Show me your dished welding table! Just how bad (or good) is yours?
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Mine is .0060 out, has a dip I couldn’t pull out. I’m living with it. Love how flat the fireball table is after adjustment. Impressive.
@ScottR Can I ask how, and what tools you used to measure the table?
I don’t think it is warped or dished. I’ve used every tool in my arsenal to get it both flat and level…!! It is very very very flat. Best purchase I’ve made in decades.
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@PatGreen it’s got to feel good knowing you have a reliable flat surface to do all your projects on. I’ve seen a dramatic improvement in the quality of my projects when I finally got a flat table.
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I just have an 8’ stabilator level and feeler gages. I realize it’s not near as accurate as your big straight edge. Working with what I have for now.
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Jason, yes it does. I’ve been fabricating different stuff for awhile, I honestly thought I could pass your “box test” on my old table (1” plate) so when you table arrived we set it up and did the challenge on both tables. Honestly……myself and all my friends gave it a whirl with thin gauge square tubing….No one passed on the original and we all passed on the fixture table.
Just as a side note, I like your idea of elevating the work piece(s) off the table.
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Wow that’s interesting. I wish that was filmed. Can you make a post here on the forum taking about your experiment? I’d love to here and see more.
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Jason, I wish I had video of it too. It was truly eye opening. There were four professional welders and one with more fab experience than the rest combined. I would have bet anything that we could all do it….I’ll make a post and tell the story. I am sold on the table and your system. Like everything I’ve bought from you, it’s perfectly thought out and ideal for what we do.
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Late to this thread. I’m embarrassed to say that my table is 3/32 out of flat. It’s a lightweight table - 3/16 steel with ribs. I am certain the problem with it was my welding bowing it. I would have expected to get it better than that. Very unfortunate. I’ve thought about trying to heat it and force it flatter but I’m thinking that will be a tough job. I measured it using a straight edge longer than the table and gauge blocks each end to measure the gap.
Thats sucks now everything will match the table surface or have to be shimmed.
I shim merrily away. Now all my jobs take twice as long as they need to.
The 4x8 table I worked off of for over a year had a 3/8" sag in the middle. Had to custom shim every contact point wherever the project touched the table. If something was ever out of tolerance it was my fault. Eventually I had enough and quit.
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I didn’t realize that you have a 30 X 60 table for around 5K. That is well competitive. If there was a 30 x 30 or 30 X 40 model, which would work pretty well for me, chances are that would be at a totally affordable price point. As it is that 30 X 60 table is not actually out of reach. Nice. I thought there was only the massive table available which is too big for my home shop anyway. Could hold a hell of a Thanksgiving spread on it though.
Well have some more sizes in the next few months ranging from 24”x30” and various larger in between sizes. Their will be a size for everyone.
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I can vouch for the 30x60 table, it is extremely nice in my small shop. A chunk of change for the table and fixtures, but as they say, you only cry once with good tools and all of those I’ve bought from Jason fall into that category.
–Larry
Isn’t that the truth? Buy nice or buy twice - and I’ll be buying for the second time. Again. Seems I have to keep learning that lesson.
That is excellent news - I look forward to owning one in the fullness of time. I have some Fireball clamps for 3/16 type tables like mine, simple though they are, they are kickass and were at a good price point as well.
This was my metalworking table for the last few years until last month!
Then, I found an amazing and somewhat odd steel fixture table on Craigslist. I didn’t think I would be getting a nice fixture table any time soon, but the price and uniqueness made me pull the trigger! Now I have a lovely 3’ x 6’ table with a 2" steel top and 1/2" threaded holes, in an 4" grid with each row offset 2" from those next to it. It weighs almost a ton by my calculations. It was from a manufacturing company that had a couple of these made years ago and didn’t need it anymore. They said it had been “ground to 0.001” flatness", though I don’t know what that means technically, and I don’t have the tools to measure how flat it really is!
I took my old metalworking table and welded some supports underneath the sagging sheet-metal top, painted the frame, and put my cheap/crappy green lathe/mill combo (in the background) on top of that, which I got for $175 a few years ago and have been storing under a workbench since. So, now I’m excited to have a wonderful work surface, and to start learning how to use the lathe/mill!
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Nice result on that table. 