EL ENCIERRO

[Jake]

It's the difference between treating these opportunities as "time with friends" or "time with clients". Obviously, teaching people to weld and using materials for the sake of practice would mean you need to purchase said materials. If you're already going to be welding some stuff and someone comes by to watch and observe, that's nothing special.

Sounds like the tricky part is establishing the right level of expectations before lending a tool (return time, for personal use) or doing work on someone's car. I will be sure to bring you a six pack when I bring the cam tools back and I promise they are being used on my own car and not for profit. Thanks for lending me those. You'll get 'em back after this weekend. Not sure what Chris is doing with the M54 set but I don't want to be lumped into that bucket.

I guess having the specialty tools and the lift makes it tough. For example, if I want to come over and use the lift and have you help me do rod bearings, I'm using the giant tool you bought (lift) and your knowledge/time as a friend to do this job together. I'd buy parts and could bring "shop incidentals" (Brakeclean, etc) or toss you $20-40-whatever to cover some of that. But beyond that, I don't want to pay you to help me do the work. If I'm going to pay for the work to be done, I want to just leave you the keys and go sip mimosas or whatever people do when a shop works on their car.

I'll lend my truck to trusted friends, with the agreement that I give it to you with a full tank and you return it with one (full means no bickering over gauge level). You dent it or break it, you buy it.

Long-winded answer that more or less says I agree with you, and that setting expectations early on helps everyone stay happy