The first step to building a folding welding table was to remove the top off an old Harbor Freight welding table.
To accommodate the hardware I was using as my hinge I needed to drill extra holes on the back of the welding table. To get the exact placement of the center point for these holes I used the back end of an Irwin Combination Square without the ruler.
Once things were all marked out I went ahead and drilled the holes and then Brooke helped me assemble the hardware and get this inplace on the back railing.
The next thing to think about were the legs for this to fold out to and stand on. I laid out 1inch square stock like shown.
Since I was currently using the only welding table I had, in a twist of events that I neglected to anticipate I needed to figure out a way to weld this piece. I used a saw horse to help hold up the welding table on the back railing so I could weld my pieces on it like that. I also used a level to make sure the welding table would be level. It ended up working out ok.
Using a measuring tape, I marked on the cross pieces where I wanted to cut them. Next, I used an angle grinder to cut my crosspieces.
Then all I needed to do was weld this all together.
Since this is a functional piece, I didn’t bother cleaning up the weld. If you wanted to, you could grind the weld down or you could spray paint the legs, but in this particular case I didn’t feel it was worth the time.
I measured out some flat stock, and scored it with my angle grinder where I wanted to make bends in it. I did this backwards which is part of why it ended up snapping on me. However, it was easy enough to weld back together in the right shape. This fits tightly around the lower rung of the railing and is going to support the legs of the weld table, and I made two of them.
I marked where I needed to drill a hole in each of these, and then did that. next I attached *****the specific hardware that I don’t know the name of***
Next I drilled a corresponding hole in the leg pieces.
And then I rounded off the hinges I made, and also the legs at the point where they will be in contact with the joint. This will ensure that they are free to rotate. I handled cutting that with my angle grinder and then it was a matter of snapping this all together.
And then it was done. Our shop isn’t primarily a welding shop so this will be the perfect set up for us and our needs.