My New House & Workshop

[Jim Oaks]

I went from two incandescent bulb fixtures to four four foot LED lights that are linked when I rewired my little garage. Huge difference. I have one more I'll place over the welding table at some point.

Welding table and drill press are on my wish list. I plan to find an older drill press off of FB Marketplace. I have no desire for a new one. My dad had one back in the 70s-80s that I swear would drill through anything.

 

[SenorNoob]

Use the welder, build the table. The one at work is only 3/16 plate. We've done enough BIG jobs on it to warp it slightly, but it still works.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Try yo find a drill press with 3 pulleys. Then it can do both metal and wood.

 

[Shran]

There is a guy on eBay who makes a middle pulley setup for drill presses that didn't come with it - looks like high quality stuff.

I have had five floor stand style drill presses - a beat up Craftsman one from the mid 90's, the "mid level" big one from Harbor Freight (piece of junk), an older Atlas one that didn't have a 3rd pulley, a newer Porter Cable (have this one now) and a much nicer Craftsman which I think is also from the 90's. I have that one too and it's usually my go-to for metal. My suggestion when you are looking is to find one that has a table that will move in 3 ways - swivel on the mounting arm, angle pivot on the arm, and swivel on the post. Many do not swivel on the mounting arm and it's VERY annoying if you're missing that feature. Angle pivot is nice but not totally necessary.

Welding table is a fun topic, just my personal opinion but I think it's way more useful as a place to disassemble a transfer case or something than for actual welding. Oil wipes right off and you can't hurt it by dragging heavy stuff across it. But if you weld on it then you have a filthy table covered in dingle berries that you have to clean off. Welding tables are really nice for assembly line style stuff where you've got a jig or clamps to build the same thing 1000 times... what works way better for me is a bench vise mounted to a post that is welded to an old truck brake drum, and one of the little fold up Harbor Freight welding tables. Just food for thought... I use my big welding table for welding about 1% of the time.