Took The Plunge

Fixture Tables
1

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to share now that I’ve finally gotten my fixture table up on its legs. I went round and round on this, I had a table that I built and it used the Buildpro stuff. I was ready to order a Buildpro table, but @BCDC had a comment on instagram about the side plate accuracy and that was the tipping point to invest in a Fireball table even though it meant re-buying a lot of the tooling I had already.

The Team over at Fireball have been great, I’m a one man operation that does this part time so this was a huge risk, but lemme tell you, I don’t regret it at all.

There was one video that @Fireball_Jason said that you can’t build the legs for what you can buy them for, and I’m here to tell you that is true. I had to use every cheaty trick and count my time for nothing, and I was “Technically” do it, so I’d figure I’d share the cost per leg. I tried to make an equivalent product, so they are plated and powdercoated, what I would consider a salable item.

Fireball Leg - 220, plus 46 for shipping 266 Target.

Jake’s Leg - 196.26

Cost Breakdown

Laser Cut Top Plate - 29.17

Laser Cut Caster Plate - 11.25 (Cheated, made 20)

Laser Cut Nut Plate - 16.67

4" Sq Tube .25 Wall - 24.36 (Cheated - Drop Pricing)

Casters - 59.23 (including Shipping)

Zinc - 3.5 per (Cheated, 20 assemblies)

Powder - 28

Adjuster Bolt - 8.06

Nut for Adjuster Plate - 5.43

Lock Nut - 3.47

Caster Nuts - 0.56 (for 4)

Carriage Bolts - 2.4 (for 4)

M12 Table Bolts - 3.52 (for 4)

M12 Washer - 0.64 (for 4)

All the hardware options were from McMaster, shipping is not reflected.

Moral of the story, buy the legs. I had fun making them, first project on the new table. Plus, all my current work surfaces have this same style foot and I’m a little vain.

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2

Looks great. That’s for the cost breakdown on the legs. Lots of customers think we’re trying to overcharge on our legs.

3

I think the guys who actually build them cheaper start with leftover stock from another project.

4

The materials still needed to be purchased, regardless if they were over-bought for a job or purchased for specifically for the legs. The money is spent, it just changes the emotions since the cost is already paid, it doesn’t make the materials free.

Plus, we’re still counting our time as nothing, this really depends on your shop rate on how much its going to cost.

Raw build time it took me about 2 hours to build all 6 legs, but that’s only part of the story. If I were to be quoting this job to a customer I’d be around 3-4 hours of shop rate plus my materials and markup because we haven’t even taken the trip to the plater or powdercoater into account. My point is the economics says you should buy the legs if the lowest overall cost is most important

No matter how you slice it, its less costly to buy them.

All that being said, its not wrong to make them, I did because my other work benches have a the same style levelling foot and I’m too vain to have my welding table look different than my other benches, so that outweighed the lost sales. And honestly, if I buy another Fireball table, I’m gonna build the legs again.

5

Having exactly the table legs you wanted is definitely worth something.

6

No argument here, and I admire your legs (;-). I was just saying that having leftover material (or even parts like casters) that are fully depreciated to use in a new project will likely make the new project seem cheaper (but it can’t be repeated at that cost).