Welding Table Top - thickness??

[shortgoroper]

What are you guys using to treat your welding table... Leaving it as is.. bare steel, using stainless, or primer and paint... or just using it everyday.. "rolling stone grows no moss theory"?

[Fishy Jim]

I run a dehumidifier about 9 months out of the year. Rust ain't a problem.

[SavageSunJeep]

Rust, what a rust? I live in the desert and it rarely rains here...

[shortgoroper]

I wish.. The filings from my cut off wheel rust on the ground making for orange footprints on the carpet... ahhh besides, alot of vehicle up my depend on rust to keep them together.

[m.k.swelding]

I need to build a better one then the one I got

[SavageSunJeep]

I know, thicker is better - ... What do people think would be a good minimum size? 1/4" thick enough? Could I even get away with 3/16"? Thanks for your input.

Tim

well you can weld on a piece of sheet metal if you want. whether or not it makes sense really depends on what you plan to weld

If you can not for what ever reason "have" a thick table top . . . Look at all the skeleton type tables in here . . . Built from heavy angle, channel & square tube . . .

Some of the most experienced people you will find in here use a skeleton type table ONLY . . . and swear by them . . . and their work shows it clearly that anything can be built on them.

Well enough was enough, 'tween the Home Owners Assoc, small garage and city/HOA would not let me add on and an even SMALLER apron to work on...wife and I sold it, and bought an ACRE We love it. Amazing in that we are 6 miles closer in town than we were before.

Gonna build me a shop. The old (my first EVER welding project) welding table of 18 x 66 is gonna be history.

That said and reading and listening to folks my welding table will be: 32" x 48" x 3/16 with a add-on of 12 x 32 x 1" steel grate for plasma cutting etc. All this setting on top of a custom build 'skeleton' table for support and keeping thing on the square and on the level.

IMO skeleton + thinner top = less weight, thus I can manhandle (it will have wheels on one end). Till I get the shop built I still need to move things around inside the 2 car garage space I use now.

I am a one-man-show and if I cannot lift what I need to work on to the top of the table a 1" thick steel surface does not help. I work mostly on Jeeps and about the largest/heaviest object I work on or build is a custom front/rear bumper that might weight as much as 100 lbs MAX and be the width of the Jeep. I can think of nothing I work on that the tolerance is less than about 1/8th of an inch.

One of my buddies has a shop he built that has a 5' x 8' x 3/4" welding table...took a crane to set it in the shop before the roof was on...but he sure has a nice surface to work on.

So I ask him one day, as he is about my age: What happens if you drop dead, what does your wife do with the shop? "Don, I have never thought about that!"

Well I have and its another reason why the lighter table, I got to think about what I leave behind that has to be sorted out. I suspect that in a home sale unless a welder is buying you might need to pay to get a several ton table moved and I doubt it would be cheap.

I do thank all for good advice on here especially the skeleton table approach....

[tasslehawf]

I'm flattered. I posted this more than a year and half ago.

You could scale this one to any size you'd like:

http://www.millerwelds.com/resources...=welding+table

I actually don't use this table. I lost it to a friend.

I have two welding table solutions that are temporary in nature but I have been using for years.

1) For small projects, I have a 36" x 36" 3/16" plate on three pieces of 1x2" rect tubing sitting on top of the old workbench in our garage. I have literally 2 sq. ft. of space to work in in front of the bench.

2) Lacking a real welding table, I have welded 4' x 8' x 36" cages for work tables on top of 4 pieces of 3" x 5" x 6"L rect. tubing pieces on a regular melamine topped work table.

I think my next table will be one like Fishy Jims tho.

[tasslehawf]

What are you guys using to treat your welding table... Leaving it as is.. bare steel, using stainless, or primer and paint... or just using it everyday.. "rolling stone grows no moss theory"?

I used steel, painted the base but left the top of the base + attachment points for my grounding clamp unpainted. It just depends if rust is a big issue in your area. I don't mind cleaning a top but I don't want to have to bother with the legs as well.

[Marcel Bauer]

Anything thicker than 1/4" is a bonus. How heavy you want to go depends on a lot of factors: Cash or material available, weight capacity needed, etc.

My ideal for general fabrication/welding is 1/2". That gives enough material to drill/tap 1/2" for hold-downs wherever I want. I use C-clamp vise grips a lot as well so I only lose 1/2" of clamp capacity.

I like the frame set back from the edges of the top a couple or three inches for clamping/vise-gripping. If the frame is angle I like toe out under the top for the same reason.
If tubing is used for the frame I like open ends on the two longer pieces for storing a pony clamp, prybar, square, etc. Table extensions/supports can be fitted for the open tubing as well...

As for being plane, I never trust a table and always use shims where/if required.

[Burnt hands]

I got a Buildpro table for a recent job where I needed to hold better tolerances than I was able using my old table. Plus the part was larger than my old table.

The new table measures 38" x 78" x 5/8" thick and fits nicely between my scaffolding at the end of my garage. I use the upper deck of the scaffolding as storage since the ceiling is 10 ft.

The old table measures 28" x 46" x 5/8" and I shimmed it to be level with the new table so I can extend my work area.

Wish I had seen Fishy Jim's table design before I ordered this but the job needed to be done in a hurry. Usual case of nothing for a while then a quick rush job which almost paid for the table.

Had some 4" angle pieces drilled to act as stops at 90 degrees and also at 45 degrees.
You can see the dedicated clamps and stops which came with the table. The holes are 5/8" in diameter and are on 2" centers. The space between the plates is 1 3/4" which allows use of C clamps.

Since I only tig, I don't need to worry about spatter or plasma cutting damage to the table. One minor nuisance is that I often drop parts thru the openings between the plates.

I do like that I can re-arrange the plates if I need a larger opening or if I need to make the top deeper than 38".