Frustrated with Fabrication

ShawnG said:

Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:

ShawnG said:

It's like sex.

Nobody gets it right the first time.

Not true

She lied to you.

I know I got it right the first time. I was the only one there!

After posting I shop down the computer and got out of the garage and let everything sit until now.  Cooled off a bit and recentered. 

You all are great! I appreciate the input, the advice, links, personal stories etc.  Its been said before and I'll say it again, this place truly is the best.

A few points that were mentioned in the replies and some thoughts:

-Good Saw. As stated i have used cut offs/ chop saws but am savings up to get a band saw. Less noise and dust and worrying about a disk blowing up will be a treat on top of more accurate cuts. Ill look into the SWAG table or maybe just get started and hopefull gain skills to build my own?

-Workbench. Its on my list. Like RIGHT NOW list. In fact i was working on the workbench legs and lower shelf when i messed it all up and the whole thing took a dump--thats what got this whole post going. I know how valuable this is and cant wait to get it in place. I detest working on the ground. My back and knees wont have it and as some others mentioned it its not comfortable and thats when work suffers.

-Practice Yes. Agreed. I will never have enough of this. I am a hobbyist not a full time fab guy. I have drive to make stuff but can get discouraged with poor results but thats due to lack of practice and all that.  I will keep at this and keep trying to get better, its all I can do and when I do it I find it fun. But i do beat myself up because I want things to work out so bad, when things fall short its personal.

-Scribing.  I will have to remember this. I am a big sharpie guy but need to remember a scribe or at least a finer point sharpie.  That fat marker mark makes a BIG difference in cut length.

My questions come back to a workbench and how much I need. I have a steel frame (1.5x1.5x1/8 sq) and was going to top with a solid core door i have and skin with some 1/8 metal.  But then I see other tables an people have the slat style tops or the more traditional plate with holes cut evenly.  At this point i can still do anything. Any thoughts? Is the HF tilt table too weak and should I see out something more along the lines of the KLUTCH table? Should I get some plate and go that route?

Thank you all

A metal skinned top will be fine for the stage you're at.

All we have at work is a big 10' x  4' flat top with a vise at one corner. It's all we've ever needed.

While I love watching youtube build videos and forum build threads, I am so humbled by their ability that it takes the wind out of the sails to do my own.  Try not to get down on yourself. You will continue learning and improving the entire time you keep doing this.  You likely will never stop getting better.

One of my highschool metalwork students asked me "how come everything you do turns out perfect every time?"

I said "What you don't see is the YEARS of EPIC FAIL that got me to the point where things actually work, and frankly I'm still surprised when they actually work."

So just how "bad" is your perception of bad fabrication? This could be one of those "artists see every flaw" situations. I often think I'm an absolute hack but apparently people like my build threads. Maybe post some pics of your work?

Also, grinder and paint make the welder I ain't. 

Glad to see you giving it another go. One word of caution. Wood can smolder if you weld on the steel table top.  It's fine if you're going to use the table for magnets and the welding ground. If you want to tack weld to the table, I recommend eventually adding some sort of air gap.  Some square tube tacked together and to the underside can give you some strength and will prevent you from burning the wood.

Post up little projects.

In reply to CarKid1989 :

The klutch table is a solid starting point. It really could not be built as cheap as you can buy it unless you find super good deals on steel. If your going to buy one thing that would probably be my suggestion.

The first thing I did when I moved into my new garage was build 2 of these workbenches. Mount a bench vise and bench grinder with grinding stone and brush to one of them. Store your angle grinders on the shelf below. Add power strip under the leading edge. You don't even have to worry about a metal work surface. Just toss a sheet of scrap on top when doing weldy stuff. 

https://www.familyhandyman.com/project/classic-diy-workbench-plans/

Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be. But definitely don't work on the ground! My back hurts thinking about this.

Figuring out fixtures and order of cuts/welds to keep distortion to a min or in a direction that you are OK with is part of the learning process. I have some friends that are very good at this that I ask for advice all the time, especially when I see something getting off plan. Best off taking a step back and evaluate rather then make it worse forging ahead, especially when the raw materials are spendy.

Practice practice practice.   

Honestly I would practice and get good with an angle grinder and hacksaw rather then spend the money on a bandsaw (For metal work).  For wood you can buy a used bandsaw for pretty cheap.

Bandsaws are not really time saving tools.  They save noise, they can improve inherent accuracy,  they save consumables, but there really aren't things bandsaws do that you can't do as well with a grinder and hacksaw.  The only way they save time is that you can cut items to length by walking away and let the saw cut while you are doing something else.   I can cut material to lengths faster (With more effort) using a hacksaw then I can with my bandsaw.  I also use the hacksaw to cope square tubes for joints.  If I use the bandsaw I wind up using a cheap 8" disc sander to fine finish the joint.   I typically use the bandsaw because I live in a residential area and am working typically after 10PM.  Angle grinders and the plasma cutter are to loud for that so I take the time consuming approach and use the bandsaw.  

Grinders are about smooth motions when grinding and slow feed rates when cutting.   If you try to rush using a grinder you generally wind up cutting to much.  

A decent work bench and Vice are important.  For grinding and hacksaw work the piece needs to be held rigid so you know the tool is in control.  If the part moves you can't controll the cut/grind well.  

Take your time and let the tools do the work.  For saws/files that means you have to get a feel for the right amount of force to put normal to the work and along the direction of travel for the blade.  For grinders that is the smooth/slow.  For sanders same thing, hold the work rigid, and get a good feel through practice for the right amount of force.

