I have a project that requires fixturing several frames that are ~44”x40” (a great excuse for a new fixture table!) and I find myself debating between a 54”x54” standard table or two 54”x30” Dragon Wagons.
I operate an engineering company that does short run prototyping and we are regularly producing different items of all shapes and sizes – typically items on the smaller side, but not always. We ultimately specialize in quickly turning around what others cannot.
The standard table has 6” web height and two rows of side holes versus 4” and one set of side holes – but the weight capacity isn’t a concern as we typically fabricate out of lighter materials, and I’m not sure how important two rows of side holes would be? Our current fixture tables are flat tops without any.
My thought is two Dragon Wagon tables could allow us to complete this project suitably (with a little lost time initially joining them) and end up with two separate tables for smaller projects, or the ability to reconfigure in various configurations for flexibility in the future.
Am I missing a downside that would make the Standard 54x54 far superior?
Yes If you plan on two separate work stations at the end of your project than the Dragon Wagons are the way to go. The benefits of the 54x54 is the flatness is going to be better, the hole layout scale is continuous on the edge, and you don’t loose a row of holes in the center of the table.
Don’t forget tooling. I bought the largest Fireball kit with the cart and added more clamps and parts along with a table vise after running the system for about a year.
I will still occasionally get close to running out of fixed blocks, but that is mostly because I try to design my parts around dimensions that avoid tooth blocks. That approach lets me set up almost any job in under five minutes.
Your needs may differ from mine as I rarely elevate parts off the table since I can run an aluminum bead right down to the surface and simply wipe the smoke and spatter away with my glove.
The biggest adjustment was learning to trust the system and just clamp the parts down and get to welding instead of spending time chasing the last 1/64 inch of fit up. It’s already far better than anyone can achieve with a regular surface and a square, and the fixture is really the only reason we can even see that tiny variance. My table has been a game changer for my shop. I do short run manufacturing, custom projects, and prototyping.
Hey Jason- Obvious is the loss of a row of holes. Not as obvious is the potential loss of accuracy across the great divide by bolting two Dragon Wagons together. Will the distance between the first rows on either side be 4 inches? Plus or minus how much? If I were designing the Dragon Wagon I might design those two rows to either come out precisely at 4 inches when mated (AT A SIGNIFICANT COST) or make the last row just a bit (0.010” or 0.020”) closer to the edge so the mating of the two sets of holes could be shimmed into near perfection (at a lesser cost).
There’s also the final flatness across two Dragon Wagons; Do you butt the two aprons together and get what you get or do you measure across the double-table-top-surface and shim between them to bring both to the same plane? (Don’t try this if the tables are designed to bolt up flush while maintaining hole spacing across the divide). It’s basically a question of how square are the aprons to the table surface as well as how far from the last row are the aprons.
