Building a welding table

[Bill Douglas]

Ha, same height as my workbench in my mancave. I wanted a comfortable standing height and not leaning over for my back's sake.

[Inkblot]

Ok, @Boom, you’ve piqued my interest! I have access here at the shop to an old chopsaw with an abrasive blade on it, but it’s a loud, messy operation that sends sparks and crap all over the place. I hate it! I’ve been using a cheap Wen fold-down style metal bandsaw for basic cuts, and it works pretty well- but the blade is finicky and often jumps off its wheels, which is a real PITA when it happens.
So, perhaps a dumb question- what’s the difference between a “cold” saw and a dry cut saw?

Also- love that rotary table. That’s exactly what I was imagining when I did those round parts. Seems like a fairly simple machine; ever see any DIY approaches to making one? Hmmm... a future project, maybe

Jake


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[gduke2010]

Great thread, Jake,you're building an awesome table and looks like your putting together a great shop.

[ClickClickBoom]

Originally Posted by Inkblot

Ok, @Boom, you’ve piqued my interest! I have access here at the shop to an old chopsaw with an abrasive blade on it, but it’s a loud, messy operation that sends sparks and crap all over the place. I hate it! I’ve been using a cheap Wen fold-down style metal bandsaw for basic cuts, and it works pretty well- but the blade is finicky and often jumps off its wheels, which is a real PITA when it happens.
So, perhaps a dumb question- what’s the difference between a “cold” saw and a dry cut saw?

Also- love that rotary table. That’s exactly what I was imagining when I did those round parts. Seems like a fairly simple machine; ever see any DIY approaches to making one? Hmmm... a future project, maybe

Jake

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Abrasive chop saw is for rebar, not much else. Titanium is the other use, but there is a lot of waste, and machining to get parts up to snuff.
A cold saw uses coolant, like in machining. The Dry Cut Saw uses air and high surface speed to make the carbide work. The only thing about the dry cut saw is they don’t like to cut weld HAZ. Avoid and your blade will last along time. Steel, aluminum, good to go, titanium, stainless anything that needs slow speed and high tooth pressure will kill the blade almost instantly. I had a piece of bar that was actually from a hydraulic cylinder, killed an old blade instantly. Outside a couple caveats, the Dry Cut makes the most sense for a small fab shop. My saw has 10s of thousands of cuts and still works like a champ. One of the most economical tools in my shop, for a few hundred bucks, you get 90% of a cold saw, that will store in a closet or under a bench and runs on 110v. Go to the Makita website and look closely at the vise and hardware, first cabin stuff. Go to YouTube and search on a variety of subjects. Guys making their own welding positioners;

https://youtu.be/981qLkxqGyc

https://youtu.be/ny5Xxwwpkxs

Making your own jigs fixtures and specialty tooling can consume a lifetime.

Everything in my shop over 500.00 value, was bought/traded or given to me as used. Milling machine, lathe, tig, mig, oxy, plasma, Burr-King belt sander and too much more to list. With a few exceptions almost every tool I have is old, and well used. Look up Walker Turner Radial Arm drill https://www.pinterest.com/pin/326862885439501839/ used from Govt Liquidation, for $125.00. I got my
Miller Gold Star Tig machine for swapping a 6 cylinder motor into a car, 3 hours work, tops. Bought a plasma cutter from a metal shop tweaker who didn’t understand how to use it, $4000.00 machine for $400.00. All my wood working stuff has gone, not enough space. I keep cash on hand for quick and dirty garage sale things, that pop up unexpectedly. Estate sales are the best source of undervalued tools. I just scored about $3000 worth of machine tools for $200. They were priced, so I paid, no haggle.
College of San Mateo has a bunch of trade classes. I challenged a series of prerequisites for the welding courses at Cabrillo in Capitola. Enrolled in the TIG class and took the 6G certification practical test, 2 semesters of learning the process, took me out of my comfort zone and made me do more research than I ever would have on my own. Got a buddy who has a B.S. in welding technology, his welds are as nice as Weldmongers. Welding is 30% science and tech 65% technique, and 5% luck(when you get your first tank of contaminated argon or helium, you will have experienced the luck part) We had a job in the fab shop that ended up requiring laboratory grade helium because in the regular gas supplier had contaminants, and was causing all kinds of weld problems(X-ray),for welding heavy aluminum machined parts the purity was essential.

[Inkblot]

Thanks, @Boom- inspirational, indeed!



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[ClickClickBoom]

Originally Posted by Inkblot

Thanks, @Boom- inspirational, indeed!



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No worries! I have always said, when you have laid a mile of bead, you will start to understand the process.
Weldingtips and tricks on YouTube has a lifetime of experience in the videos. Look up, “walking the cup”.

Nice work, Jake. I'd be proud to call those welds my own. How large is your workspace?

