New steel workbench plans

[TheJDMan]

Lance,
Here's another source of metal for you. I buy a lot of metal from these guys in small lots from their Richmond location. They have a store in Phoenix if I remember right. As for the surface, my table is bare steel since it would be pointless to try and paint it. If it gets a little rusty I just run a sanding disk over it and that takes care of the rust. In Phoenix I can't imagine you will have much of a rust problem due to humidity.


https://www.metalsupermarkets.com/

[SSLance]

Thanks Steve... I had a quote from them as well that was within dollars of the other retail metal places around only it was a bit more convienant for me to get too. The coupon made it worth the trip to get to IMS though.

I'm considering putting g a clear coat on the top but like you, I'll probably just leave it raw.

[SSLance]

Made some progress on the bench Sunday.

Started out by clamping the 4 pieces that make up one side leg together and down to the top sitting on a couple other pieces of tube.



Then took it all apart so I could drill a couple holes in the top piece with the drill press to put bolts in to hold vice mounts in place once finished...then clamped it back down again.

Started running beads and tweaking the welder settings but I couldn't get it to make enough heat just plugged into the 120v outlet near the hoist.



So I moved everything to the back of the shop where my 240v plug is and started over tweaking the settings.



It went MUCH easier with the 240v feeding the Miller.

Got one side done and ground down the crappy welds before calling it a day.



Here's what the floor locks and casters will look like once attached to the legs...



Things should go much faster the next time I get the welder out, hopefully later this week.

[SSLance]

Put a bit more time in on the welder this morning. I ran out of 0.24 wire so I put my roll of 0.30 wire in and put the Miller 211 on "autoset" just to see how it would be different.

This was the first weld on autoset...



After a few welds I liked the higher heat but it was feeding wire too fast for me so I slowed the wire speed down...then started practicing with different positions.





Overall I'm pretty pleased with how my welding is progressing. I'm still having to grind quite a bit but I'm able to leave some un-ground without being too embarrassed to have them show...

Got both side legs ready, next I'll be working on the cross pieces putting them all together as one.

[SSLance]

If I could ever get more than an hour or two at a time to work on this, I'd be making much more progress on it. That said...it became much more "bench looking" today.

Got the 3 cross pieces welded in today, everything is square, true, and solid as a rock. I don't think there is any need for any diagonal braces on this...plenty stout as is.





The top isn't attached yet, just sitting there for now.



I'm weighing options now about how to attach the top, whether a front to back cross brace is needed to secure center of top, whether to strip the scale off the top side or leave it...etc etc.

Next time in the shop I'll drill the holes in the bottom of the pieces that will go left to right that the side extensions will slide into then get them welded in. I'll weld nuts over the holes that will let me run a bolt in to clamp the extensions in place. Easier to drill them on drill press before attaching the tubes to the frame.

[79 Camaro]

I would add a center cross brace.

It's kind of a pain but I would grind the scale off the top piece. It will look a lot better.

[raustinss]

Let the scale come off own it's own thru use and such , it will help with keeping rust off, also what I have done before is to pour some oil on the surface ,spread it around ,just a light kinda layer every where , let it soak in overnight , next morning use some paper towels or clean rags and wipe off the excess. I've done this with one at work and ten yrs later I still have literally zero to no rust on it .