I knew I wanted some combination of casters and feet, so that I could:
- Easily move the table around, either to reposition it in my workspace, or even potentially to roll it outside if desired
- Lock it into place, so that I can work against the table without it moving. In my experience locking casters help, but never really hold the table completely firm.
- Allow me to level the table, by adjusting the height at each corner.
I looked at a number of approaches online, some of which are very cool and interesting (like integrating a bottle jack to lift the table off of its feet, or threaded rod down the interior length of a leg to adjust the height easily from the table top level), but ultimately I decided on what I thought would be the simplest, most effective approach. I found some beefy bolt and nut combos at the steel yard, which I could use as adjustable feet, and I put non-locking casters (which saved some $ over the locking variety) at each end, inside of the feet. The trick would be to get the feet at the right level, such that they could easily be adjusted up and down to load/unload the casters. My bolts only have an inch or so of threads, so it helped to model it all in SketchUp to make sure I got it right:
Next I needed to make the bases for the feet. I cut down some scrap into squares and drilled holes:
Mocking it up with the actual parts:
Here I've welded the big nuts onto the bases. Structurally, I probably could have just tacked them into place and called it a day, but I wanted to try to get a decent weld all the way around. I found it to be really difficult to get a decent looking weld here. First off, it's always a little tricky when you're welding metals of different thicknesses together. You have to adjust your angle ever so slightly to favor the thicker material, and I think getting that just right only comes with a lot of experience. Normally, I'd try it out on some sacrificial scrap pieces first- but I only had 4 of these nuts, so I just had to go for it.
Second, moving around a small, round part like this makes it feel like you're always out of position. I would weld about 1/2" at a time, then reposition, which is slow and painful. I just didn't have the patience for that on all 4 of them, so there are more than a few ugly spots! I was imagining that if you had to do a lot of this sort of thing, some kind of foot-controlled "potter's wheel" to rotate your work piece around as you went would be really helpful.
Everything tacked into place:
Making sure the heights/positioning all still looks good:
..and fully welded:
Next up, some finishing touches before primer and paint.
-Jake