[ClickClickBoom]

Here ya go:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-USED-MK-PRODUCTS-INC-AIRCRAFTER-MODEL-2A-WELDING-POSITIONER-R49/183469819381?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.M BE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20190212142712%26meid%3D427509 2fdc1847faa9738774b38f9ce2%26pid%3D100037%26rk%3D1 %26rkt%3D3%26sd%3D293022884847%26itm%3D18346981938 1&_trksid=p2047675.c100037.m2107

[ClickClickBoom]

Dry Cut Saw as seen prior:
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/tls/d/san-jose-makita-cold-cut-metal-chop-saw/6887543261.html

[Inkblot]

@boom Thanks for the links. I'm tempted by that saw- but I need to let my tools budget recover a little bit first

@corgi Thanks! Definitely a learning process. Re. the shop space, I'm in a shared space which I pay into along with 3-4 other guys (sadly, no other Porsches, yet...). My "dedicated" area is about 9'x22', but there's quite a lot of shared space for all of the large tools, lift, etc. We may be soon looking for another member- if so I'll post it separately. I'd sure love to get another p-car enthusiast in there!

- Jake

[ClickClickBoom]

Originally Posted by Inkblot

@boom Thanks for the links. I'm tempted by that saw- but I need to let my tools budget recover a little bit first

@corgi Thanks! Definitely a learning process. Re. the shop space, I'm in a shared space which I pay into along with 3-4 other guys (sadly, no other Porsches, yet...). My "dedicated" area is about 9'x22', but there's quite a lot of shared space for all of the large tools, lift, etc. We may be soon looking for another member- if so I'll post it separately. I'd sure love to get another p-car enthusiast in there!

- Jake

Of all the other fab stuff, that saw will take you to a new level. Lowball him and see if it floats.
I got motivated, I have been wanting to make a frame mount for a shackle, for the Caterpillar to drag stuff around going forward instead of backwards. Gonna be helping some friends do some land clearing and road cutting, stump grinding etc. Being able to drag trees 500 feet forward will be much easier. But like everything else, I didn’t have any 1/2” x 4” cold rolled around, or the rest of the stuff I wanted/needed. I went to Watsonville to get some steel, no cold rolled, crap ton of hot rolled, came home with 10 feet of 1/2” x 5” hot rolled flat stock. Don’t really like hot rolled, the mill scale and inclusions weld less than I prefer. But what the hey, it’s a tractor, and black paint will hide the ugliness. Hadn’t done any 1/2” welding in a long time, my CK-20 was smoking at the end, think I was running about 350 amps and it got too hot to hold wearing gloves. Dang, haven’t had this much fab fun in a while.

[ClickClickBoom]

Did the first pass, 300 amps or so:
Then I threw down 4 more passes on each side at 350 amps, run a pass let torch cool for 5 minutes, do the rest after cooling my fingers off:

My poor CK20 torch was working overtime, I have a 350 amp torch in the mess somewhere, but for a little project, thought this one would soldier through. It did. The welds are a little squiggly because my fingers were smoking after the first inch of bead, and I can’t Tig with Mig gloves.

[Bill Douglas]

Geeze, a bit rough ClickclickBoom.




Ha, very nice work there!

[Inkblot]

@Boom- that’s the real deal right there! Did you use your rotary table for the round bit, or just freehand?


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[ClickClickBoom]

Originally Posted by Inkblot

@Boom- that’s the real deal right there! Did you use your rotary table for the round bit, or just freehand?


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Freehand, still getting the set up squared away, didn’t want to get distracted. The postioner is limited to 350 amps, haven’t cracked it open to insure all the contacts are clean and squared away, didn’t wanna trash the positioner by running it at the rated limit without giving it a checkup. Base got so hot, the cooling of the bead material pulled/warped each end of the plate 1/8” off the welding table even though it was “c” clamped to the table. Quick trip to the 20 ton press straightened it out.

[ClickClickBoom]

Originally Posted by Inkblot

After finally finishing the drilling and tapping of the slats, I moved on to the trusses. My plan was to make a jig to drill all of the screw holes, then flip the truss over, and use a larger bit to drill the "access" holes.

Here's the simple jig I came up with for the screw holes. It's basically the same ideal as a shelf-pin jig, as you might find in woodworking. The idea is that you drill your first hole, then drop the jig's pin (the machine screw in the pic) into that first hole to locate the next 2 holes. Then rinse/repeat all the way down the length of the truss, keeping the spacings consistent, and thus hopefully well-aligned with the tapped holes in the slats.




I knew my alignment wouldn't be perfect, so I did drill the screw holes to be about 1/16" oversized. I'll use washers under the screw heads, so a little slop in there should be ok.







Next I flipped the trusses over to drill the access holes. These holes need to be large enough for me to pass the screw and washer through to the screw hole on the other side. They don't have to be perfectly aligned, so for this I just used visual markings to get the spacings right; this let me go a little faster for this part of the job.




-Jake

These are invaluable if you are gonna drill multiple holes:

https://www.hougen.com/cutters/sheet-metal-hole-cutters/Rotacut-sheet-metal-hole-cutters.html

https://www.hougen.com/cutters/sheet-metal-hole-cutters/Carbide-Holcutters.html

[LJ851]

Originally Posted by ClickClickBoom

These are invaluable if you are gonna drill multiple homes:

https://www.hougen.com/cutters/sheet-metal-hole-cutters/Rotacut-sheet-metal-hole-cutters.html

https://www.hougen.com/cutters/sheet-metal-hole-cutters/Carbide-Holcutters.html

Thanks for that tip, just ordered a set.