My Welding Table

After getting things cut, prepped and jigged this week I got up before daybreak today and welded my welding table together. It's made from 5 sticks of 8" red steel I-beam welded to angle steel support rails. They're spaced apart so that 3/8" stove bolts fit the grooves for clamping things down but I also have plans of milling the sides of some C clamps so that they slide in the slots and quickly hold my work down. I still need to get sanding discs for my angle grinder and finish off the top surface but it's all level and solid and it should be just dandy for making welded things close to the size and shape that I intended.

Hopefully the High Frequency and Foot Pedal kits that I'm putting on my Horror Freight welder will come in today and then I'll be smack in the aluminum Tigging world, and after that I'm adding DC to it so that I can tig steel too.

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Crusty I like a good solid table, that one has plenty of bulk and should serve you well.
You may find though that you will want to pass a couple of 3/4 all thread rods through the webs of the I beams a couple inches down from the top flanges and nut both sides of each web with them to add just that little more stability and to hold the slots true dimensional to each other

I haven't decided about that yet Frank. There's a voice in my ear that wonders if that little bit of spring in the slots might come in useful some time. It'll be easy to take the same angle sticks that I used to jig it and stitch them onto the web ends close to the top if I decide to go super solid with it. It's sho' 'nuff got heft and was kind of a bitch to turn over to weld the bottom side (I thought about your jib hoist).

I walked through Home Depot today and I saw that they've got a good selection of flat bar clamps which won't even need machining to work in my slots.

The reason I mentioned blowing holes through the webs and using all thread is if the time ever arose that you had something wedged in the slots all you would have to do loosen the nuts on 1 side of a web then tighten down on the ones from the other side they would serve like machinist jacks to spread the slot just a scooch.
If you weld something in there it is there forever get my point

Yup I see what you mean but with no cutting torch I don't have any way to hole the webs now.

Got to try TIG with my Frankenwelder this morning and it appears to all work. I tried some AC Tig on steel (not supposed to do that - DCEN is the standard) and it does fuse metal together but the welds look really bad with lots of bug holes. I spent more time regrinding my tungstens than I did welding and I was doing a pretty good job of melting them too - guess my current setting was too high for the size tip I was using. Next step will be to add DC to my buzzbox and see how much difference that makes. The HF is nice with stick too - no more scratching, pinging, etc. to get an arc started.

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Originally Posted by Crusty

Yup I see what you mean but with no cutting torch I don't have any way to hole the webs now.

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Sometimes the box has 6 sides sometimes it has 12 it all depends on you perspective of things You have a buzz box so you have the means to make holes with a welding rod. Or you can lay the table on its sides drilling the holes in the outer most webs is straight forward. drilling them in the next pair of webs would mean needing a longer drill bit or a few of them to go up in size But you can also use a uni bit some call it a step drill with a drill bit extension if you had a llong enough one you could reach the center web as well.
Now to the comment about welding the holes in spin the handle or plug the lead into the Max amp grab a hand full of 6011 rods a couple sizes too small for that amp setting toss them in a bucket of water for a few minutes even 6013 or 7018 AC rods will do strike and arc in the middle of where you want the holes then keep the tip of the rod as far away as the hottest arc can be maintained work the arc in and out until a hole is burned through then just keep enlarging the hole until it is large enough. since the holes only need to be a little ways in from the edge of the web you can angle into there fare enough to make them.
the next solution would be to use your angle grinder to cut slots in the ends of the webs deep enough to embed the thread rods
Now you have at least 3 possibilities or a combination of them to add rods should you decide to,
Another way would be to cut several tabs enough to mount one on both sides of each web then drill holes in them and weld them to the webs the tabs would be sticking out a ways but you could hang c clamps on the rods between the webs as a place to store them.
Hope this helps

An open box might have 5 10 or possibly 18 sides figure that one out.
One thing I forgot to mention if it is decided to install the stabilizing adjustable rods make sure they are low enough to allow a c clamp to be used from the end other wise they will forever be in the way.

