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Welding table project

John Conroy

John Conroy

member
Premium Member
I'm planning to build a fold-up welding table some time this winter. I've bee keeping my eye open for some cheap metal for the project and a deal came along today. At my work, we have an electrical contractor replacing all the parking lot plug-in posts and underground wiring with new stuff. They were tossing all the old post in the scrap bin. The are 4" by 4" square tube with 1/4" wall thickness. After the base is cut off each piece is 2 feet long. The bases plates are very rusty but the tube is in great shape. I got 13 of them for free and just had to strip out the electrical stuff and used my horizontal band saw to cut off the bases. This will be a big part of the material for the table build!

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I love free stuff!!
 
Great project. I've been mulling this over myself. Needs to fold up, not take up too much room. Needs to be very stable too. Wheels.
 
I'll be watching with interest. What are your thoughts on the table top itself? Some of those pre-fab slats with hole arrays look very functional & universal for setups, but $$ and I suppose it depends on what kinds of things you see yourself welding. This link might work before the irritating ad curtain pops up. I should really subscribe to Pinterest, seems like some neat metalworking ideas there.

https://www.pinterest.ca/explore/welding-table/
 
Thanks Peter, there's lots of good ideas there. I'll continue to keep my eye open for cheap material to make the top and come up with a plan when I find it.
 
I found a design I really like for the welding table. I picked up 20 feet of 1/2" X 6" hot rolled flat bar to use for the slats. I have found that it's really hard to build a flat welding table without a welding table!!

More pics to come.

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John
 
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No the top is going to be 4' long by 3' wide. I'm working on having the lower arms fold to reduce the total width to 2' when stored. My goal is a footprint of 2' X 5' when in storage mode.
 
Actually, do those lateral joiner support tubes have to be so long? If it was cut closer to the side frame but still welded as a similar socket, you could save a lot of storage real estate. It would just require a longer inner bar section.
 

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Your table end segments with rotation axle almost resemble this sort of assembly - how some guys set up their bike frames for welding, painting, orientated access work. Not sure if this matches your work requirement but another design consideration.
 

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I made some progress on the welding table project. I had 16 two foot sections of 4" square tubing with 1/4" wall thickness and need to butt weld some pieces together to form 4 foot long pieces. I used a bunch to clamps and a couple of 8 inch long pieces of 3" angle with 1/4" thickness that I have. they have same thickness throughout and the inside corners are square so they make great braces for this kind of job. All the pieces I butt welded came out nice and straight.



I had previously picked up 20 feet of 6" X 1/2" hot rolled flat bar at General Steel at a discount as it was quite rusty. I cut it into 6 three foot long sections on my bandsaw then milled all the pieces to exactly the same length. These will be the table top.







I drilled countersunk mounting holes for mounting, 3 pairs of holes in each piece on 12 inch centers for 1/4" socket head fasteners. I used woven stripping discs on a 4.5" angle grinder to remove the rust and mill scale. that was a filthy job.





I got the base frame welded together, the front of the horizontal legs have a 1 foot long section that will fold inward when not in use to reduce the footprint. There will be two 1/2" thick pieces welded to the top of the vertical legs to mount a couple of pillow block 1" ID bearings for rotating the table top.





I am making a couple of shafts that will pass through the sides of the table top and the bearings. I have some 1.375" mystery steel for those parts. There will be a disc brake rotor mounted on one end with some way to lock the table in any position. I machined a hub for the rotor from a piece of the 5" 4340 steel that we picked up last year. The 4340 has a 1'"hole through the center that I will bore to 1.300". will then machine the shaft for a press fit into the hub and weld it to the shaft.









I bought some casters that will add 5" to the height on Amazon and got them mounted to the base frame.





This is a fun project! That 4340steel machines beautifully.
 
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Nice work. Giving your new bandsaw a good workout too.
I hadn't realized your 4340 log had a hole down the middle, interesting. Sure looks like it machines well.
 
PeterT said:
Nice work. Giving your new bandsaw a good workout too.
I hadn't realized your 4340 log had a hole down the middle, interesting. Sure looks like it machines well.
Click to expand...

The 5" log of 4340 has a hole. The 6.75" and 4" logs of 4140 don't. It machines so much nicer than cold rolled.
 
John Conroy said:
The 5" log of 4340 has a hole. The 6.75" and 4" logs of 4140 don't. It machines so much nicer than cold rolled.
Click to expand...

So I got some of that round log material also last year...I believe I saw "4340" faintly written on one of my pieces and so I assumed the whole lot was the same as I saw no other markings....
Were your pieces better marked?
Don
 
I got some 4 inch logs and a 6.75 inch one that have no markings but some of the others from the same piles were marked 4140. I have machined some of that stuff and it is quite different from the 5 inch log I have that is marked 4340. The 4340 machines smooth as glass and seems harder. When I tapped the holes to fasten the brake rotor to the hub I machined I went with fine thread becàuse I was worried about breaking a half inch coarse thread tap in it but it tapped pretty easily with the fine thread.
 
As you can see in the pics above I drilled 1/2" holes around the circumference of the rotor every 22.5 degrees. I guess I only needed 8 holes as the table will never be used with the top inverted but I didn't think of that until after they were all drilled. I don't plan to add a large round wheel to aid in turning like the sample pictures above. I made the locating pin from 1/2" cold rolled rod and the handle from a piece of the 1.375 mystery steel. I added a knurl to the outside of the handle and reamed the inside hole to .499" to provide and .001" press fit onto the pin. I heated the handle up with a heat gun to 400 degrees F and it dropped right onto the pin, I used a little red Loctite to be sure it never comes loose.
 
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