Anything welding

Don't judge me! I like making chips.

 

It's fine making chips.

It hurts when you buy plate steel by the pound that you paid for yourself.

 

One way to look at it is it’s either pay by the pound for steel or pay for the labor/tooling to add holes. I would bet drilling your own holes saves a bunch of money.

 

That looks thick. What ya making?
Zim

 

It’s not too thick, only 1/4”. I’m making a welding table finally. It’ll be on swivel locking casters to I can pull it off my garage wall for larger stuff.

 

Here's a few pics of how I moved my D-ring mounts up for my bumper. Knife edge bevel and then I plated over the area for good measure. I fully welded one side of the bevel then grinded out the backside until I reached solid material, then fully welded the backside, then grinded a bevel on the top side and welded that.

 

This is a big ol table! Not finished yet, still need to weld plates on the bottom of each leg and then bolt the casters on. I decided to bolt them on because I can use washers to shim each corner individually to get the table nice and level.

 

Ya gonna weld some cold roll under it to hang clamps on and flat bar to hang grinders on?

 

I’m not sure yet, I wasn’t planning on it but that would be nice to hang them on one of the edges.

 

I’d strongly recommend welding in a stretcher at the bottom of the legs. It would do a lot to take out some minor wobble you might experience later on. Or you could add a lower shelf but keep in mind how much weight you throw on there and how it’ll make moving the table more of a chore. I find myself using my lower shelf for junk and eventually the table gets really heavy to move around.

 

Makes it handy when ya working by yourself and such

 

I’m going to wait and see. I’ll get it all finished up and see if it’s a problem and then add them. Thanks for the heads up

 

Something as simple as this would do a lot to make the table feel twice as steady. Especially if you have something heavy on top.

 

Looks good! One question, is there a reason you didn’t make the frame closer to the edges of the steel plate? Even though 1/4” is strong, attaching a vice to it and applying a load may cause some decent deflection. I could be wrong too but that would be my initial thought.

 

Yeah I agree, and it would cause deflection. I don’t put a lot of force on my vice though. It’s mainly for holding a piece of steel as I cut it or something like that.

 

My thought process is if a shitty wooden work bench and tiny cheap shitty vice have been sufficient so far, this will be leaps and bounds better. Or that little harbor freight piece of crap welding table. I’d be hard pressed to find flaws in this bench using it how I will be.

 

You can always reinforce it where the vise is going if needed. I personally like the frame recessed back 4-6" for the use of clamps.

 

That’s true it would be very easy to reinforce it. I’ll do that when I go to add the wheels tomorrow since it’ll be fast and I have the steel handy. May as we go extra beefy.

 

So, I’m getting bad feedback from one person who claims to have showed my photos to a certified welder. He said the welds are no good and won’t hold, no penetration and no prep is obvious. I did remove paint, clean with acetone then burn off residue with a torch while preheating to 400 degrees. Is there anyone here that knows what a weld on cast iron is supposed to look like that can critique my welds? I’m not so concerned about a pretty weld, I just want it to be strong. If it doesn’t look strong then I may be in over my head with welding onto cast iron. Here’s another pic of a weld after I cleaned it a little with a wire brush. Don’t hold back, if it’s no good then please let me know and I’ll take the axle to a shop that can do it right.



I can see how the cast iron side could look like a cold weld but I don’t know exactly what a weld onto cast iron is supposed to look.

 

I can’t speak to that because I have no experience in welding to cast. That said, it’s a truss. How much force is it really gonna see? It’s not like you’re mounting links to it. I would just keep an eye on it and if you see it cracking later on, grind it out and redo it.