Dan's Hobbies » welding

Bench legs are finally done.

Dan — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 05:30:53 +0000

I finally got time to finish welding my workbench legs today. I really underestimated the amount of time it was going to take. Though it was more work than I expected, I enjoyed it, and my weld skills are much better now than when I started. Next up is making the Sothern yellow pine tops, so stay tuned.

MIG welding with preheat

Dan — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 04:14:42 +0000

Last night I finished up the mounts for the leveling feet of the utility benches I’m making. Of every thing that needed to be done, the mounts where the one thing I was concerned about. Somehow I needed to figure out how to weld the two pieces together, without imparting a lot of distortion in the final part. After reading a bunch of posts on Welding Web, and asking a few question I determined that the best way to do this was by pre-heating the two pieces before welding them together. I used a cheap propane torch to preheat them to over 500°F. I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but I think it worked because the beads are nice and fluid looking.

Shop Benches (prt. 2)

Dan — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:20:02 +0000

After a long Christmas & New Years, hiatus I started working on my shop benches again this week. On Sunday night everything was going well and I designed and built the alignment jig in about an hour. Monday night didn’t go as well. Part way through welding the first leg unit I ran out of wire. A quick look at the clock (11pm), and I knew I wasn’t getting any wire until the next day.

Tuesday after work I picked up some wire and finished off the first leg unit. I should have seen this coming, half way through the second leg unit I ran out of gas. After getting a refill on Wednesday, I was able to finish up the rest of the leg units with out any problems.

The pine & MDF alignment jig.

How I hold The tubing flush, when tacking.

A decent weld

Ground Flush

A finished unit

New shop benches project

Dan — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:59:37 +0000

It’s been a while since I posted something so I thought I should share what I’m currently working on. Besides, it’s to cold in the garage to work even with the propane heater running full blast. I’m Making 2 utility benches for my workshop. I want them to last “forever”, so I have over engineered everything. My design requirements where:

They must be open underneath for role away tool storage.
They must be easy to disassemble if/when I move.
They must be able to support a high static load, in case I want to mount machine tools to them. I chose 1000 pounds as the target load.

It took me awhile to finalize the design, but what I came up with should be easy to build and not cost to much. The overall dimensions are W 72”, D 30”, H 40”– 44” (adjustable). I plan to make the top 4″ thick out of laminated hard maple. I might make it thinner depending on how much maple costs per board foot when I go to purchase it. The legs & horizontal cross bracings are 2.5” x .12” square tubing, & the rear diagonal bracing is 1-1/2” x 3/16” flat bar bolted to the legs.

I’ll post some more pics in a day or two.

New welding table

Dan — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 06:04:51 +0000

I have been working without a proper welding table for a while now, and it was really starting to cramp my style. I borrowed the Idea for my table from Bob Warfield, and used a roll-away tool chest for the frame, and 1/2″ steel plate for the top.