My first welding project - a work bench (1 Viewer)

[thebeedeegee]

I ended up buying a cheap HF Titanium welder to have around the garage to fix things and hopefully build some stuff. I got to do a little welding at work for small repairs, and found out it's a lot of fun.

Anyway, I finally got started last night on my first project. I'm building a welding table/ work bench. It's 1/8" 2 x 4 tubing (overkill I know, but it's all that was in stock) a 1/4" plate top. I'm planning to weld some nuts to the bottom of the legs and use all-thread and some 1/8" plate to make adjustable feet to level it.

My welds aren't that great, but I feel like I did pretty good. I'm hoping to finish it tonight. I still need to weld the final 3 legs on and some supports between them. This thing is going to be STOUT

 

[Bob Morazes]

Looks pretty good.
I hope you have a lot of STRONG friends to flip it over and move it.
Stout is good word for it.
I dont know your welding experience, so please forgive me if you know this already.
Unless you want the practice. you dont need continuous welds everywhere.
Skip weld should be plenty. ie 1" weld 2" space. and stagger the welds from the inside of the box beam and the outside. ie the outside 1" of weld should be opposite the 2" gap on the inside.
What kind of welder do you have?
Bobmo

 

[thebeedeegee]

Looks pretty good.
I hope you have a lot of STRONG friends to flip it over and move it.
Stout is good word for it.
I dont know your welding experience, so please forgive me if you know this already.
Unless you want the practice. you dont need continuous welds everywhere.
Skip weld should be plenty. ie 1" weld 2" space. and stagger the welds from the inside of the box beam and the outside. ie the outside 1" of weld should be opposite the 2" gap on the inside.
What kind of welder do you have?
Bobmo

thanks, yeah I had to have my wife help me with just the frame and top. Once the legs are on it's going to be tough getting it over for sure. I wish I could have got my hands on some thinner tubing locally.

I'm very inexperienced so I'll take any advice I can get. I had planned to weld like you said every few inches around the topper, but didn't think about staggering the 1" and 2 " sections I will definitely do that.

As for the welder it's just a cheap Harbor Freight Titanium 140. Runs on 120v and it does have the gas hookup, but I've been using flux core for this. I plan on building my wife a table for the back porch next , although definitely not out of 1/8" rectangle tube haha

 

[e9999]

it's really nice how welding is a skill that you can start improving by building welding accessories!
A nice welding cart is also a typical first project.
Smart you didn't start with a trailer. (Although I still would not want that top plate to fall on my foot... )
Maybe put a cross member under the top plate while you have all the tools out? Likely not needed but can't hurt and easy.
All I've heard so far about the Titaniums is that they weld fine, are decent quality, and a good value. 1/4" for a 140A machine is pushing it, though, so you may want to consider doing more than one pass if there are any critical weld on the 1/4 plate? Good practice too.

 

[thebeedeegee]

it's really nice how welding is a skill that you can start improving by building welding accessories!
A nice welding cart is also a typical first project.
Smart you didn't start with a trailer. (Although I still would not want that top plate to fall on my foot... )
Maybe put a cross member under the top plate while you have all the tools out? Likely not needed but can't hurt and easy.
All I've heard so far about the Titaniums is that they weld fine, are decent quality, and a good value. 1/4" for a 140A machine is pushing it, though, so you may want to consider doing more than one pass if there are any critical weld on the 1/4 plate? Good practice too.

I was thinking about multiple passes where the legs attach to the plate last night, and I'm going to use some 3/16" angle for bracing around the back and sides of the legs. I'm still trying to decide if I want to use the angle for a center support under the plate or the angle, I'm kind of worried about weight at this point.

I'm still working on it because I ran out of wire last night, hopefully I can finish up today.

 

[e9999]

the good thing about flux core is that the penetration is a bit better than MIG, everything else the same, from what I understand.

 

[thebeedeegee]

I finished her up tonight, and man I know it ain't perfect but I'm proud of it. All the legs sit flat, top isn't warped and it didn't turn out TOO heavy, still not light by any means lol.

I learned a lot on this one.

 

[e9999]

Now to add a bunch of hooks, shelves, drawers etc...

 

[thebeedeegee]

Welded up this table over the past few days using material that was left over. Used some oak boards and stained them. This is going on the back porch to place things on while I'm grilling, and use as a kind of serving table for outside parties and stuff.