Welding Table Build

DISCLAIMER:

1. This is my first attempt at a succinct build thread
2. I know that I didn't take enough pictures but this project has happened over the course of about a month when the stars aligned and I had a few minutes with nothing better to do.

That is all.

Well boys it all started when I made my quarterly pilgrimage to pay homage to the scrap gods. After weighing in all of the "rusty junk that is probably full of spiders and snakes" the clouds parted and where the rays of sun hit the ground I spied the piece of 5/8 plate that I have been looking for for over a year. Sure the previous owner had burned countless 7018's affixing every imaginable piece of jagged torch cut garbage to it with no apparent rhyme or reason BUT I saw the potential and the owner of the yard agreed to give it to me for $40. After letting it sit in the driveway and season for a couple months the stars aligned and I was able to finally get cracking....

 

While the top was seasoning I traded one of the guys that lives around the corner from me a solid 4" Columbian bench vise for all the 2" square tube I would need to build the table of my dreams. After carefully cutting all of my pieces to the correct length and then grinding the one that was too long I fired up the old miller and started burning some rod.... After ensuring that everything stayed square I got both sets of legs welded together with one long support piece keeping things where they were supposed to be and then welded that whole mess to the table top... taking pictures of none of those steps...

 

As you can see from the above pictures eventually I got the pads (which i salvaged from one of the scabby pieces of scrap welded to the table top) and castors welded on. I felt like things were really starting to come together and it was around this time that I excitedly showed my wife all of my progress and she graciously pointed out that now there would be one less piece of "junk" "cluttering" up the driveway.... Now fast forward another week or two and I had spent some quality time with the grinder and about a thousand cutting and grinding disks and things were really starting to shape up!!!


Fun fact: the palm tree behind the table in this picture was full of dead leaves and at one point while grinding I smelled smoke, looked up, and saw an alarming amount of fire erupting from said palm tree...

 

Then today I was able to put in a little more time and I discovered that whatever this thing was in its previous life someone had sprayed bed-liner over a significant amount of rust but with a little determination I was able to get a reasonable surface finish on about half of the table top and I think that's where its going to stay for a while because as much fun as It's been building it I'd rather be getting parts ready to install on soupy when spring gets here....

 

Looking good I like it.

 

Always nice to have a HD moveable table for inside or out.

 

And this is as far as I got on Jeep stuff before mancub #2 decided he wanted a bottle... one driveshaft cleaned and tape removed from the freshly painted intake. A sharp eyed observer will note that either I don't mind presenting my mistakes to the group or I forgot to turn the intake around....