About Jason

This is what happens when a welder decides to ditch a carpenter's tool

Year after year of working in the fabrication, ironworking, and millwright trades exposed me to problem after problem. The tools available for the jobs to be done just didn’t always live up to my high expectations. The only solution I came to was to craft my own, and this was the start of my tool company.

Fireball Tool is my self-made platform of problem solving through designing, iterating, and producing my inventions. I want to share the tools that made my life and work so much easier, so I turn them into products that anyone can have access to. I also actively create content on a YouTube channel to share my education while entertaining and inspiring audiences through the topics I am most passionate about.

The mission at Fireball Tool is to make best in class products for tradesmen and hobbyists who design, build, and problem solve with their tools. We’re proudly building and nurturing the next generation of American talent every day through the process of making, whether it’s creating media content or design and manufacturing, and I can’t wait to show you what’s coming next.


Podcasts


Articles

Read (The Welder) Article

If You Don’t Have It, Make It

Over the course of his welding career, 36-year-old Jason Marburger has burned countless rods in every capacity, from automotive fabrication to commercial ironwork construction to mobile welding. Marburger has worked alone and managed crews over the years. Today he works as a contractor. Through it all he has wondered why welders often are limited to using carpenter’s tools that never fully meet their needs.

“They give you a flat welding table and ask you to build and weld with a speed square and primitive tools. I always thought there had to be a way to clamp things to it,” he said.

He started his latest job in Spokane, Wash., with the intent of customizing his welding table to better serve his skills. Marburger wanted a welder-specific square that was designed with weld accessibility, able to accommodate offsets, and constructed of a material that could withstand the heat and abuse of welding. With the goal of making his job a little easier, he sketched out a rudimentary design for something that would meet any needs he might encounter on the job. The next day he had a friend cut the parts with a plasma cutter, then welded a prototype, and immediately put it to work. It didn’t take long to draw interest from co-workers and others in the shop.

“It worked well. Everyone immediately wanted to check it out, and I thought I might have something here,” Marburger said.

From the Welding Table to the Web

When a local welding supply salesperson learned about Marburger’s creation, he asked him to demonstrate it at the company’s open house. He dove headfirst into the world of entrepreneurship and in only two weeks threw together a website, built a brand, and hustled to create a small inventory of products to present.

“I welded my butt off; showed up at the event; flopped down the tailgate; and was right there with all the big boys like Miller, Lincoln, and ESAB,” Marburger said.

He said his custom-designed square drew interest from welders, buyers, and other manufacturers. Leaving with new contacts, new ideas, and a greater awareness of his product’s potential, he set out to design a more accurate and repeatable square.

He immediately faced the challenges of balancing a full-time welding job with becoming an after-hours entrepreneur. Marburger sold his pickup trucks to raise capital for the first orders and managed most of the growth himself, building the business on a limited budget and with a do-it-yourself attitude.

One of the first steps was to improve the design and move production beyond the limits of his own hands and welding table. In July 2016 he discovered an aluminum foundry in Spokane that could cast the tool in an accurate, durable, one-piece design. Marburger had access to the production facility to ensure quality control. Also, he considered it important to keep production in the U.S.

With an avenue for more production, he started promoting and growing his Fireball Tool through application videos on his YouTube channel.

“Within the few weeks of someone showing my tool on YouTube, I was selling hundreds of units,” said Marburger. “It has been growing ever since.”

The tool has been starting to receive interest from larger organizations that buy multiple tools for their entire team of welders. Inquiries also have come from as far away as Australia and New Zealand.

Bringing Tools to Market

The tool is under a patent application, something he said has been a “roller coaster ride.” He has been reinvesting nearly all of the money from tool sales back into the business and also has a dozen new designs that he would like to test and prototype in the future.

“Because I have a day job, I don’t have to pull from Fireball. I’m just reinvesting to buy more molds, improve my products, and create new ones,” he said.

The tool variations can be used alone or in conjunction with each other to handle nearly any type of weld or joint a fabricator might encounter, according to Marburger. The company now has more than a dozen products and combinations, including preassembled tools and kits that are precut and can be welded together.

Marburger said the tools can be used in many ways that traditional squares cannot, as different angles, access points, and lengths allow them to be used in multiple capacities. Angles and squares also can be clamped together to create tools up to 2 feet long to assist in various welding functions. The dedicated-angle fixture has no pivot point in the corner, allowing weld access inside and outside, and it can be adjusted to serve as a fixturing device for cutting, grinding, and gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW).

“Having a tool that was really versatile, valuable, and could accommodate many angles was important. It can be used on a welding table, on sawhorses, or a man basket,” Marburger said. “We’re welders. We need to be able to weld what we put together. And we need to be able to quickly check it to ensure it is square.”

Fireball Tool, www.fireballtool.com

Freelance writer Craig Guillot can be reached at craigguillot@gmail.com.

Read (Hagerty) Article

Fireball Tool was born out of frustration, namely Jason Marburger’s frustration while trying to use a carpenter’s tool to do a metal fabricator’s job. Marburger built a robust square for clamping material during fabrication, and his creation of a better mousetrap led him to instructional welding and fabrication videos that highlight some of his innovative and inspiring builds.

Marburger’s fabrication shop is massive and his machines, as well as his skill in using them, are impressive. We all wish we could have a mill, a lathe, a shaper, and a 3-axis CNC waterjet cutter, but one of his latest videos, while definitely enhanced by his access to such a tool, relies much more on basic fabrication to create a piece of equipment that is used quite often in just about every garage: a bench vise.

Marburger’s design is sturdy, simple, and inexpensive to build. Its size is massive, so even if scaled down a bit to weigh less than its 90-pound total, it could service most garage needs. It uses easy-to-source materials including rectangular tubing, plate steel, nuts, thrust washers, and all-thread. Everything but the swivel mounting plate could be fabricated by just about anyone with a welder, a means to cut metal, and some free time.

We really enjoyed this video, and it might inspire us to try a similar project of our own, because after looking through our local classifieds, the best vise brands are hard to find—and when they are for sale, they aren’t cheap.

Marburger even tested some cheap vises against his own creation and some of the better brands out there.

That video is also worth a watch, although if you’re sentimental about old cast iron, you may have to look away from time to time.


About Fireball Tool

How we perfected the squares

Watch Jason dive into the history of the Mega Square, its iterations, and what has inspired its design.

How do welding squares get made?

Jason shows you what really goes on at Fireball Tool by giving you a sneak peek into our factory.


Evolution of the squares

Generation 1 - DIY

The first Fireball squares were weld-it-yourself tools. The Mega and Monster squares were laser cut, then you would fit the pieces together and weld it on your own. There was finally a tool you can clamp with your material to avoid distortion when welding.

Generation 2 - Casting

The Fireball Square evolved by no longer being a build-it-yourself tool. The inaccuracies of welding it yourself were finally over. The Mega and Monster squares were now castings that would be machined down to a more accurate straightness.

Generation 3 - Tabs

The next generation of Fireball Squares was the creation of alignment tabs to attach to the front or back of the square. These tabs were revolutionary in being able to line your material up and allow you to weld without a table.

Generation 3.5 - Thumbscrews

In-between Generations 3 and 4, thumbscrews were introduced to the playing field. These tool-less adjusters meant that hex keys were no longer needed to tighten your tabs. Now it’s even easier and faster to complete projects.

Generation 4 - New finishes

The next step in the evolution of these squares is being coated in a new finish, to help with corrosive and spatter resistance and prevent rust. Not only that, but QA has been improved to provide even more accurate squares.