Welding Tips and Tricks

Fellas,

Hope all is well with everyone in the new year. I've been away from the forum for a while (again). Lurking occasionally to see what types of projects folk have been working on however. Anyway, the primary reason for my absence has been the lack of fabrication projects, which has been due to a life decision I made a while ago. I decided to purchase a business for legacy reasons; to have something to leave behind to my son when it's all over for me. 'Want him to have more than I had. Things were still booming then, less so now. However I chose to:

1) Retain the day job (software)
2) Purchase an existing business rather than start from scratch
3) The business had to be a passion
4) I spoke with a couple of fabrication shops but didn't get a positive reaction from them
5) So I chose the route of an automotive repair shop.

We've been owners of a shop in Round Rock for a few months now. It's doing alright. However with inflation, the economy, etc. the industry as a whole is rather soft, if to speak openly. I digress. The point being that while we're slower than we normally would be, I decided to make a few improvements around the shop. And that brings the discussion into relevancy to the forum.

One of the aspects of the shop that I bought that I never liked was how they did bulk oil. To be clear, bulk oil is oil that you store in some container for utilization during oil changes. You must also have a waste oil collection system of some sort, but that is unrelated to the subject at hand. The most common approach to bulk oil in an automotive repair shop is to have one or more large storage tanks that are located in a separate room, plumbed with piping (either steel or PVC, usually steel). The oil from those tanks is pumped up out of the side room and along the ceiling to the work bays, where hoses on reels are available to dispense the oil into a given vehicle. Great option, but my shop is space constrained as it is. No possible way we could install such a system. And of course that didn't exist when I bought the shop, as one would expect.

Another approach is to buy your oil in 55 gallon drums. Those are brought in by a vendor and stored wherever. Oil is extracted via a hand pump into a small container of your choosing, then walked to a vehicle and poured in. Much less efficient. In addition to inefficiency, there are other issues too. A small amount at the bottom of the drum cannot be extracted, the drum option itself is more expensive than other options and finally the dang things just get in the way because they occupy more space than you think they would, depending on how many you have. Again, we just don't have the space in the shop. The previous owner operated with two drums. This made the oil change process rather cumbersome, depending on the use case for a given vehicle. Another issue with the drums is that the vendor will often bring you new drums, but the fella bringing the new stuff is not the fella who collects your old (but not completely empty) drums. And so you would often have more around than you normally planned. It could be a couple of weeks between the dropping off of new drums and the retrieval of the old ones. In our shop that made life a real pain. So I told myself that I needed to come up with an alternative approach to the friggin drums.

Interestingly I noticed that we also didn't have much in the way of workbenches. "Not enough room" was the reply when I inquired about it. No surprise. And so hmmmmmm...I did a little research and found this: It is a combination workbench and bulk oil system. Each (heavy duty) plastic container has a maximum capacity of 120 US gallons. Two containers can therefore hold more than four drums. And this approach to bulk oil is cheaper than the drum counterpart. A solution to two problems really, so I decided to press ahead with further research.

So I contacted my bulk oil vendor and inquired about this configuration/product. He had never heard of it, but with one website reference to another vendor (which doesn't deal directly with the "public") he realized that this vendor was already one of his source vendors. And so he made contact with them and worked me up a quote. While the containers, hoses, pumps, reels (which are 50' by the way and can therefore stretch across our entire shop without issue - COOL!) and dispensers came in at reasonable numbers, that metal workbench fellas ... SHHEEESSSHHH! I don't know about you but one look at that picture and I wasn't a fan of it anyway. The gauge material seemed/looked thin and I didn't like that the top was metal as well. My technicians further stated that they would prefer wood when I mentioned that to them. Anyway, the metal workbench *ALONE* came in at about $3,500. Wha-? Gheez, ok. Well hey, I can lay a bead, cut and grind, so why not just build the workbench myself I wondered? And in case you are wondering, the ROI is about 6 months, depending on how many oil changes we do in that period. Well worth the capital investment IMHO, but I digress again.

I inquired with my vendor as to whether the components could be purchased separately. He did some checking and told me that they could. He in fact found me an equivalent system at a better price, save the containers. So I went with that (the alternative pumps, etc.). It was then and there that I decided I would build my own workbench. And thus a new fabrication project was born. And thus the reason for the creation of this new thread: the building of a combination workbench/bulk oil system for our automotive repair shop.

