52 Ford
Stainless
- Joined
- May 20, 2021
Good point. At first when I read it, I was like "huh, that's neat"... Then, I thought about it... If I wasLooks nice, but why would you want a tool steel top for welding? Even worse why would you want it coated? Sounds like a bunch of useless fluff.
Put the boiled linseed oil on when it's HOT.That table looks low to me. Look how the guy is bent over. That would kill me after a couple of hours. Plus, they are trying to hide how low it is. On a page full of specifications they left out table height. Lame.
I am sorry, but I can not suggest a better. For that kind of money you could buy an old planer and get a superflat uber rigid cast iron table with lots of tee slots for clamping. Scrap the rest of the planer and get a good chunk of your money back.
I have a fixed welding table now, but for years I used a piece of 3/8" plate set on a 55 gallon drum. It made a fine little welding table. It was pretty flat but if I needed it dead flat I could always shim things. When I was done welding I leaned the plate against a wall and turned the drum upside down and just let them be out in the Seattle rain year after year. Every so often I'd knock the rust off the plate and then wipe down the plate with boiled linseed oil. After a few years it stopped rusting. That table has been in continuous use since the '80s and many many projects have been built on it. My total cost in it was zero, not counting the linseed oil and rags.
metalmagpie
Sort of an old blacksmith's technique... I guess.
When you're done forging something like a piece of hardware that you don't want to rust, you wipe it with linseed oil. Getting it cooled to the right temperature is a bit of a trial and error game, but once it's cool enough to take the oil, but hot enough to let it soak in and burn it a little at the same time, it makes a very resilient finish. All of my hammers and other forging tools have this finish. I used one of my hammers out in the yard a while back and it got left outside for a few days. Ended up buried in leaves and I couldn't find it. It sat there for over a month (Virginia weather - plenty of rain) and didn't rust.
A steel grate over a 55 gallon drum works good for welding and cutting, too. Gives a safe place for most of the sparks to go.
If I'm not going to be in the shop after a cut, I take the work outside, clamp it to my burn barrel, and cut over that. Usually the sparks DO catch the contents of the barrel on fire. Its on bare dirt and nothing flammable close by, so I just cover the barrel and let it smolder.