OK so for many years the important function of my garage has been storage - as I have finished off projects the need for storage has been reduced and the need for a better working area has increased
I had some "one on one" welding tution with Malcolm from www.mig-welding.co.uk a while back and one thing I took away from the experience was a desire to build my own welding bench - it was a revelation to weld on a bench rather than on a workmate that liked catching fire on a regular basis
So my garage (archive picture)
See what I mean about storage - and I was full to capacity at that time....
All the racking was also FOC from work (required a bit of TLC but was ideal for what I needed at the time and I've made sure that when removed it's found a good home in friends garages so again nothing wasted.
With a few project cars getting close to being finished storage was no longer a requirement what I needed now was a work bench and my own workplace provided the basics FOC...... amazing what companies throw away but as I'm a bit of traveller (traveller/womble in the sense that I hate to see stuff wasted) I was happy to provide the racking a new home.
So this was up for grabs
Obviously I hadn't really much need for another racking unit but I reckoned if I split it into two I'd end up with a 12 ft long work bench (2 x 6 ft benches with a sensible working height)
I planned to have a woodworking bench with vice etc mounted and then the second half as a welding area
So I purchased a 3 ft by 6 ft sheet of 5mm thick steel - probably a bit OTT but I will be doing a lot of work welding wise this winter so it seemed wise to make it robust.
Bench is 6 ft by 2 ft
I wanted a slight overlap to allow clamping of items to the work surface (thanks to Nigel for the heads up on that front as I was planning on finishing the edge flush with the racking
I also wanted to put a front lip and back lip to stop the surface moving on the cut down racking as well as stop stuff disappearing of the back of the surface
I think I got it fairly straight and level
Backstop (splashback)
I know the back is not quite vertical but I need to run some cables behind the welding bench and the wall has a step on it so I can live with the slight angle
Other pictures
Nice way to spend a saturday.......
I had some "one on one" welding tution with Malcolm from www.mig-welding.co.uk a while back and one thing I took away from the experience was a desire to build my own welding bench - it was a revelation to weld on a bench rather than on a workmate that liked catching fire on a regular basis
So my garage (archive picture)
See what I mean about storage - and I was full to capacity at that time....
All the racking was also FOC from work (required a bit of TLC but was ideal for what I needed at the time and I've made sure that when removed it's found a good home in friends garages so again nothing wasted.
With a few project cars getting close to being finished storage was no longer a requirement what I needed now was a work bench and my own workplace provided the basics FOC...... amazing what companies throw away but as I'm a bit of traveller (traveller/womble in the sense that I hate to see stuff wasted) I was happy to provide the racking a new home.
So this was up for grabs
Obviously I hadn't really much need for another racking unit but I reckoned if I split it into two I'd end up with a 12 ft long work bench (2 x 6 ft benches with a sensible working height)
I planned to have a woodworking bench with vice etc mounted and then the second half as a welding area
So I purchased a 3 ft by 6 ft sheet of 5mm thick steel - probably a bit OTT but I will be doing a lot of work welding wise this winter so it seemed wise to make it robust.
Bench is 6 ft by 2 ft
I wanted a slight overlap to allow clamping of items to the work surface (thanks to Nigel for the heads up on that front as I was planning on finishing the edge flush with the racking
I also wanted to put a front lip and back lip to stop the surface moving on the cut down racking as well as stop stuff disappearing of the back of the surface
I think I got it fairly straight and level
Backstop (splashback)
I know the back is not quite vertical but I need to run some cables behind the welding bench and the wall has a step on it so I can live with the slight angle
Other pictures
Nice way to spend a saturday.......