The first step was to order all of the components and then take measurements. These critters are fairly equally-length cubes. They are stackable both vertically and horizontally due to their shape. Specifically they measured out at about 32" deep, 35" tall and about 33" wide. However, the oil port is located on the front at the bottom, so you must have room to attach a fitting and a hose. And I didn't want the containers to be crammed into a tight space, for that might cause issues during refilling. For those reasons and others, I decided that I would give them a workbench with interior spacing of 36" in height, 36" in depth, and 35" in width. This was my quick-sketch draft of the framing: I called my local metal supplier to check on source material. I was thinking I would choose 3/16" wall HSST, probably 2" x 2" square. As it would turn out though, they had some 3" x 3" x 3/16" that was on sale for less than the 2" x 2", so I went with that. It was overkill, but hey, I tend to overkill most projects anyway. So I went with the on-sale stuff and also picked up some 1.5" x 1.5" x 3/16" HSST for the support bracing, as well as a sheet of 1/4" plate for the container to sit upon. That too was overkill, I mean 3/16" would have been sufficient. However the supplier didn't have any 3/16" plate in stock of an adequate size. And so I went with the 1/4". More overkill.

Mobility would be a good feature for us, so I found some industrial casters with wheel locks online that - if the data sheet can be believed - will support up to 1,250 lbs each. I decided to go with 6 of them. Even more overkill.

Just prior to the holidays I purchased the material from the metal supplier: However despite all of these grandiose plans that I had to complete it over the holidays while I was off of work, that didn't materialize. Just too much family stuff. I managed to get some stuff done, but rather paltry really. And so I was relegated to working on it once the new year began after work and whenever I could squeeze time in on the weekends. Which means that the project will stretch for longer than I would like. Oh well, no complaints. Just sayin'.

Fortunately my F-450 dually can hold 12' sticks, so that is what I went with for everything. Saves the supplier's cutting costs and you don't need to search through the drops. In the end, with the 3" x 3" HSST, the dimensions would be 76" wide by 42" deep. That will fit into the space that we have in mind for it in the shop, so all to the good. The plan was to construct the top and bottom of the frame as their own pieces, then connect them via the verticals or "legs" that would be cut to length. All of that would be crafted from the 3" x 3" HSST. The 1.5" x 1.5" HSST would serve as the bracing for each of the halves, both top and bottom. I also decided to go with 6 verticals given the width of the workbench and the type of duty it would experience. I could just forsee my technicians stacking stuff on it to no end; transmissions, whatever. So I figured that it would need to support a fair amount of weight on the top alone. The bulk oil system would be about 2,200 lbs when full, then you have the weight of the table itself plus whatever is stacked on top. Thus 4,500 lbs was my magic number. I felt that if the table could support that, I would have a respectable margin of safety. Technically the 6 casters can (reportedly) hold a combined 7,200 lbs and my calculations showed that the verticals could support much more than that prior to deformation. So with those numbers in-hand I was ready to proceed.

The first task is always the preparation. Cleaning and cutting and grinding. So I busted-out the by-now old and trusted DeWalt and began the show: The primary elements of the frame were soon ready: And despite a small amount of alignment issues due to the saw's fence wandering and my lack of double-checking, I soon had the basic top half of the frame together and in primer: I added in the bracing: And finished out the primer, since we were anticipating rain:

Quick mention: I chose to utilize the SMAW process, yet again, for this project. Lincoln 7018 3/32. I did so mostly because I would build this thing outdoors and it was windy most of the time that I was working. I might actually use my Everlast MIG welder to do MIG welding one day. But not yet.

Alright so with the top half done for the time being, I proceeded with the bottom half: Left the bracing a tad long (on both halves) such that they needed persuasion to find their way home: All too soon it was completed: With the bottom half on my outdoor workbench, I moved on to the plate that would reside on top of this half of the frame.

I tell ya, I sure was regretting the choice of the 1/4" plate, despite the fact that I would have needed to wait for the slightly-thinner stuff. A 4' x 8' sheet is not lift-able, at least not by me it isn't. I could get it off the ground, but not in the air. Just one side basically. I work alone, so I simply pushed it off of the back of the truck, then parked over it for about a month (holidays) until I could circle the wagons 'round to the project. Heck I could have just waited for the thinner stuff!

