So then...how do you connect arc welders to an electrical supply when you're ... say installing a window grating or a gate?
I used a floor sander once. It was an orbital sander for using on parquet floors, designed to be used on 110-volts 15 amps (equipped with a Nema 5-15 cap).
At a metal-works shop I was in, the skinflint owner was using arc welders connected to one of these Frankenstein switches (see here):
mounted on a wood pattress. To the switch terminals (unfused, mind you) he had connected short jumpers to normal iron nails that were driven into the pattress.
When you wanted to use the arc welder, you would hook the conductors (single 12-gauge wire for raceways) over the nails!
This was back in 1986 (I was 11) in my grandmother's house in Colombia - she had rented the place out to his wife and he set up the thing in the courtyard (something she never gave him explicit permission to do, but since they were paying the rent she was OK with it).
She's since evicted the guy and had the place properly rewired.
He had practically torn the place apart - the old in-wall wiring was replaced by 18-AWG lamp-cord stapled to the adobe walls, wired into porcelain barn receptacles and surface-mount toggle switches and lampholders dangling from the ceilings.
This type of wiring practice is rather common in old houses down there, unfortunately.
People want to do it as cheaply as possible instead of paying a licenced pro to fish new wire through the conduit (solid masonry walls) or - if adding a cirucuit - rip trench, lay pipes and boxes and fish wire.
[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 01-17-2003).]