Tag Archives: work bench

Dedicated space 6

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Sunday, a banner day! Things a-happenin’ all over the place!
Once I got those gussets welded on at each end, I turned my attention to the front of the table. There was no way to fasten it to the top of the frame unless I wanted to drill holes in it and bolt it through, and there was no way in hell I was going to drill holes in my nifty sheet of smooth steel. The only thing to do, therefor, was to weld a piece of flat stock at a perpendicular angle underneath the top at the front of the frame, and then drill through that and bolt it down. Below is one of the welds from that piece.

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I did not just make a weld that went all the way across the front, tempting as that sounds. When you weld, you generate a lot of heat, and when you generate a lot of heat, you warp things. If I’d just made one great big long bead across the front I would have warped the hell out of both pieces of metal, and it would have been impossible to get the thing to fit flat on the frame after that. Instead, I made four welds across the front like so. And you know what? I still warped it. The top arched up in the center about a quarter of an inch. If you look back up at the first photo you can see the little black dot that I made at the bottom edge of the steel before I welded it. Post-welding, and you can see it has obviously arched upward. I put a straight edge on the bench top, and it wouldn’t lay flat, meaning that I’d never get any of my sculptures to sit flat on it either. Ever. That was NOT going to work. I had to do something. What next? This:

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Here you can see two things. Well, you can see, like, twenty-seven, but there are two *main* things. One is my bit of welding the four spots under the bench top and the bolts now running through it into the frame. The other main thing is the dozen or so very heavy items I had to stack on top of the bench top to get it level again so that I could drill the holes for those bolts. There are, let’s see: four bricks, a bottle of detergent, a gallon can of acetone, a large piece of 1/2″-thick steel stock, four blocks of solid steel, and two halves of the differential of a 1967 Chevelle. Yup, it took all that. I thought of the bricks last, otherwise I think I would have just made a brick ziggurat and left it at that, but this is more entertaining anyway. Actually, to do it all over, I would have weighed everything down to begin with, lined it all up, drilled all the holes, run the bolts through, and THEN welded it – but I didn’t. Learn something new every day. Rest assured, I’ll not forget this little lesson.

That’s how we tied things up for the weekend, kids. I was so beat from all those shenanigans that I didn’t even bother to take any more pictures after that. More later, rest assured.

NOTE: I fully realize that I have ruined the “one” portion of “one-pic-a-day” here, but, really, you absolutely adore pictures of welded stuff, don’t you? Thought so.

Dedicated space 5

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Okay, here we are. Finally, after all this prep work, after all the sweeping, scrubbing the floor, running wiring, moving crap, throwing crap out, and all that other lameness, *finally* we have reached the good part: welding the bench!

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I realized that my original plan for the bench was going to have to be modified. The back stop was going to need some way to brace it or affix it to the top. Taking a look at things, it seemed like a good idea would be to add a corner piece below where the bench top met the backstop on either side. Triangles are structurally very sturdy shapes, and this would provide a good amount of rigidity to the joint as well as simply keeping the back stop from kind of wobbling on its flimsy sheet metal mount at the back of the bench. I was fortunate to find some small scraps of sheet stock that just so happened to be the perfect size, and this from an aborted project from at least five years ago. Coincidence? I think not.

I was actually kind of worried about this whole setup. I had never welded anything this thick before. Someone told me, “Better turn that up all the way,” on the amperage settings for my welder. I got out my little chart, saw that this was correct, and then I cranked the welder up to 150 amps and made sure I had the correct size tungsten. I got out some filler rod for the job, made sure that all my pieces were spotlessly clean and ready to go, and then I pretty much just held my breath and flipped the switch. It turned out fairly decent for my newb status, if I do say so myself. It’s not pretty, but it won’t fall apart any time soon. The other side looks a little prettier, but not much. Good enough to get the job done, I say.

This took a long time, even though it looks like all I did was buzz things together. Getting the pieces cut, fitted up precisely (always an issue), and getting them spotlessly clean – all that took a long time. Then I had to get things clamped together securely. The welding itself took maybe five minutes, but the whole operation surrounding it took all my free time for Saturday afternoon. I was pleased with the results, though. Big stuff coming on Sunday!

Dedicated space 4

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I’ve got a way to go yet, but we’re getting there! I put a ton more time in on things, and now it’s really starting to look like I’m making progress. The back stop is now drilled for the mounting holes and is clamped in place. I laid the top on it to see how things were going to line up before I start bolting and welding pieces together. Looks good doesn’t it? I’m getting chills just thinking of how awesome this is going to be! A real place to do metal work! It’s going to make so many little things so much easier! I’m going to have a REAL space to create metal sculpture! Kickass!!!

Dedicated space 3

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Ah, more work on the work space! Sweet! Now this picture may appear darker than the ones before it, but I want to point out that the light that is in the photo is coming from a different source this time: directly over the work bench! It took a lot more time and effort than I thought it should have (isn’t that always the case?), but the lighting is finally getting into shape. Rock on!

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Dedicated space 2

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More work on the work bench/shop space today! In this picture the astute among you will note that it looks…worse. In doing all the related work on the bench and work space, I ended up piling all kinds of tools and supplies about the area, but it’s going well, I assure you. I would like to point out one very small, but important, addition to the layout, and that’s the small post to the immediate right of the work bench. See the little box on the post? Electricity, my friends. Juice! I can now plug stuff in over in this little corner without running extension cords everywhere. The welder will plug in there. This is important. This is a very small but important step forward. There’s another outlet up in the rafters as well for lights. *Lights!* It’s gonna be cool.

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Dedicated space

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So you’ve been seeing all this stuff I’ve been welding, and you no doubt have said to yourself, “Tom, why on earth do you continue setting random scraps of wood on fire and clamping fifty different things together while you’re welding on your general-purpose work bench? Why?”

You’re smart, smarter than I, actually…until today. It has been rolling around in my brain that I’m really making things harder for myself by working this way. In the beginning when I just started practicing, it was okay. I only needed a little space, and I was just sticking random bits of stuff together, plus I was just starting to get the hang of the machine.

Now, however, it occurs to me that the speed and quality of my work will go up if I have a real work space designed specifically for metal work. I didn’t want to take the time to do that first off, because I was simply too excited to be welding, and I didn’t think it would make *that* much of a difference. I’ve since changed my mind on that. Remember the edge weld photo from the other day? Yeah, that’s actually the way I had that thing clamped up on the bench, and that was the *easy* way of doing it. That box I made took a bunch of weird clamping using pieces of wood and whatnot, and it just occurred to me that I was spending a lot more time setting the work up than I actually was welding it.

So here we are. Something had to be done. It was time to move forward, make some changes, affirm that I’m really getting into this whole deal. I looked to my left, and there sat a steel-framed workbench that my dad had brought over one time a few months ago. It had been left in my folks’ house when they moved in. It was really rather crappy for a wood bench – too small, kinda wobbly, crappy presswood top. But I could change all that, though I. I could pull off that top, mount a steel one to it, stiffen the legs with some braces, and I would have myself a really good starting point for a dedicated metal working bench.

But first! (there’s always that “but first”) First I needed to make the entire area a little more conducive to performing work. There was no readily available electricity in that corner, and no decent lighting. These things had to be addressed first. Well, that and the fact that the workbench had tons of crap piled on it. So I went to work cleaning and prepping the area, and at the end of the evening, I had this:

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It ain’t much to look at, kids, but it’s going to be pretty friggin’ cool once it’s done. It’s going to become the basis from which some seriously kickass work will be accomplished. Stay tuned. Lots more coming on this.