Anyway this plate had collected some oil droppings from my diesel engine and was not wanting to move: I drew lines at 76" and 42" inches respectively and began using the metal circular saw. Long 2-by-4s were used to hold the plate off the deck during cutting. I thought I had remembered reading that the saw could handle material up to 1/4" thick. I must have recalled incorrectly though because it wasn't having it. So I switched gears to an angle grinder and cut-off wheels. Went through several, but eventually I had it cut to size: Even with the diet that I put it on, it was still heavy and unwieldy. I managed to slide it over to the workbench, then somehow lift it onto the top of the bottom half of the frame: I sanded it down and applied rusty metal primer, then called it a night. Although I was careful, that operation was kinda sketchy fellas, if I may say so. Glad that my back is still in good shape despite my years.

Alright more later, gonna turn in for the night. Hope all is well!
Jerry

So the next work day began with securing the plate to the top of the bottom frame. There was a slight bow to the plate, so clamps were in order: I decided to simply tack it in several places since the upcoming welding of the verticals would involve the plate as well: And with that it was time to cut the remaining 12' stick of 3" x 3" to form those verticals....

Since the verticals would be 36" in height, I could only cut three of them from the 12' stick: Due to the width of the saw blade involved in each cut, the fourth vertical came in a bit short at 35.5": And so I decided to build it up to a full 36" by welding on a scrap piece of 3" x 3" then cutting it to length: That yielded 4 of the 6 verticals. I had scraps leftover from the cutting of the primary frame halves. They were about 28" in length or so and had 45-degree cuts on one end. So I decided that I could just build the other two by welding these together: And then cutting them to length as well. This yielded three "built-from-scraps" verticals: They came out fine. I ground the respective ends to include a bevel, land and small gap. Adjusted the amperage up just a tad, then ground the result on two sides so that I could lay it flat and make a good measurement for the trimming-down to 36". In the end they came out well in comparison to the "purely cut" verticals: And even the lengths matched, which meant that I used the DeWalt correctly for a change :

Here are the containers by the way, just hanging out until the workbench is ready for primetime: And then it was time to weld the verticals in place. Because the plate was cut to be just shy of a full 76" x 42", it didn't meet flush with the sides of the 3" x 3" frame. Thus when the verticals were mounted to be flush with the frame, there was a valley between the bottom of the vertical and the frame. Kind of an "inset" if you will. Thus I needed to fill-it weld that valley as the first step. I then laid a bead above and below that fill-it bead, then a cap. I plan on grinding that back to level/smooth once the weather clears (we are being hit with an arctic blast, which is frustrating, but whichever). Anyway I did a quick and dirty fit-up on the corners by sliding the frame and plate off of the workbench just a tad, then using clamps and angle iron: Couldn't take that approach with the middle verticals though, so out came the magnets: All of which was "verified" by a 4' level as I went. Back in the day I watched every video that Jody made regarding distortion. So that remains etched into my head when I attempt these types of fit-ups and welds. I tacked on opposite sides and corners, checking plum as I went. In the end it came out ok: Due to the forecasted weather, I taped the top of the verticals in an effort to prevent H2O from making its way inside. And that is where the project stands at present: suspended progress due to weather. I'll post once I resume work, which will hopefully be this weekend.

Hope all is well with everyone!
Jerry

Fellas:

The winter storm that made its way through TEXAS a couple of weeks ago put a temporary halt to the bulk oil workbench project. This is but one picture of the kind of issues that came to our doorstep: We've pretty much cleared the property as of yesterday. Some minor cleanup remains. However I plan on resuming work on the project ASAP, since the fellas in the shop could use the end result in their daily work.

Hope all is well!

Y'all,

After a good bit of tree and brush removal, I cleared the area around my outdoor work table and then put the gantry into position to do some heavy lifting: I lifted the top half of the table with simple ratchet straps wrapped around parts of the top half frame. Then placed it into position above the 6 legs: After a little aligning, I tacked it to hold it in place, then removed the straps and repositioned the gantry. I was only able to weld-out half of the beads and apply rusty metal primer prior to my ol' nemesis arriving: the dark: Looking forward to the summer when it is light until about 9 pm in Central TEXAS.

