom tayler our tool sets, protective wear, and our welding equipment is
comprissed of various hand selected components of various manufacturers and suppliers go
suit our own personal technique and style. The true “tell all” items that you will find in every
seasoned welders arsenal and also happen to be the most overlooked are the ones that are
unique to the welder who possessess them and say much more about the person than the
beads they lay. Those are the custom built, altered, modified, and repurposed objects (generally
comprised primarily of metal) which serve one common purpose……. To make the job easier.
Plain and simple. Whether its a makeshift turntable for purge welding fittings, or a bracket to
hang our grinders and torches from between use. Some of them are works of art and others are
almost indistinguishable from parts found in the scrap bin as they were hastly fabricated out of
necessity while in the field. In either form they offer a kind of forensic profile of the one who
made them. As the sang goes….”The devil is in the details.”
Early in my welding career I found myself obsessed with the large scale potential many of these
custom builds could have if marketed apropriatley. I myself had been fabricating various types
of diffuser tips and caps for use when purge welding. Most of which were already comercially
available in similar fashion. Then one day while scavenging parts in an old tackle box labled
“BUSTED TORCHES” I couldnt help but notice that every one of the 15 or so torches were
practically identical. Both in origional form as well as broken form. They all had met their end
and snapped in the exact same place. Well what an opportunity for improvement.
So I stripped all each one down to the frame and left the reusable parts in a now very spacious
tackle box and took the rest home.
To find a solution it is usually best to first figure out the “HOW” and the “WHY.” In this case the
“HOW” was easy. Welders were bending the necks of the torches so that the head was oriented
in-line with the handle making it straight to more easily access tight areas or to eliminate some
of the required effort needed while cup walking for hours on end. After you do this a few times
the copper necks snap and then it off to the “BUSTED TORCHES” box. Next comes the “WHY”
but we have already identified that while identifying the “HOW.” So now we must find the
solution. At first I thought about just using a thicker walled copper tubing. Nope because then
your stuck with one configuration and swapping torches to often. There has to be an in-
between that could serve both needs. A complete redesign is a failed effort waiting to happen.
Its a minimalistic build of bare necessity components that has been virtually unchanged in
nearly 70 years. For good reason to. It works.
I was stuck and running out of motivation.
Its funny how sometimes you find what your looking for when your not looking at all. Not more
than 24 hours went by and It hit me. Quite literally actually. We were cutting in a bunch of piping
at work for a pasturization system. We pre fabbed most of the work in the shop to minimize our
time on the production floor and there were a couple 20 ft long runs we had to put in the
trapeese above. One of these lengths of pipe had 1 double 90 offset of about 18 inches and we
had very little room to feed it into position. I managed to get the leg end of the pipe just on to a
small platform near the tie in point. With a few feet to go and no leverage to slide I decided roll
the pipe back and forth and let the swing of the offset work for me. That was it. That was my
answer. You see building a true straight body torch is great for getting into tight spaces but
theres only one 1 or 2 ways you can hold it and neither of those are much use for anyother
welding tasks. And far as cup walking goes. It couldnt be done at any rate that even resembles
forward movement and suprisingly to me but a true straight body (if walked) requires more room
than with traditional torch. However torch in which the the head and handle that traveled along
the same linear plane but were offset slightly from one another could be walked in tight spaces
and be held in mulitple positions as neeeded for various other tasks. Yessss. I had my prototype
and people really liked its performance and unique appearance. This has true potential and I
may have just created a great oppurtunity for myself. Im all in. They say never put all your eggs
in one basket. But they never said you couldnt design a basket that can hold all your eggs and
then invest in it. So I did. Patent search, approval, graphic renderings, patent pending,field
testor applications, non disclosure documentation, field testing, feedback format and submittion,
promotional prototype giveaway, branding, social media marketing, extensive networking
building, LinkedIn, licensing agents, inventors platform. All of that in the past 10 months. Before
i go on I have to thank my wonderful wife Tracey for supporting me in my decision to take this to
the next level and for putting up with my obsessive behavior since then. Your awesome baby
and I probably wouldnt have done it with out your support. 35 years of life experience and
compiled practical and professional knowlege and skill sets. All of which I have dug into to a
certain degree for this one thing. Oh but not for nothing. In January my licensing agent called to
inform me that a company named Universal Manufacturing Corporation took interest in my idea
and wanted to enter into an all out licensed agreement to promote, produce, package and
distribute my idea for a negotiated percentage of the net proceeds for 1 year and another 3
years upon attaining a signed purchase agreement.
I cant wait to see what the next 10 months has in store. Im feeling pretty great about where my
efforts have taken me so far. Im pretty sure that in the very near future many of you reading this
will have the opportunity to aquire one for yourselves.
Ten years ago I wondered how much the welding industry would influence my life…… I never
would have guessed that today, I would be on the verge of influencing the welding industry. My
name is Jesse Vidito and a little over 10 years ago I hired on as an extra set of hands for J.S.S.
Engineering Inc. Owned by Jake Bender. It was a great experience and an even greater
education. Both of which are why I am ending this story by saying. “ Im a welder and I take great
pride in my ability to build and create almost anything. High stress and high expectations are
when im at my best. Some would call that unimagineable. I call it Tuesday.”