Hey so I’m a senior in high school in NW Washington and I’m working on some aluminum projects. Currently I’m building cattle chutes for my teacher and I got thrown on the project because he says that “I’m the best aluminum welder he’s seen in his 40 years of teaching.” However the problem is that both we can’t buy a fixture table because kids will do stupid shit to it like wail on it with a ball peen hammer or cut with a plasma cutter or hit it with a rock wheel and divot it to shit. And all our tables are about as flat as the Rocky Mountains from kids doing this kinda stuff. So my question is what is my best bet for laying everything out square. Should I lay it on the concrete floor to tack it up?
And here’s some pics of my welds just cause why not.
Look into a selection of the squares Fireball sell. By utilizing the tabs on the squares you can get a good degree of flatness and perpendicularity.
The cast iron mutant squares jumbo and or regular can take a beating and would be my suggestion as a starting point.
First: Welcome to the Forum!!
Second: Those are pretty welds! Worthy of a centerfold on Fireball.
Third: I’ve been in measurement cribs where the “rock” (granite tables) were treated with scorn (ashtrays on them!) and in cribs where they were revered (semi-rigid covers removed only for actual use of the associated coordinate measuring machine). If I were your teacher I’d get a new table WITH A REAL COVER and impose strict discipline for removal of the cover. “This is a FIXTURE TABLE, not a welding table!!”
I ill try to convince him to get a smaller fixture table and do what you recommended thanks! or try to get him to get a mag drill so we can build one since I got a bunch of flat (as in with in 5 thou) 1 in plate my dad got that they were throwing away on a jobsite out in seattle