I revisited the project today after lunch. Completed the weld-out of the legs to the underside of the top half of the table. Did a little grinding and then everything went into rusty metal primer, as per normal. At that point, it was time to remove the entire frame off of the work table. It is far too heavy to lift, thus time for the gantry again. This time however I decided to use a chain that was wrapped around the frame instead of straps. 'Prolly would have been ok with the straps, but ... so with a little prep it was elevated from the table: And sat down on one end: As super-simple math would tell you, the caster bases were too large for the 3" x 3" tubing: So I decided to utilize the scraps of 3" x 3" tubing that remained from the primary build effort of this project: I cut those into 6 different sections, with the large sections to be placed in the middle to support the casters that will be mounted there. I also put a small bevel on the ends, though with 7018 that causes you to need to watch your amperage, lest you blow holes through stuff: I seam welded these critters to both the frame and to the 1/4" plate that will serve as the "shelf" for the oil containers. Although it was unnecessary, in the end I made full passes along the edges. I did so because I don't practice 7018 uphill all that often (mostly flat or horizontal). And so I decided to just lay beads everywhere in order to "get a little seat time" as Jody might say in regard to 7018 uphill. By the end of the day, my passes were certainly cleaner than when I began. However I could use more practice. Anyway, once that was completed, I ground the few places on these welds that needed attention, then covered the entire bottom in ... you guessed it ... rusty metal primer: At that point I needed to pick the family up and it was growing dark (uuuugggghhhh) anyway, so that was all of the progress I was able to make on this particular Saturday. Next will be to grind the casters to remove the plating, then weld those to the bottom of the frame. From there I can set it on its feet, touch up anything that needs touching up, paint the frame and then install the wood top. I will need to address the mounting of the pumps and reels at some point, but I have decided to defer that until after the fundamental structure has been completed.

Hope all is well!

Fellas,

Made progress in the last little bit. Funny how in every project such as this, there is a deadline that establishes a timeframe that you must meet. And that seems to detract from the "fun" of working on fabrication projects somehow, ya know? 'Just a part of it, but just once I'd like to be able to work on something and not worry about a deadline. To just enjoy what I am doing. But I digress, enough whining.

So the casters were next. First step was to grind the rust protection from the underside and sides of the bases: I decided to utilize the gantry to turn the frame upside down. In this configuration, mounting of the casters would be easier because I wouldn't need to work against gravity while welding: I ran 7018 beads along all four sides of the bases as well as within the mounting holes. Despite having ground down the protective coating, I still busted out my fan to blow the fumes away from me. Call me particular. Anyway soon enough, they were all in position: With that I lifted it back up onto its side: And onto the new wheels: Those are 6-inch casters, so they added a good deal of height to the table. Thus the end result is a bit taller than I would have liked, but it'll work. The fellas in the shop wanted a wood table top, so I went to a box store and had a 4' x 8' sheet of 23/32 plywood trimmed to 76" x 42": To secure it to the frame, I bought a few packages of brackets, ground the protective coating off of those and then welded them to the frame: Screw those to the bottom of the plywood and you have a somewhat secure topside. With that, I decided that enough progress had been made to warrant bringing it into the shop. So I loaded it onto the back of Da Beast: And had the fellas unload it with an engine lift: Unfortunately, the decision I made to forego the building of the mounting bracket on the side of the frame, as shown in the example picture: Will not work. We need somewhere to mount the pumps. And so tomorrow I will get some plate and cut a couple of ~2" holes in it. I'll need to lug enough of my gear to the shop to weld that plate and supporting brackets onto the end of the frame. At that point we can mount the pumps, reels and dispensers, then complete the plumbing. I'd like to finish this ASAP because there is a diff in cost between oil purchased in boxes/bottles and oil that is pumped into a container. The latter is noticeably lower in cost, to be clear. Thus there is a financial reason behind this endeavor. Granted, it will require about 10 months to recoup the capital investment that I have made in this workbench (excluding my time, for which I am not charging myself). That was an acceptable tradeoff IMHO.

