109) Weldall Fabricators

Jonny was still selling the Petrogen cutting torches but it was hard going and not very profitable. He would travel all over Natal and do demonstrations for sugar mills, the railways or other organization. If they were impressed, as they often were, they would asked him to come back and do a demonstration for the artisans or the managers or some other section of the company. So that would mean two trips. Then if they decided to buy he would have to deliver to them and do a hand over and give the men who would be using the torches some training. That would mean more travelling and more time spent on the sale. In many cases he was called back because the “cutting torch was not working” only to find that the operators had forgotten what he had told them and were using it incorrectly. I suppose this is not unusual with a new product but our profit margin was not big enough to make it worth our while so Jonny started to look around for something else to do.

A man who worked with Dominic told us that if Jonny could weld aluminium he would “make a fortune” and that started him thinking. There were only two local companies doing this kind of work and they were charging what ever they liked for their service. Jonny did some research and discovered that there was a need for someone to do repair on aluminium, stainless steel and caste iron, particularly on aluminium boat propellers. He was told that the Shark’s Board had a big need for propeller repairs and were willing to pay a fair price but were not happy with the companies that they were using at that time. They had a large number of boats and the kind of work they did meant that there was a lot of repair work needed on the propellers. Jonny also looked into other places were he could get business and decided it was a good idea. He knew that the welding machine that he had was not suitable for that kind of work so set about finding the correct one to buy. If I remember rightly it took him over six weeks to buy that welding machine. He called on all the welding machine suppliers in the area to see what they could offer and got terrible service. It looked as if no one wanted to sell him a welding machine. He had to beg and plead for information and salesmen didn’t call back when they said they would. He needed a TIG welding machine and he was hoping to get one that could be used on single-phase electricity so that he could work from home but that was not possible. He eventually found the right machine but it needed two-phase electricity so it meant that he would have to find a workshop to rent. He met a man who was prepared to rent him a corner of his engineering workshop and so he bought the machine, moved his tools in, printed some calling cards, and so Weld All Fabricators was born. We advertised, “Don’t replace anything that is broken or worn – see us first” hoping that firms who wanted to keep their costs down would use us.

Jonny had to learn how to use his new machine so as soon as he had got the hang of it he called on the Sharks Board to see if they had any work for him. They said that they had just bought themselves a new TIG welding machine as they were fed up of being ripped off by the local welders and had decided to do their own propeller repairs. But there were other people who needed work done and Jonny called on all the businesses that he thought could us his service.
The foreman of the engineering company that Jonny rented some workshop space from was a deaf mute. Jonny and he became quite friendly and so we invited him and his family to come to a braai at our home one evening. His wife was also a deaf mute but their three children were not. They were very nice children and a big help explaining what we or their parents meant when our rudimentary sign language was not enough. I had not been looking forward to the evening as I thought it would be too hard to understand them but it was not as bad as I had expected and we all had a good evening. One thing that really surprised me was how quiet the children were. I remembered how when, my boys were younger, I was continually telling them not to shout and to speak a little quieter and I was surprised that even though these children had never been taught to talk quietly, just did it naturally. Maybe as their parents were quiet they just followed them. I often wondered if this is a normal feature of the children of deaf and mute parents or were they just different. The family made me think a lot about the problems of dealing with disabilities. One afternoon the father came to see Jonny about something and he stayed a little longer than he had intended. When he saw the time he indicated that he must rush home as his wife would be concerned. We said we would telephone the house and tell the children to tell her that he was on his way. But he told us that the children were all out somewhere so his wife would not hear the telephone and if she could she would not be able to hear us conveying the message. A thing that we take so much for granted, a quick telephone call, was impossible for them. At least now we have SMS’s which must be a great help to the deaf.