Projects Building a new fab table: Somewhat budget consious

Howdy folks!

You may remember me from such posts as "how to mustang II" and "High Tech firewall beading, The IC way" and "Overkill Shrinker-Stretcher stand"

Today I bring you "Building a new fab table"

While this isn't my dream piece it will function just fine for what I need. I had a similar table for the last 10 years and it served beyond helpful. When my partner and I split he needed the table and all it's holes that corresponded to the fixtures I built over the years to bring you all those fantastic components and frames.

The design is very similar and I am going to use some tools you may not have at your disposal. However, if you're clever you can find ways of getting the job done just the same.

The table top is 5' X 12' 1/2" thick A36 steel plate. Nothing special, but it did have to be custom cut. And the frame is going to be made from 8" channel iron with 3/8" thick legs and some nice rubber bottomed machine feet from McMaster Carr.

Here is the 3D solid model I did of it last night:









Follow along as put this useful piece of fab shop equipment together today! I am going to try my best to give you a blow by blow installment of how a project like this comes together.

Oh, and while you're waiting on pins and needles, feel free to check out my website posted below!

 

Oh, and while you are sitting back with your Laramies and a cold can of that wonderful Duff, check out the Facebook feed in case I miss something here.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Industrial-Chassis-Inc/116378821730298

 

nice start..........wish i had room

 

Duff Man says Ooh Yeah

 

Make sure to tell us what you spent on the steel. I know it will be different at our locations, but it would give us an idea.

 

Nice! I will be following this one.

Chris

 

Great! Lets go

 

We used the same feet under both of our tables....don't bother buying them with the rubber on there....it just sticks to the concrete and the metal feet slid off of them.

This is going to be a really nice table.

 

Loaded up the leg files to the plasma table and cut them out. While I was cleaning up the dross and dressing the edges, the UPS guy dropped off the feet from McMaster Carr.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#swivel-feet/=brdufp

I'm using the 6111K205 at $25.75 each (6)

Here is the first parts being cut, man the upload to YT took forever! Over an hour to load, something is not right there.





While I was waiting for that video to upload, I ate lunch and cut some scrap tube and angle up to use as some of the internal supports.



As soon as the steel get here, I will post the total. I was quoted $1500 yesterday.


These feet do have the rubber, I had similar feet on my last 4X16 table of similar construction. Even backing into it with the forklift the table stayed put well.

By the way, I'm doing this solo. My help has been out sick for the last two days.

 

That's some heavy lifting for one guy. Forklift much?

 

This is gonna be good............... staying tuned

 

Nice

 

Is Troy McClure going to helping you?

 

Loved your mustang II article. Looking forward to this one also. I bought an old custom made equipment frame at work and plan to make a frame jig out of it, but not sure on the details. I'm interested to see how this turns out and how the jigs attach to the table and what they need to hold.

 

Subscribe!

 

you bought that new bandsaw just to make this? yur spoiled old man! LOL

 

I see this is 5ft vs. the 4ft of the old one...why not 6ft?
Watching.

 

Strong like bear, smart like rock!

With his special seal of approval.

Uhhmmm, yeah I needed it for work?

Four was just a bit too narrow to work with. Fine for mid-fifties pickup frames but anything else I was pushing my limits. As far as six foot, I have worked on them and I think they are just a bit too wide for frame work. If I was putting full cars on top then the extra width would be great.

So it started to sprinkle a bit so naturally the steel truck showed up. I made quick work of getting the new table top and channel iron inside.







Just as I started to cut up one of the two channels into it's respective pieces, John Evans stopped by to help out. I have the main beam on the plasma to cut forklift holes in and John suggested some keyhole holes for chain binding in the future. So I'm drawing the stuff up now.

 

yea, keyholes for binders... good call holmes


PS. i still think you got too many toys. LOL

 

Aw cool. A homemade snooker table. Hell yeah!

 

Wow, your doing cool stuff and I'm punching holes in perfectly good sheet metal... Sucks to be me sometimes.

 

Why YES!

I just finished uploading the next series of pics. I cut each of the 20' long channels into an 11" and two 46" sections. The two 11 footers are the side rails and two of the 46" bits make up the end sections and two internal ribs.




As mentioned in the previous post, I plasma cut forklift holes in both the end sections and the main rails. I added six holes to the side rails for future chain binding.







Because of the shape of the channel the plasma didn't cut too clean on the edges where the beam is thickest. On the end beams I did slow the machine down and the first of the two forklift holes cut beautiful the second not so much. So I conned John into swinging a grinder for a bit.



Now that all the big stuff is cut to size and ready, I need to do a bit of machine work to the feet bosses. Back in a few!

 

Looks good, can't wait till I have the room...

 

Cool and nice work. Life is easier with the right tools.

 

You would think a guy with all those tools could make some sawhorses for his shiney new bandsaw?!

 

Was that an actual picture of John Evans working!!! COOL!! I probably shouldn't be so snide though... I'll bet he was there to check if the gears he ordered fit my lathe... Thanks John!

 

As always, nice work!...nothing like a good sturdy big table to work on!

 

the 5 ft vs 6 ft dilemma popped up when I was reading tas well. I want to build a table as well. My thought is the same as yours only I want be able to put my 66 F100 on it as I fab it. Im gonna be keeping a close eye on this...cant wait to see more

 

Done machining and threading the sleeves for the feet. Time to start putting it together!

Do you need to have it on the table with the wheels on it? The widest stuff I build has a 60 inch track width. With my old 4' wide table the wheels would just hang off the ends. That was fine by me

 

[/QUOTE]Do you need to have it on the table with the wheels on it? The widest stuff I build has a 60 inch track width. With my old 4' wide table the wheels would just hang off the ends. That was fine by me[/QUOTE]


I feel it would be an advantage for me.I haven't worked the "details" out of it, I hope to build one for my home shop. it doesn't need to be very high, and within reason it can be a parking space if need be. I do not want a a "full" table top, but my thought was something of a drive on lift set up. As I said, when I get closer to actually fabbing the chassis on my truck, I'll have to start weighing my options. Another thought I had was to actually get a 4 post lift and neatly fixture off of it. I work alone most of the time, so trying to find enough people to "lift and maneuver" is slim to none