I'll have to try arc burning a hole sometimes (on purpose) - that sounds like a useful technique. Guess I'll save my money to buy a plasma and an air compressor because I want to stay away from doin' the empty cylinder shuffle as much as I can.

I'm going to use the table for a while and see if I need to make it rigid at the top.

Overall I'm pretty tickled that I've gone from sow's ear to silk purse and my HF cracker box will TIG weld now. If there just was a TIG welder around here now ...

Know what you mean about the empty bottle gig. Back 30 or more years ago when the wife and I had our machine and fabrication shop I bought enough tanks to have bottles 4 cutting torch rig 6 Mig welders and my tig welder plus 2 to 3 spares for each of the gases the investment was cheaper than paying a monthly rental on a couple dozen bottles. After returning to the states my friend who was using them had had his shop broken into and most were stolen but he still had 3 Act 3 Oxygen and 3 CO2 bottles and 1 medium sized 75/25 argon/CO2 which I now have the problem is now the welding supply where I get them exchanged is 200 miles away. The only way for me to get them exchanged at a closer welding supply would be if they had non branded collars Or I would have to sell them to my welding supply and buy from the closer one but the problem there is I no longer have the purchase receipts who would after 30 odd years so with no proof of ownership all I could do would be to turn them in and get nothing out of them. When I bought them I probably paid less then $250.00 apiece for them I have no idea what a full sized cylinder sells for today. SO I just wait until I have most of them empty and drive the 400 mile round trip to get full ones If I happen to run out of ox& act I have some small bottles that I can use and get them filled anywhere

I can tell you for a fact that a filled 125 cu ft Argon bottle costs $304 out the door. I sometimes see used bottle sets in San Antonio fairly reasonable but when I try to find out exactly what's imprinted on the collars and the last test dates they always seem to get elusive and flaky so buh bye and good luck.

That reminds me - I'd almost forgotten about living in West Texas and how it wasn't unusual to drive 90 miles to see a movie and then 90 back afterwards. After I stopped pushin' Petes and KWs around the continent I don't want to go anywhere.

If buying used cylinders I would look to an auction but the test date is very important less than 12 years since the last date or pass it by. the collar name is not as important as long as you have the auction receipt you can get them exchanged at most any gas supply just have to sign a couple of papers. the little 125 Cf Argon or Oxygen and the 98 Act are all considered customer owned by most gas supply houses so they don't' say much if anything when you bring 1 in for exchange especially if you have regularly done trade with them for a while.
I have 3 Praxair 300 cf oxygen cylinders I need to get put into their system their store is still 75 miles away but they have a delivery route to the feed store here in town only 14 miles from me the problem is they are old enough that I have to have them hydro'ed either 50 or 75 bucks each. if they fail I'm out that much cash.

I just put my table to actual use this morning and I can see that it's gonna improve my life. I made a box to house the DC components that're part of my Horror Freight welder conversion (the welder is too full for them to fit so another box was needed) out of red steel building purlins. I believe this is the first time that I've ever made a welded steel box that wasn't warped when I was finished.

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Originally Posted by Crusty

I just put my table to actual use this morning and I can see that it's gonna improve my life. I made a box to house the DC components that're part of my Horror Freight welder conversion (the welder is too full for them to fit so another box was needed) out of red steel building purlins. I believe this is the first time that I've ever made a welded steel box that wasn't warped when I was finished.

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Isn't it amazing how much better things fit up and stay in place when you have a solid work surface to start out from

That's the fact Jack!

I scored another free microwave oven yesterday and later made the second choke needed using the transformer core from it. Today I filled that box with the homemade chokes and a massive bridge rectifier and wired it all with welding cable to some Dinse jacks to bring the connections outside. Made some side cover plates from the microwave oven cover panel and screwed them to the box and the DC box for my Horror Freight welder conversion is a done deal. Tomorrow I'll rewire the welder so that I can plug jumper cables into more Dinse jacks to change between AC and DC welding. I'm gainin' on it.