[andyb]

I am a beginning welder and will be doing hobby MIG welding - table legs, shop tables... What would be a good beginner welding table? I was looking at the:

Strong Hand FixturePoint table [http://stronghandtools.com/stronghandto ... turepoint/]

Certiflat fabblock tables [https://weldtables.com/collections/fabb ... ding-table]

Or just getting a piece of 1/2" plate and making my own.

Any suggestions? I like that the Fixturepoint and fabblock tables have holes drilled already.

[weldin mike 27]

Welcome Mate.

Super quality tables are nice, and no doubt really good. But in the big scheme of things, until you move on to very high quality accurate products, a ordinary steel plate table will do you just fine. It's almost a rite of passage to build your own table anyway. Plus, the strong hand table and the like are more about repeatability and speed. So for one off's in your garage, even if it needs to be super accurate, a plate table is fine. Invest that money in actual tools and welding consumables. You can never have enough of that stuff.

Regards, Mick

[Poland308]

I do most of my welding on a table that has a top that’s only 3/16. If you have extra money to burn or a spacific need for super flat or extra heavy duty then thick tops are great. At work most stuff is welded on stands and or saw horses, then you just get one of those plastic roller carts to keep your tools close.

[Louie1961]

Make a table, the learning experience is unbeatable. I have made two: one is sit down height, 30 inch x 30 inch, the other is stand up height, 3 x 5 foot

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[Bradk]

Andy,
I have two tables, a certi flat fab block and an outdoor table with legs and lockable wheels. I only use the fab block for tig welding and use the outside table for mig welding. I do not mig weld in my garage, too many flammable items and nicer tools. You can purchase a piece of 1/4" steel plate and pop some legs on it but then you have no clamp or tooling holes all of those equal more money . Strong hand tools also makes a small portable folding table for welding, got one of those as well but jut don't use it much due to having the other two.

Brad

[LtBadd]

Andy,
I have two tables, a certi flat fab block and an outdoor table with legs and lockable wheels. I only use the fab block for tig welding and use the outside table for mig welding. I do not mig weld in my garage, too many flammable items and nicer tools. You can purchase a piece of 1/4" steel plate and pop some legs on it but then you have no clamp or tooling holes all of those equal more money . Strong hand tools also makes a small portable folding table for welding, got one of those as well but jut don't use it much due to having the other two.

Brad

Nice setup Brad

[Darrin]

Ive recently purchased the strong hand 900 x 600 as I couldn’t justify the expense of a better table for the amount off work I’m doing. It’s nice, does the job well. In a Shop environment however I’d obviously go a certi flat......but for light use its fine. Then ive got a welding table on castors that i use (not fixture point) to abuse heavier gauge stuff on.

[A36]

I acquired an old commercial sewing machine table with steel legs and a 1 1/2 thick butcher block top. I'm going to use some firebrick with a steel plate on top of the wood. While I'd love one of those perforated top tables, I can't justify the expense as a hobbyist.

[Franz©]

Couple 10 foot Jersey barriers with a road plate on top is the lap of luxury.

If you gotta move it yourself a waitress tray jack with a 2x2 slab of steel on top will work all day every day.

[weldin mike 27]

A36.... I've got one of those that I recessed my chop saw into

[A36]

They make great work tables. I haven't set mine up yet. Never seem to have the time.

[pgk]

Must be nice to leave your Mig table outside Brad, I live in Michigan, if I left one of my tables outside it would be a rusted mess in a couple of days! LOL

[Boostr]

If you want to go cheap, check out HF welding table. Perfect for the beginner like myself.

[smithdoor]

I made my from scape
Here the drawing and a photo

I am a beginning welder and will be doing hobby MIG welding - table legs, shop tables... What would be a good beginner welding table? I was looking at the:

Strong Hand FixturePoint table [http://stronghandtools.com/stronghandto ... turepoint/]

Certiflat fabblock tables [https://weldtables.com/collections/fabb ... ding-table]

Or just getting a piece of 1/2" plate and making my own.

Any suggestions? I like that the Fixturepoint and fabblock tables have holes drilled already.

[gwood64]

When I recently began trying to learn how to tig weld it quickly became apparent that I needed some kind of welding table. Never needed one before for the type of welding I had been doing. I cobbled together a small table with some scrap I had laying around. Some angle iron from a livestock chute, some square tubing from a truck rack and a piece of 1/4 inch plate from, well I'm not sure. It's not pretty but it's working pretty well so far for practicing on.

[dgapilot]

I started out gas welding and back when I was in school, all the tables were fire brick, so that's what I made and it works well for gas welding. When I got my tig machine, I cut a piece of 3/16 steel on top of the fire brick table and that worked OK, although it did warp some. I was fortunate enough to have some extra cash last year and got a 36X48 CertiFlat table. That table is really nice to work on. I'll try and post some pics from my phone.