I'll report when I have a finished product. Hope that all is well!
Jerry

Alright, so I left the story off with this notion of needing to address a side mounting plate for the pumps that will draw the oil from the containers and send it to the reels. To make a start on that task, I began with some of the remnants of the 1/4" plate that I had cut and welded onto the top of the bottom half of the frame. The cross-section piece from that initial cut was a full 48", and the amount I needed for this lil' project was 42". So I lopped off the extra bit and attempted to straighten the cut edge a bit: Next would be a few support brackets, which I made from the long-wise section of that same cut from the sheet of 1/4" plate: I decided to cut four of these lil' critters, full-well knowing that I would likely only install two: Better to have too many and not need them than the reverse, as always. Next was to drill the two holes for the pumps: Because I don't fabricate enough to justify the cost, all I have in my workshop is a 15" drill press and "metal" hole saws. My magnetic drill won't punch holes of this diameter. Thus it was a long-ish, tedious process to make my way through two holes in 1/4" plate. I went through two "metal" hole saws at that. In the end, the 2 1/8" hole saws weren't quite as large in diameter as I needed, so I had to enlargen one of the holes with a die. I used a 2 1/2" hole saw on the second hole, which produced something just a smidge larger than needed. It'll work.

And so I loaded up The 5-O and headed to the shop. I pulled a Jeep Liberty out of bay 3 and put it into bay 1 so that I could access the workbench and pull it into the bay, away from the oil. The plate had a slight bow to it, wouldn't ya know, so I welded two of the brackets onto the verticals of the frame, made level with a simple 4' box-store special level. I then placed the plate on those two brackets, bow side up. Next task was to set one of the reels, which weighs a good amount, right in the center of the plate: This was done in a pseudo-effort to eliminate the bow. Applied a few tacks and removed the reel for finish welding. The approach worked. Kinda banal it would seem, but if it works, 'kinda difficult to argue against. After welding, this is the idea of how the pump will live on this plate: With that, it was time for rusty metal primer: And more burnt orange paint: The holes for these pumps were cut just large enough to mount the pump by sliding one half of the threaded retainer in from above and one half from below. Sandwich the two together and it will hold to the plate nicely. That's all fine and well, but what prevents the pump from coming up from within these two retainers? Well, there is an internal, round retaining snap ring, that when fully sinched down, will hold the retainers in place anywhere along the shaft of the pump. However, you can't fully sinch it down in this scenario due to the 1/4" plate. And so what to do? The initial thought was/is to find a larger retaining snap ring. A quick online search didn't turn up much, McMasters, Grainger, all of 'em. The other thought is to drill a hole through the retainer to install a set screw. I'd rather just find a larger retaining ring, or perhaps just more of them. So we'll see. As it stands now I can pull the pump out from within those two retainers by hand (two hands admittedly). So I don't know how that would play-out if you were to apply pressure to the pumps ... I mean, would it be enough to cause them to work their way up out of the hole? Seems unlikely, but definitely possible. I don't think that they'd come out entirely, but still ... not a great solution.

So I'm off to work on that. I'll post when I figure it out. Hope all is well!

Alright fellas, I was able to connect all of the plumbing over the weekend: Which meant the 90-degree fittings that thread into the bottom of the containers, the hoses that run to the bottom of the pumps, the hoses that run from the pumps to the reels and then mount the reels rigidly to the table top. I then went in tonight after work to install the dispensers onto the ends of the reel hoses: Now we just need to run air to the workbench. We'll do that later on; for now we'll simply use one of the shop air hoses to power the pumps. 'Need to pick up some tubing first in order to create a permanent air supply for this system. Also, I've told the fellas in the shop that both the containers and the reels need to be properly labeled so that no one cross-pollenates different types of oil, nor accidentally draws from the incorrect container. One container will hold a full synthetic while the other will house a synthetic blend.

Thus, save the permanent air supply and labeling, this project draws to a close. Onto the next!

Hope that all is well with everyone. Take care!

Just a quick picture of the workbench after being in action for a while. It's working out quite well for us, so definitely a good decision to custom build one to suit our needs in our automotive repair shop. Hope all is well!

Very nice!

'Overbuilt' in these kinds of conditions is usually good. Just means it'll last a lot longer

Only possible addition I could imagine, but that will depend on your real-use experience, is perhaps some sort of removeable protection cage/shield around the hoses and bottom of the pumps so they can't get bumped/snagged by someone accidentally as they are the only thing outside the envelope of the cage where the reservoirs are.

Bye, Arno.

Hi Arno,

Good suggestion! I did have that on my mind as well. I was just in a rush to finish it and so I didn't get around to that. But perhaps I need to make that a Saturday afternoon project. Whatever I come up with, I'll post back here.

I made a quick video for the shop's Facebook page (I don't do FB much, but the previous owner of the shop had this FB following, so I decided to continue it since the customer base had come to expect it).
https://rumble.com/v2dsabg-new-custom-b ... bench.html