Ron Barnes has traveled all over the United States as a rig welder/pipefitter.

He started his career in the metal trades at the ripe old age of 17 working along with his uncles in a sheet metal shop in Amarillo, TX. He rose up through the ranks learning how to run shears, ironworkers, break presses and doing layouts for sheet metal fabrication.

Getting the itch to venture out, Ron headed to Louisiana and the Avondale shipyards where he became a first class pipefitter / certified pipe welder. From there went offshore on a drilling/production platform, again seven years was the magic number, and Ron headed to the Midwest to be closer to his family.

Ron was helping a buddy assembling wood burning stove kits when he saw a way to make a wood burning stove more efficient. That was 1979, by 1986, Ron had created a line of stoves, obtained multiple patents and had launched Elk Pine Manufacturing, a company that grew to 42 employees. Elk Pine Stoves became known throughout the Central Midwest for its quality and efficiency.

Ready for a change, Ron sold Elk Pine Stoves and headed out for new ventures as a contractor to included building and maintaining five portable cement plants for Hunt Concrete.

He left that for traveling throughout the Midwest building industrial refrigeration systems for Preston Refrigeration, and then to the natural gas pipeline, REX pipeline from Missouri to Maine and compressor stations throughout the United States as a certified welder/pipefitter.

Always the inventor, Ron was doing some custom work on his Lincoln SA 200 when he came up with the idea for the Six Shooter Exciter Cap. What started as a simple idea on a sketch pad has now become an actual product with a Design Patent. The Six Shooter Exciter Cap will hit production in early 2017.

Still burning rods, Ron eats, breathes, and sleeps welding. When he’s not working, Ron loves spending time with his wife, Julie, gold prospecting, hunting for good cigars, and teaching the up and coming welders his many tricks of the trade that he’s learned over his 40 plus years in the metal trades.

Send your email to… Ron@TravelingWelder.com