Drilling corded drills tend to drill better then cordless, the Chuck RPM is higher.  Good bits go A LONG way, and make sure you aren't trying to drill hardened or heat treated steel.  I  have a set of H-F nitride coated bits for all the sizes.  Then for specific sizes I use commonly I have bought good USA made bits (Vermont American/Morse seem to be pretty good and widely available.  Mc-Master has decent enough prices for really good ones if your needing them for life).  I've had good luck using lubrication and the H-F step drill bits to make large numbers of circular holes in Mild Steel and 4130.   My local FB Marketplace is full of decent drill presses for ~$50.  Get one.  Way more useful in my shop then a Bandsaw.  

MENTOR.  Find someone local who does good work (Or even bad work but lots of it) and hang out.  This is not used enough in modern society.  Getting good at these things takes time.  When I post 1 picture of something I made it's usually the end of hours of direct work on that thing, and the results of decades of work to learn the skill used on that thing.  You can shortcut this by working with a mentor to have them show you the techniques they have honed through years of work.  

I've really tried to step up my wood fabrication game in the last year. I found that taking the time to really draw things out on graph paper - and I mean as close to scale as you can, right down tot he board thicknesses and everything - has really helped. It makes me think about how the pieces come together and anticipate the ways it can go wrong. All the advice here is spot on about getting off the floor and finding ways to securely hold what you're working on. I prefer a carpenters speed square when I'm working with metal stuff, and I use the HF angle magnets and stuff, which helps. If you can set up a jig for parts that should be the same length so they ARE the same length, that helps a lot.

As somebody else said, making something truly square is hard as hell.

That leads me to my main point - tack stuff in place as much as you can, then check it for square. Adjust as needed, clamp it in place, and weld it up solid.  Remember, it doesn't have to be square at first, it just has to be square when you're done. Tack welds (and single fastener wood joins) can move a fair bit. Use that to your advantage. Plan for the first pass to be a little out and plan on how to adjust it. I suspect 9 out of 10 "masters" use this method. The other one lies about it.  Machinists on the other hand....

There's a lot of good advice in this thread and I encourage you to follow it.  I also suggest that while you're doing that you think about why you want to learn fabrication in the first place and what you enjoy or think you should be enjoying about it. 

I bring that up because I spent years and a bunch of money in tools trying to improve my body work game and I eventually realized that I don't enjoy the work and that I really had no desire to put in the hours it was going to take to get from being able to occasionally produce something not awful to being able to consistently get the results that I admire in other peoples work.   It turns out that it's just not my thing and I wish that that I'd figured that out much sooner.

Fabrication on the other hand, I enjoyed the learning process and I did and still do enjoy the work itself.

APEowner said:

There's a lot of good advice in this thread and I encourage you to follow it.  I also suggest that while you're doing that you think about why you want to learn fabrication in the first place and what you enjoy or think you should be enjoying about it. 

I bring that up because I spent years and a bunch of money in tools trying to improve my body work game and I eventually realized that I don't enjoy the work and that I really had no desire to put in the hours

There is a lot of truth there.  

I am a bit in that boat right now but when i do hands on work I find it very rewarding. I think with a 6 month old and work and trying to be a good dad/husband by the time I get to the garage time is the thing I lack. I take it slow and steady as best I can but even then feel like there is never enough time--it doesnt help that my setup is junk and I figured by adding some tools/table etc I could maximize my efforts.  I just hope after I invest a bit that things still "feel" good as I work.

However, a bench will be worth having no matter what I do.

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

I worked on a house once that had such a crooked foundation that the sill plates were hanging in the air on one end. Making things square is something lots of pros have trouble with too. I do a lot of fabrication and I no longer strive for perfection. I'm not putting my stuff on display so functional and competent looking is my goal. 

But houses move.  It's hard to find a 40 year old house around here with a single square corner or perfectly flat floor.  And they were all perfectly square and plumb when built.

Ok, well I read this and reread this thread and looked at the space in the 2 car garage which is the workshop and it looks like I can have a flat bench or a hole filled fab table.

Its gotta be a jack of all trades kinda deal for now.  I was thinking of topping the solid care door with steel. Or would a hole filled fab table work and just top it with some plywood while not being used for metal work.

Flat steel top would be stout and flat and I could clamp to it and all the while I can use it for any and all general purpose work as well. The hole style top is nice all the time but not great as a table top due to, well, all the holes. Topping it with plywood would help alleviate that.

Just brainstorming here.

Tables with clamp/fixture holes can be awesome, but I have my doubts that a cheap one will be any good.

We bought a few Siegmund fixture tables at my previous job, and they were incredible.  Everything was better than working on a regular table.  They were really heavy and hardened to the point that weld spatter didn't stick to them.  I really can't say enough good things about them.  But they were $15,000 each, and we never tacked to them.

A thin table will warp easily, and if you have to grind spatter or tacks off the surface, it will deteriorate quickly.  For a home shop, a Harbor Freight folding weld table and one decent heavy steel table will go a long way.

I still work on the garage floor a lot to get stuff laid out and tacked up.  Of the work I do, it is probably the least likely thing to hurt my back.  Just be careful welding or using a torch on concrete - don't want to be picking broken pieces out of your skin.

I am fancy when I weld smaller stuff I do it on an old cookie sheet pan.

I do have an old fresh air return grate from a house we removed that system from. Plan on adding legs and making some bent pipe hold downs. My work bench is 2x4s and plywood topped with a sheet of counter top material (I cannot remember the name of the stuff but box stores sell it by the 4x8 sheet.

My first two fab jobs were a dual battery tray for a jeep and a welder cart. Start small and skill up.