Welding table and associated tools

[MichaelMoore]

In this last year I got serious about making it more convenient to do some welding.

I bought a CertiFlat 2x3 Pro table and legs kit

https://weldtables.com/collections/p...ing-table-tops

and assembled it and I'm very happy with the purchase and would recommend one of their tables. I don't do enough welding/welding of heavy items to justify the FabBlocks made of thicker material with the vertical sides, and the 2'x3' table wasn't hard to fit into the space available.

Clamps, no one ever says they've got to many. I saw a Youtube video in which a Certiflat table owner bought a bunch of HF bar clamps ($4-6 each so I got a lot of them), cut off the stationary jaw and then welded a slug of 5/8" steel on to the end. The holes in the table are a nominal 5/8" /16mm, so this lets you drop a clamp anywhere on the table that you need it to be. I took the time to remove the rivets holding the stationary jaw to the clamp and then knocked off the clamp, and if I do any more I'll just sacrifice that bit of bar in the jaw and saw the jaw off. I had some thick wall 5/8" tube that I welded to the end of the bars.

In the background you can see a bunch of blue tubes. These are Rod Guard welding rod storage tubes. They screw together and have a rubber seal so your steel rod stays nice and unrusted, which was not the case of all the rod laying around in broken cardboard tubes in my garage! I found an online seller that supplied 6 tubes for about $90 delivered, and bought 12 tubes. I made a shelf with a matrix of hole-sawed holes large enough for the tube to slip into but not let the larger OD section at the screw threads pass through and bolted it to the wall next to the table.

So now I have a nice flat table (within about .004-006" anywhere I check) with easy fixturing and I can quickly find whatever type of rod I need to use. I wish I'd done all that 30 years ago!

If you look at the CertiFlat site and the Stronghand/BuildPro site you'll see lots of nifty tooling designed to work with these 5/8"/16mm hole tables which should give you ideas of other things to make.



cheers,
Michael

[McDesign]

Cool! Just sent this as my Christmas list to my wife.

[DIYer]

Thanks MichaelMoore! We've added your Welding Station to our Welding Tables category,
as well as to your builder page: MichaelMoore's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Welding Station by MichaelMoore

tags: clamp, storage, welding