I ordered two of the table tops yesterday for my garage fabrication shop/business.
I’m curious where people are sourcing tooling: stops, pins, clamps, etc.
My previous (current) table top is a 7/8" thick aluminum plate
that I’ve drilled some 5/8" holes in for drop-in clamps
which I made by welding Harbor Freight clamps to 5/8" bolts.
I might make more of them and commission them for this table,
but I’m also curious what other options are out there.
StrongHand has a really impressive lineup of tooling,
but the only pricing I can find is for the big packages like the Rhino Cart.
Their website only provides a catalogue to show you what they make
without providing prices anywhere.
They all have clamps and stops and such. Standard 5/8" or 16mm accessories should work. There’s a decent collection of YouTube videos of people making their own because it really seems ridiculous to spend $35 on a clamp that if you do some welding and have some 5/8" stock or bolts you can turn a regular Bessey
clamp into a Bessey welding clamp replica
Fireball Tool sells tooling for this stuff as well, and has a 10% off coupon blackfriday until Monday.
I’ve made some of those DIY clamps with Harbor Freight clamps and they work well.
We had a 5x10 Dimmeler/Bluco table with 22mm holes at my last job
and a rack with like $10k in tooling, so I’m hoping for some scaled-down versions of that stuff,
which includes things like clamps that are adjustable laterally as well as vertically.
Odds are I’ll end up making a bunch of my own stuff,
but it’s nice to get a few nice things to help seed the fab process, y’know?
Like a single nice pair of blacksmith tongs can greatly help you make more tongs.
Definitely. I have a few bought fixtures so I know things are square when I make other things. Same reason I didn’t buy a standard flat pack tab & slot “build your own fab table” package. You can’t get better precision than what you’re building on and I don’t have a table that’s flat to 3 decimal points.
I bought mostly strong hand/build pro and they work good for the price. I did not find one place that carried all there stuff. Google the strong hand or build pro tool # and you should find something.
Another one to try is Fireball tool, nice stuff has some unique stuff. Your clamps you made look good, if they work and you have time to make them go for it.
Im working on a portable bandsaw to vertical mod for my arcflat table right now.It vwill use a reese hitch style adapter mounted to the table to hold when in use and another under the table to store.I love my arcflat.
Look forward to seeing it. The porta band stand I made is self standing. Would be nice to have it mounted to something solid at times. It is next to my chop saw in this picture. The table I built this past weekend. Made it the same height as my arcflat.
