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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    adelaide
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    293

    Default Topping a welding table

    My current welding table is topped by a 600mm x 600mm S/S plate, it looks nice and shiny (after sanding) but is a little limiting. Is there anywhere in Adelaide where others have bought (cheap) steel plate. I'm after a piece roughly 600mm x 1200mm x 12 mm+. Thicker would obviously be better, but in the absence of thicker material I'm happy to fabricate a steel support frame.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Mackay North Qld
    Posts
    6,446

    Default

    th62
    I suppose it gets down to what you want fabricate and weld on that table top.

    each of us will have our needs and sometimes what ever we do build won't be big enough on occasion.

    One thing I do on my tables is to radius the corners so when you bang my hip ,or whatever into the corner it doesn't do the damage that a sharp corner one does.
    Grahame

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    Kimberley, West Australia
    Posts
    176

    Default Welding table.

    Built my table from 10mm plate, but the subframe was on 50 X 100mm steel channel on edge. This was placed about 100mm in from the edges and allows clamps and visegrips to be easily used to fasten work . Mounted my big offset vise just overhanging the right hand corner, for easy holding of long bits. Bench is braced to the 125mm shed uprights and it would take a helluva big hammer to even make it vibrate noticeably.
    Combustor.
    Old iron in the Outback, Kimberley WA.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    adelaide
    Posts
    293

    Default Of rounded corners, racks and tools.

    The current table is a little bigger than I thought 800x 800 and is bolted to the vice stand. It's made of 50mm RHS with an 8mm S/S top - railed underneath with four 50mm RHS sections. It also has a slide in/slide out melamine extension (great for pencil drawings), a slide in grinder for burr removal, 6" offset vice, file rack, DC welder underneath (also have a larger AC welder under the other bench) and four electrode tubes under the welder. Helmet, clamps, chippers, wire brushes and lots of other tools hang from an overhead rack.

    As you can see, it has rounded corners - must be an ex - welder thing!

    I want to replace it with either a 1m x 1m or 800mm x 1600mm table. I think I'll retain the design as it's proven quite useful - having everything to hand...

    Also got my eye on a massive 8" vice I spotted the other day...
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  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
    Location
    Australia east coast
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    71
    Posts
    2,713

    Default

    My next welding table is going to be made out of 150 or 200 parallel flange channel welded to whatever as a substrate. Think instant T slots. Trim the periphery with whatever - 75 x 10 angle iron comes to mind to give a good clamping lip. Base frame nice & heavy - I have a pallet jack and heavy is good. My current table is 1800 x 900 with a 6mm plate top. It's OK within its limits. PDW

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Healesville
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    2,129

    Default

    It's got me beat why a welding table has to be built like a battleship ?

    Mine is fabricated out of 40mm shs with an approx 20mm spacing apart.

    shed
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  7. #7
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    Jun 2011
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    Australia east coast
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    71
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by shedhappens View Post
    It's got me beat why a welding table has to be built like a battleship ? Mine is fabricated out of 40mm shs with an approx 20mm spacing apart. shed
    I beat the crap out of stuff on mine and I also weld various brackets etc to it for bending stuff. Light tables bounce and move away from the work. When you try bending something the table moves instead of the thing you want to bend. Heavy is good. Yeah you could bolt it to the floor but the moment *I* did that, I'd need to have it somewhere else in the shed and have to unbolt it again (and again and again). I do have a lightweight one that's 3000 x 1800 with angle iron welded on 200mm centres, leg up, but it's really the plasma cutting table more than a welding table. PDW

  8. #8
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    Apr 2012
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    Healesville
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by PDW View Post
    I beat the crap out of stuff on mine and I also weld various brackets etc to it for bending stuff. Light tables bounce and move away from the work. When you try bending something the table moves instead of the thing you want to bend. Heavy is good. Yeah you could bolt it to the floor but the moment *I* did that, I'd need to have it somewhere else in the shed and have to unbolt it again (and again and again). I do have a lightweight one that's 3000 x 1800 with angle iron welded on 200mm centres, leg up, but it's really the plasma cutting table more than a welding table. PDW
    The points you make are quite valid, for you. But then you do much larger jobs than the average backyard metal hack.

