Welding positioner/turntable

[AWEGS72]

Anybody make their own turntable? I have a big job coming up and need a turntable to make it go smoothly. I've been looking at buying one, but don't want to spend $1,000 on a new one. Any ideas would be cool.

Thanks

Andy

[Checkered Flag]

I had that same question a month or two ago...

After debating if I wanted to spend time that was not available, and risk buying material and parts that were not compatible, I just bit the bullet.

Also I had no extra "parts" laying around to play with..

$1600 get you this... Money well spent for what I needed.

[m.k.swelding]

I agree. it will proble be easer just buyiny one. your most likely gonna use it more than once

[TripleTrophy]

Unless you have access to a scrap lathe, buy one. They have to be the cat's ass for welding pipe!

[triptester]

Anybody make their own turntable? I have a big job coming up and need a turntable to make it go smoothly. I've been looking at buying one, but don't want to spend $1,000 on a new one. Any ideas would be cool.

Thanks

Andy

What are you planning on welding ? Will the job be vertical or horizontal?

[Burnt hands]

Hello Andy,

Here are some photos of a turntable I made. It uses a gear reducer I had sitting for 20 some years. Ratio is 1725 to 1 so I had to do some experimenting.

I first put a 3" diameter pipe coupling on an old record player and had a friend turn it slowly at rough tig welding speed while I timed it with a stopwatch.

We came up with 1/2 to 3 RPM as a range for the turntable speed for my needs. Your needs (and mileage) may vary.

Then I ran the numbers with my existing gear reducer and found a 12 volt DC motor on ebay.

It works perfectly as far as speed range for the turntable as I can use 12 to 24 volts DC to run it.

The nice thing is that by swapping the leads (it has only 2), the motor will also reverse rotation. This is a nice plus.

I got the motor couplings from Reid Tool (www.reidtool.com) and the 3 jaw chuck from ebay.

I found the motor speed control in the internet and SSC controls (www.ssccontrols.com) has a foot switch and resistor which works for my set-up very similar to a tig foot control. SSC Controls will
change the resistor value to match your needs. They also make TIG foot controls.

Welded a plate to the motor coupling in case I had odd shaped pieces to weld.

Most welding is done with the 3 jaw chuck.

Hard part is using both feet and not mixing up who does what.

Total cost was about $150 with $75 being the cost of the 3 jaw chuck.

I can't weld pipe to flanges since I don't have a hole in the table and if I need to do horizontal or other than flat position pieces, I need to clamp the entire contraption to a hinged plate but it was cheap to build so I adapt until I can justify a real one.

Hope the photos help.

[AWEGS72]

Im welding bases to stainless pipe, most likely vertical. I found a MBC BP-2 for $995 and the spin lock 3 jaw chuck for $439. I'm going to be making 100 pieces at a time,so I will be using it quite a bit. I don't have a huge excess of time to fab my own at this point. The first job will pay $450, and if that goes well I'l lget another for $3,600 so it will be money well spent. I guess I thought I'd explore my options before dropping $1500. Or to see if anybody had a used one they wanted to sell.

[Checkered Flag]

You can do WAY beter on that chuck price, look around..

Not only that, but you will be surprised at how many uses that positioner will see.

After a month you will wonder how you got along without it...