Friday, February 13, 2015

Making a Making Bench

Thanks to my good friends down at Smiths Metal Recyclers, I now have a collection of piping and scaffolding clamps that I have used to make up a bench for welding and working on.  The plan is to also mount my car-wheel-forge on the end.  That said, it's now getting pretty heavy (not serious, it weighs a lot), so I think some wheels will be needed to be able to move the bench in and out of the garage to 'fire up'....until I can find a proper outbuilding with a chimney.
I thought I'd bought a batch of swivelling clamps and was dreaming up all kinds of cross bracing to hold the correct angles - the right angles, you might say - for the bench top and legs.  I was very pleased to find that there were eight (at least) fixed 90 degree clamps in the mixed bunch I'd bought (nice one Shilow).  The two long sections came with some angle iron already welded along them making a nice bracket for the top of the bench.
Second photo is of the entire top assembled.  I used an angle grinder to cut cross pieces to a width so that a section of punched sheet sits nicely on the angle iron brackets I mentioned earlier.
Final picture is with the legs on too.  The 90 degree clamps seem to hold the uprights nicely in place and support the weight of the whole without any wobble to speak of (of which to speak).  Overall, very pleased.
I've also made a few 'tools' - repurposed bolts that can be fixed into the punched holes - I can then use these to bend and form around for future work.

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