I got some hockey goals about a month ago. A hockey rink a few towns over was shutting down permanently, and the city (it was a city-ran rink) decided to give them away rather than sell them. Turns out it was all or nothing, so I ended up with 4x NHL regulation hockey goals, which normally are $800 each.
One for our house, one for the kids’ other parent’s house, and two to give away to some lucky kids from the hockey team.
The problem is that some of them were a little old and worn out. If the rink switches to free skate, little kids practice with smaller goals, etc. they get dragged to the side of the rink on the concrete by the Zamboni driver. So the bottoms ended up pretty thin.
Some flux core and 1″x1/4″x48″ flat stock for $12 was plenty to patch them up. I know I could have gotten it cheaper from a metal supplier, but I don’t have one anymore. There were two places in town, one that would sell cutoffs and whatever they had as long as it wouldn’t keep them from delivering to a client. And the other place doesn’t answer the phone, and only wants to sell it a trailer load at a time to fab shops. So Lowe’s it was. I’m not crying over the few dollars, I’m paying for convenience.
The idea was to weld on 4x sacrificial pads for the goal to ride on. If it gets rusty or thin in the future, just grind it off and replace it. The total process took maybe 45 minutes.
That’s it. No painting, minimal grinding. It will prevent the damage from getting worse. And that’s good enough for the girls I go out with. And now two of the people on the team owe me a favor for the free nets I gave them.
Remember the hobbyist welder’s motto: A grinder and paint makes me the welder I ain’t!
