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Advice on building a bench...


Maverik

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Very neat Si, I've been replacing some of the CFL energy saving bulbs in the house with LED equivalents and the instant brightness is also a bit of a change as well as being brighter in general. Will certainly look at LED tubes for when the workshop ones die.

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We put led tubes in the light up signs at work as access to replace them is a pain so the longer they last the better... so far so good and they're pretty flipping bright. Cost a fortune compared to a tube at the time but these things come down :)

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Have you seen these?

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Lighting_Menu_Index/Lamps_and_Tubes_Index/LED_Tubes/index.html

LED replacements for fluorescent tubes. They are a direct replacement. I plan to replace my tubes as they die. I'm hoping they will be a bit brighter!

Si

Very neat indeed, I should have put 2 and 2 together myself there, every other type of fitting seems to have an LED equivalent theses days. If you're really into your LED's take a look at LED filament bulbs... they're rather interesting...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/LED_filament_lamp.png

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Very neat indeed, I should have put 2 and 2 together myself there, every other type of fitting seems to have an LED equivalent theses days. If you're really into your LED's take a look at LED filament bulbs... they're rather interesting...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/LED_filament_lamp.png

It was actually those that made me wonder if I could get Fluorescent as well.

About half the lights in our house are now LED filament lights - and they are way better than the LE bulbs. Mainly in that they come on full brightness immediately! Just need to find some genuine 100W equivalent ones. Making 100W incandescent bulbs illegal was a f***tard thing to do IMHO - sometimes you need bright light & no amount of dim, yellow 60W equivalent LE bulbs makes up for it.

Si

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id say what you have designed looks pretty useful. im a big fan of a thick steel worktop. you can earth the table when welding then its a lot more convenient.

Remember, duck oil is your friend with welding on a steel topped bench! spatter wipes right off and then just reapply every now and again

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I put wood under a steel bench once to make it more rigid which was fine until I did lots of welding on it :/ It was smoking from somewhere inside and I couldn't decide how long to leave it for. I also learnt not to wear a woolen jumper with lots of deodorant as well lol

That's why I went for a wooden bench at home with a little steel welding table on wheels.

That said I have a fairly thick steel bench at work for rebuilding the mould tools on and that doesn't bounce so maybe it's all about weight :)

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a 10mm thick top with a few crossmembers and it should be fairly darn solid!

Plus, i wouldn't put a sheet steel over a wooden bench because although it mat seem less loud and bangy, when you actually go to start beating on it you'll end up denting the sheet steel in the top and when you want a nice uniformly flat surface to build something properly square, you wont have one anymore!

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I'm going to be have to be doing something seriously wrong to deform this 10mm plate and with 60x60x6 thick angle stiffners underneath and with it screwed down to the frame I think it will be bouncless. If its too noise then I'll clad part of it with some thin ply on top of the plate....

But my first challenge will be trying to lift the blinking plate into place... I was thinking of welding a lug into the centre and using the engine crane to lift it up its going to be the best part of 160kg...

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Come into this a bit late but...

After I built my bench similar to yours I aquired a large milling machine bed (machine being scrapped) which I let into the worktop, this gives nice slots and grooves and readily available clamps to hold stuff solidly in place also a surface heavy enough that you can belt the daylights out of something with little chance of damaging the bench. If the bed is in good condition they are made machined flat to a good tolerance, mine was already well knocked bout but still flat enough for most things land rover.

If you can get hold of one cheap it is well worth the effort, mine was free and measures about 4ft x 1ft (big mill!), it did take the engine crane to get it into place though.

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Come into this a bit late but...

After I built my bench similar to yours I aquired a large milling machine bed (machine being scrapped) which I let into the worktop, this gives nice slots and grooves and readily available clamps to hold stuff solidly in place also a surface heavy enough that you can belt the daylights out of something with little chance of damaging the bench. If the bed is in good condition they are made machined flat to a good tolerance, mine was already well knocked bout but still flat enough for most things land rover.

If you can get hold of one cheap it is well worth the effort, mine was free and measures about 4ft x 1ft (big mill!), it did take the engine crane to get it into place though.

I would imagine the bed is hardened steel too?

even better as welding spatter doesn't stick to hardened steel anywhere near as much as mild

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Totally underestimated working with heavy gauge material... Also I'd not really though about how I'd construct the flipping thing, so progress was a bit slower than first predicted...

Might have to invest in a plasma cutter to get through the top plate... Also had to move the old engine crane over sooner than predicted just to help me move the thing...

post-20087-0-09199000-1457906554_thumb.jpg

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It's time consuming this grinding like... all the legs are on, still to be braced and lower shelf supports to be added, it's coming along nicely. Gas torch delivered tomorrow so hopefully get the top plates cut and put in place.

post-20087-0-41699600-1458248238_thumb.jpg

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