Travel Weld, a total ripoff. Just HORRIBLE ! I commissioned Walter to build a stainless table for a client. I needed him to come to my shop to discuss and show him the stone top that the table needed to support. He said he could do it no problem. We were installing lighting under the stone and need something that would support it and have a clean brushed finish. It took about a month to get him to come to our shop and said he would need to fly his private plane, because Burbank was too long of a drive in traffic to Redondo Beach. As we spoke he was so worried about getting a deposit, which I said was not a problem. I just needed a price to work from so I didn't go broke funding the project.
He came once to look at the job and get a deposit ($1000). We gave him a 3D drawing and gave him the specs we needed, a few changes were made as we found that the design may not support the weight.. Then a month later finally came down to deliver the Stainless Steel (being a professional welder I would think he could get the metal fast, guess not), which I had to then pick him up at the airport, because he couldn't get an uber to deliver the metal.
The Stainless Steel was very ruffly brushed, not smooth at all, I questioned him on it and he said that's the way its done. We later tested the thickness of the metal and his polisher took off .02" per side and also must have either sanded it with the wrong sanding material or used poor quality Stainless steel, it was magnetic and very grainy, not a finish at all, more like textured. He then cut some metal (about 6 pieces) and then said he had to come back because he didn't have enough material.
Many weeks later after many phone calls & text messages, trying to get him to come back and finish (hearing excuse after excuse on why he couldn't come back because he was working on other projects (that's the last thing I wanted to hear) I needed to get it finished.
He came back a few weeks later 10/23/17 and brought a guy to help (his other professional welder), I'm thinking cool we are finally gonna get this thing done, NOPE, he didn't have the other piece of metal yet and only did 4 spot welds. I asked can we at least get the supports to the legs on? Nope, we gotta come back we don't have time (oh I forgot you showed up 4 hours late and you need get back home before it gets dark, because you're flying). OK, when will you be back? "Next Tuesday", I replied NEXT TUESDAY? come on your killing me... Can we at least get it completed by Thanksgiving, he replied "NO WAY it's going to be at least the end of the year" are you kidding me? It was a month before Thanksgiving.
He never showed up the next Tuesday, he said the polisher didn't finish the 1 extra piece yet??
I wrote him a check in good faith on 9/9/17. Over the course of the past 2 months, I begged for an estimated price, nothing. On 11/6/17 we finally got us a quote for the job, it was way overpriced.. He said the metal alone was $1100 and the polisher $575.. and his labor $2025. - $3700 that's the quote I finally got after 2 months of asking over and over for one after took the deposit. Also 3 weeks after he promised to show up the last time.
On 11/01/17 I had a customer come in to our shop and when he asked about the large stone slab that was in the shop and told him what we were trying to make, he said he was a welder! Great! We sent him the drawings, I went to his metal shop the next day (as we could not use the metal Travel Weld had) and we picked up the metal. With Travel Welders design, he had 1" x 2" bars going in the middle of our light box, which didn't work for the correct light output with the space needed. We only had 2.5" to work with.
The new welder worked with our original design concept, without creating voids in the design. We spent $460 on materials, the welder charged us $500 and within 2 days it was finished. It's now at the finishers shop (not Walters guy) and it will take about a week to brush finish the table (welded together) $300. Keep in mind the new finisher said its going to cost a lot more because we have to brush everything, because everything was already welded together.. It would have been less if we didn't weld yet and just do finishing touches after you had it welded. LOL..... really that was a lot more..
Travel weld charged for the poor quality work and finishing that was so rough it could never be a finish. A big disappointment, you completely wasted our time and were a total rip off... Travel Weld you can contact us for the refund you owe us, your rough unusable metal is ready for pick-up.
Side note, Stainless Steels properties are lost if sanded down with foreign materials that are not meant for stainless steel and/or if too much is taken off. It does not hold it's stainless steel properties if mishandled. We would have had the stainless steel re-passivate if we kept the metal Travel Weld supplied. read more