[KW14]

I'd say make your own table. If you're just starting out it's important to have some projects to do, not just to practice welding but also layout, cutting, clamping etc. When it comes to general fabrication, welding is just a small part of it, although a good table will help you will all the other parts.

1/4" will warp over time, I suggest 1/2". Make sure you put some casters on it to roll around the shop. Leave options for customizing the table further at a later date.

One good thing about going with 1/2" thickness is that later you can also "upgrade" the table by drilling some of your own 5/8 holes to use clamping like the type Strong Hand sells. They also make some for thinner 1/4" tables but they are not as strong or handy to use as the ones made for thicker 1/2" and above tables.

[cj737]

And no matter the thickness, you need to put structural stringers laying underneath it to prevent sagging. Just stitch a few welds to the top/stringerunderneath before welding to the outside.

[jesscaper]

Are there tables for beginners?

[BillE.Dee]

I attended an auction where trade schools sell the projects and picked up a welding table made by the students for less than I could buy the steel. Northern tool has a Klutch "convertible" welding table. The tall legs can be removed and it can be set on top of a bigger table. It isn't "heavy duty" but comes with clamps of various styles.

[sbaker56]

Steel is ungodly expensive right now, but based the options you're considering you're wanting to do it right, so I'll just mention some thoughts, regardless of if it's home built, pre purchased etc, you want your welding table to essentially be flat as possible, even if it's got a minor enough bow you can't notice it with the naked eye, it'll make getting truly precise and square fit-up a nightmare, especially for longer parts. The second part to that though is excessive heat makes flat metal not so flat anymore, and it's very much possible to heat up a thinner table to the point it'll take a considerable bow by running numerous practice beads etc. I'd be very concerned about dropping the money on a 1/4 certiflat or other fab table, then padding beads with some 7018 and especially for example practicing aluminum welding by padding beads on a piece of aluminum which is going to much more readily deposit the heat into a more concentrated spot on the table and be even more likely to cause warping. One trick I'll use which admittedly was only such a no brainer because I got it for free is stick an aluminum top over the table when practicing or when you know you're going to be doing an unusually extensive amount of welding, it'll not just help absorb some of the heat but it'll take the rest and distribute it much more equally over the entire table, thicker is better obviously and I have a couple 2x2 foot sheets of 3/8 aluminum I was allowed to take home from work, but even as little as an 1/8th inch of aluminum will help with spreading out the heat massively. if you're stick welding and or otherwise don't want a badly gouged up spattered piece of aluminum, you can just overlay it with another piece of steel, or just use a sacrificial steel topping instead to begin with.

You might ask why bother and not just build a table that way to begin with or out of thicker material, well if I'm running beads and keeping in practice, I don't need a large table to do so, I can pretty much do so on a 12"x12" square especially with the original table underneath to prop on and most importantly it doesn't need to be perfectly flat/true to begin with nor stay that way. That way even if you can't afford an ideal solution of a perfectly flat table so thick warping won't be a concern, you can go with a lighter weight table for fab work where flatness and or fixturing points might be critical, then just throw a smaller sacrificial piece up on it for when you're going to be practicing or doing heavy welding rather than fab work.

Just in case it needs to be said though, a small square of 1/8 steel isn't going to do a fantastic job at distributing heat through the whole table or helping absorb it, it won't take long until it's so hot it's practically like laying the work piece directly on the table anyways, hence why at least a thin layer of aluminum is suggested in between or a somewhat thicker sacrificial piece. To give you an idea just how fantastic aluminum is at spreading heat out, as an experiment I took a piece of plywood and laid about a 14"x14" piece of 10 gauge aluminum, basically slightly thicker than 1/8th, then stuck a 1/4 steel coupon on top and stacked tig beads consecutively until the top part of the plate was glowing orange hot. I removed the piece of aluminum and there was not a single scorch mark or dark spot on it or even the slightest odor of burnt wood. not even directly underneath where the 1/4" coupon would've been sitting. I then ran a single bead of a few inches on a length 1/4 flat stock directly sitting on the plywood itself and immediately it started pouring smoke and charring underneath before I'd even finished.

Just to be more concise, the issue of warping rarely if ever an is a problem caused by the table as a whole getting too hot, for one if your table is getting uniformly too hot It'll get your attention real fast long before it approaches temperatures it might start to deform, want to stay propped on a 200-250 degree piece of metal? you'll notice it pretty quick, its that heavy welding is causing the work piece to heat up to the point that a localized part of the table is getting hotter far faster than it can spread that heat through the rest of the table.