Welding Bench setup

By chrisR Date 06-19-2003 18:28

Hi everyone, again many thanks to all the advice on equipment. The open house day at my local distributor was yesterday and I went home with a big smile and my new MillerMatic 175 along with a few other toys. The shop should be all wired up for the 220v line by tomorrow. My question is about my bench. I Landed a sweet deal from my job where I got a 6’ long by 2.5’ wide all metal work bench and Wilton 5” heavy vise for $40 bucks good deal, but I had to lose my job in the process the place is closing down. Oh well more time to play with the new toys. Anyway enough bla.bla bla…, I thinking the bench is big enough to use one side for my welding and still would have enough room for the chop saw and bench grinder on the other side. My concern is that I read in a couple of posts that you should never use the same bench for welding as for your power tools. Makes sense to me, but could they be on the same bench if they were insulated on a 1” rubber mat. I have some pieces of rubber mat left from the horse stalls, which is heavy-duty rubber, could I use it to insulate the chop saw and grinder safely and not smoke the tools?

Thanks

By TimGary (****)

Date 06-19-2003 19:18

Sure, that would work as long as you..
A. Don't mind the smell of burning rubber
and
B. Don't forget to put the tools back on the rubber mat (like I would...).

Tim

By chrisR Date 06-19-2003 19:38

I just talked to guy here at work and he brought up a good point. I would also have to be careful not to get any slag in the motor area of the chop saw. I'll probably just keep them separate. Better safe then sorry and smoke all the new tools.

By CHGuilford (****)

Date 06-19-2003 20:54

Slag and spatter getting into motors is a good point.

The trouble is that despite the best intentions, sooner or later you're gonna take that rubber out from under your equipment and forget to put it back. Maybe it won't matter, but maybe it will.
Plus you will probably want to bolt the equipment down. Then the rubber won't do much good unless all your bolts have insulators.

Further, the area you mentioned is still fairly small. Eventually you'll be wanting to move everything around to make more room. Personally, I would use my new welding equipment to build sturdy stands to support the chop saw and grinder, and make them reasonably portable. Then you will have the flexibility to take on all kinds of projects.

Chet Guilford

By testweldguy (**)

Date 06-20-2003 09:57

Hey, The only problem that I can see is that you might get some of that arc blow from all of the magnatism in your table from the power tools .I feel that you should be ok with your idea,nevermind the rubber mat though.

By jwright650 (*****)

Date 06-20-2003 11:39

You'll enjoy your grinder on a pedestal vs the bench anyway. It's very easy to fab from a piece of pipe or square tubing, put a base plate that can be anchored to the floor with some wedge anchors on the bottom and a plate for the grinder to sit on at the upper end and there you have it. Put it out where it won't be in the way but you can still get big, awkward pieces to it to grind on.

For the chop saw you would be happier with another work surface anyway to hold long pieces, maybe even with a satellite roller stand to catch the end of really long stuff.

Sorry to hear about your job, hope you can grab some work for your shop at home until you find something.
John Wright