    My point is that if someone wants a welding bench to do light fabrication then they don't need to waste money on a thick chunk of plate and heavy duty support structure that is no more than a glorified soldering bench because it is stuck up against a wall.
    The cost is substantial, for the average guy.
    A lightweight welding table has many advantages over a battleship welding table in a small shed, plus the money saved might go towards an anvil and a hydraulic press.

    shed

  9. #9
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    Jun 2011
    Location
    Australia east coast
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by shedhappens View Post
    The points you make are quite valid, for you. But then you do much larger jobs than the average backyard metal hack. My point is that if someone wants a welding bench to do light fabrication then they don't need to waste money on a thick chunk of plate and heavy duty support structure that is no more than a glorified soldering bench because it is stuck up against a wall. The cost is substantial, for the average guy. A lightweight welding table has many advantages over a battleship welding table in a small shed, plus the money saved might go towards an anvil and a hydraulic press. shed
    If you're only doing light work, your approach is fine. A lot of the time I, myself, use a piece of 4mm plate with nicely radiused corners and reinforced underneath with 25x6 flat bar on 200mm centres. It bears a strange resemblance to the cutout for a hatch in the aft deck of my boat, approx 450 x 600 size. Great for sitting down TIG welding and easy to move to anyplace I might need it. However the OP asked about heavy, so I assume they actually needed & wanted heavy, for whatever reason. A light table is easier & cheaper to make, but it's not as good for tacking stuff to, hot or cold bending etc. I think the solid sheet of steel approach lacks utility as you have to weld things to it whereas one with a grid of tapped holes (easily damaged by spatter) or T slots allows all sorts of creative fixturing. If you need such fixturing.....sometimes I do. I use my welding table to hold the 3 wheel pipe roller bender for example. There's no 'right' answer for this one. Your setup works fine and I'm not disparaging it. PDW

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    Mackay North Qld
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    Default

    As I wrote earlier the welding table construction should reflect the needs of its user.

    Many diyers see big heavy tables used in amateur shops on the net and believe them to be an exemplar of what is ultimate for their own home shop.

    That may be the thing if the shop is spacious. Tacking the work to the table and subsequent removal of such tacks over time will distort the table.Over time the table gets thin in the middle and just hollows out from the regrinding because of tack removal .The majority of Shedders I suspect, require a fairly light table.

    For my purposes ,a welding table should be around 5mm thick, mobile and flat. In essence what I require is a layout table not a welding table as such.

    The table should serve to.
    • Provide a reasonably surface to layout on- I am working ona table size of 2400x1200 for doors and gates
    • Serve as a platform to support the weldment while being assembled and tacked together.
    • Be the same height as other benches in shop to assist with supporting longer or wider work.
    • Be mobile so I can wheel it out in the car port and spray the grinder sparks( if any grinding is needed) over my gravel driveway - not on my nice new Colourbond shed walls.



    I want the table flat as possible without tacks and gouge marks from removing tacks.
    Given the majority of my fabrication is RHS and angle iron - I can utilize lightweight hold downs through holes drilled in the plate.

    Grahame

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Sydney
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    493

    Default

    I agree with Grahame, I have a welding table that come at way over 100K but when I had to build a series of baluster panels 2m x 600 I made myself a light weight welding structure out of 50x50 scrap fencing tube consisting of a rectangle 500 wide and 2.2 long with the short cross sections a bit longer sticking out and 4 legs. That's it, nothing at all as a surface. It worked well to weld all the baluster to a top and bottom rail, easy to clamp from outside or inside, however I couldn't call that a table right? It's still kicking around for the next lot of baluster panels I need for the veranda upstairs.
    There is no such thing as the perfect table nor the perfect workshop, everything is usually a work in progress and must be able to be moved and changed.
    Civilized man is the only animal clever enough to manufacture its own food,
    and the only animal stupid enough to eat it.
    Barry Groves

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    adelaide
    Posts
    293

    Default Thick, tacky tables and trestles

    All the benches I worked on when in the trade were around 3/4" + inches thick and ranged from 6 - 8 feet long and 3-4 foot wide. Most just sat on trestles but some had reinforcing underneath, hate to think what they cost. Welding, tacking, hammering, grinding, etc, were very much frowned upon in all the welding shops I worked in. The bench was there as a flat surface, an earth and a place to clamp jigs too. The first place I worked, Blackboys in Subiaco, had five 8 x 4 tables, don't remember how thick, but you couldn't budge them.

    I don't think you'd be permitted a business name like 'Blackboys' today - perhaps that's why they no longer exist.

    I'll occasionally run a belt sander over my bench, after I've scraped it clean with a chipper. Of course accidents do happen, quite regularly and you have no choice. I never hammer on my welding table, that's what anvils (and vices) are for. Shame they're not cheaper, I'd love one of them. I have a tree stump topped with a piece of 1" plate for my hammering.

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